Pat Riehecky
Co-Chair Of CentOS Project
Greater Chicago Area United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolPat Riehecky is a Linux infrastructure leader and open-source steward with 13+ years driving enterprise-scale modernization at Fermilab, CERN, and the CentOS Project. As Co-Chair and longtime director-level contributor to CentOS and former Scientific Linux release manager, he designs build systems and migrations that scale from developer laptops to high-energy physics experiment clusters. He blends hands-on engineering—Python/Bash automation, RPM/package builds across 15+ formats, Puppet/Ansible/Satellite workflows, and Kubernetes orchestration—with governance, ISO 20000/ITIL practice, and security-focused contributions to ComplianceAsCode. An active upstream collaborator and maintainer, his work touches major projects like Anaconda, Spack, Foreman and many community rebuilds, and he’s presented technical solutions at numerous conferences. Known for preferring durable, practical fixes over surface-level patches, he pairs deep technical breadth with clear operational runbooks and documentation. Based in the Greater Chicago Area, he brings rare domain expertise at the intersection of scientific computing, distro engineering, and community leadership.
13 years of coding experience
2 years of employment as a software developer
M.A., Historical and Systematic Theology, M.A., Historical and Systematic Theology at Wheaton CollegeBA, Philosophy, BA, Philosophy at Illinois Wesleyan University
English, German
Github Skills (56)
startup10
ruby-rails10
puppeteer10
security-hardening10
cap10
python10
package-management10
puppet10
package-development10
plugin-development10
packaging10
configuration-management10
reinstall10
linux10
rails10
Programming languages (28)
Github contributions (5)
theforeman/foreman
Sep 2018 - Aug 2022
an application that automates the lifecycle of servers
Role in this project:
Backend & DevOps Engineer
Backend & DevOps EngineerContributions:13 reviews, 12 commits, 19 PRs in 3 years 11 months
Contributions summary:Pat primarily focused on enhancing the Foreman application's functionality and improving its integration capabilities. The contributions involve fixing bugs, adding features like link delay to subnets, and expanding iPXE provisioning template features. The user also worked on improving the installation process and refining the kickstart templates, especially focusing on RHEL and Puppet integration.
automatesmaasinfrastructure-managementvirtualizationhybrid-cloud
puppetlabs/puppetlabs-stdlib
Sep 2020 - Jan 2023
Puppet Labs Standard Library module
Role in this project:DevOps Engineer
DevOps EngineerContributions:7 reviews, 7 commits, 9 PRs in 2 years 4 months
Contributions summary:Pat primarily focused on improving the codebase's quality and maintainability. Their commits involved resolving puppet-lint warnings, which indicates a focus on code style and best practices. The user also added functionality to convert strings into resources and manage resources with the use of a create_resources function.
standard-librarysupportedpuppet
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