👋 Hey there, I’m Wes (W8WJB)

FIRST Robotics mentor

I am the lead software mentor for That ONE Team, a community-based high school robotics team. I also mentor students in their younger, middle school teams, “That OTHER Team” and “This OTHER Team”. I’ve come to consider this as something I was meant to do: It’s those moments when the proverbial ‘lightbulb’ comes on for student programmers that make everything worth it.

🔐 Senior Identity & Access Management Engineer for Gordon Food Service

Being a volunteer robotics mentor doesn’t pay very well (or at all 🙄), so my day job involves helping Gordon Food Service with their Identity and Access Management systems. My niche is writing code to connect systems together.

Amateur Radio enthusiast (callsign W8WJB)

Living in a sparsely populated area of Michigan, I wanted an additional method of contacting people, so I decided to get my ham radio license. I currently hold a General Class license. My focus is on emergency communications, but I might get into contesting if ever I have the time. I’ve been fortunate that my family have joined me in this hobby and have their licenses as well: Kristin KE8FZM and Emma KE8IKS.

👨‍💻 Indie software developer

I make software that I want to use myself and, sometimes, other people like to use it too! You’ll notice that a lot of it flows out of the interests I mentioned above. I use Apple products almost exclusively, so the vast majority of my software is targeted to those platforms.

What I’m Passionate About

• 💡 Mentorship & STEM education — I thrive teaching robotics, radio, and software to future engineers and hobbyists. I have a particular interest in doing whatever I can to help girls in this area because my daughter, Emma, would like to have other girls working alongside her.
• 📡 Amateur radio innovation — I enjoy hands-on electronics and connecting computers and devices to radio using protocols like APRS, AllstarLink, or EchoLink. In particular, I find that ham radio developers tend to only target the Windows platform and leave Apple users out, so one of my goals is to make the macOS platform a viable platform in this world.

Let’s Connect

• Github: My public code is available here.
• Bluesky and Mastodon: I use these platforms to share updates on the software I’ve released
• LinkedIn: Any professional or career-related updates are here.
• Facebook: My wife tags me in our family adventures.
• : My ham radio profile
• wbustraan@gmail.com: Or, just email me directly