Chris Maxcer

Chris Maxcer grew up with an interest in how things work. When he went off to college at the University of Idaho, he started out in Mechanical Engineering. Somewhere along the way, he was seduced by the written word, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English with an emphasis in journalism. He wanted to dive deeper, so he followed up with a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from Colorado State University. Despite his love of story, technical detail still called, so he pivoted to write for enterprise computing magazines where he could delve into the roles of programming code, databases, data centers, servers, and applications from large tech companies, including IBM, SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft.

In addition to big tech, Chris has geeked out over mobile devices, detailing processors, memory, and displays, sharing why those components matter to people. When he writes, he has an innate desire to understand the ins and outs. For example, if he's writing about flashlights, he wants to understand the ANSI FL-1 Standard and how to apply it to regulated lumen output and claimed runtimes. Then, he wants to test in action so he can describe what that means to people looking for actionable advice. How does it work? Why is it cool? Who is it for? Those are the questions that inspire him.

Despite his interest in gadgets and tech, Chris believes there's something to be said for turning it all off — or most of it — to get outdoors in his home state of Idaho and surrounding states. He's an avid outdoor enthusiast, carving out time for fly fishing, camping, skiing, rafting, kayaking, backpacking, and hanging out on almost any available beach.