Tekpals captures that sweet spot where solid technical skills intersect with real-world business experience. We were founded by Ed Ehrgott. Ed brings a unique background bridging creative and problem solving skills with a relentless focus on getting things done. He has a strong belief that knowing yourself and having fun is just as important as technical knowledge.
Ed combines the financial and business experience of a CPA with over 20 years of real-world experience in information technology. Prior to starting Tekpals, Ed was a Vice President at Charles Schwab where he was responsible for Technology Infrastructure – in other words, ensuring that the systems were up and running and sleuthing around when problems happened. Prior to that, he worked at Clorox focusing on implementing technology solutions throughout Latin America. During his corporate time, Ed has always been intrigued with software; in fact, he wrote a successful vertical market business application in the mid 90′s. That effort planted the seeds of Ed becoming an entrepreneur.
By and large he enjoyed what he did, but things started to change when he spent the last year at Schwab essentially focused on layoff after layoff. It was time for a change. So in 2004, he jumped off a cliff and left the corporate world. After leaving Schwab he realized that he had been so lost in the how to’s of life that he forgot to answer the why’s of life. He realized that his left brain (where logic originates) was overused, while his right brain (where emotions and feelings originate) was underused. Ed began a conscious effort to make some changes in his life and develop his right brain. Ed completely changed gears and started his own bodywork practice.
Ed enjoys bodywork. The most surprising realization was how clients would open up and share personal and intimate concerns with him. His client experience led him to add personal coaching to his work. While practicing bodywork and coaching, the tech bug kept biting. At first, Ed would not pay attention to it; it was a persistent bug and kept biting. After a year or so of doing bodywork, he realized that right/left brain balance was important and stepped back into tech to keep his left brain happy.
He started Tekpals after numerous people complimented him on websites he developed and tech help they received. Ed also realized that he had fun again (go figure!) doing tech work. He’s since been following his two main passions: helping people live in the present moment and relax and tech work. Yep, these are two pretty diverse passions and definitely out of the box. But Ed is a big believer that everyone should follow their own path – this path suits Ed just fine!
