We spoke with some of the Rackers who were there for the company\u2019s boom years and have stayed in San Antonio since. Their work has shaped business, culture and politics in San Antonio\u2019s tech scene \u2014 and beyond.<\/p>\n
From tech to City Hall<\/p>\n
Talking about Rackers in the public sphere has to start with Marina Alderete Gavito, who worked at Rackspace in program and project management roles between 2010 and 2015 and was elected to San Antonio City Council\u2019s District 7 more than two years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cI loved Rackspace. It was such a fun place to be. I worked with really smart people,\u201d Alderete Gavito said. \u201cThere\u2019s so many principles from Rackspace I take with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/20251218_SAReport_MarinaAldereteGavito_SW_0181_a.jpg\")
Marina Alderete Gavito poses for a portrait. Credit: Salgu Wissmath for the San Antonio Report<\/p>\n
Many companies have slogans and values written on websites and in offices, but Rackers remember theirs like they were set in stone. Alderete Gavito said she has focused on servant leadership and promoting a collaborative workspace with her staff, two strategies she gleaned from Rackspace where workers were encouraged to learn, grow and contribute.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She keeps one of Rackspace\u2019s core values with her during her work \u2014 substance over flash.<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially in politics,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople think \u2018Oh, the nice, shiny thing.\u2019 It\u2019s lip service, people, I need the results.\u201d<\/p>\n
While at Rackspace, Alderete Gavito organized mayoral candidate forums and eventually stepped up as the first executive director of Tech Bloc, a nonprofit that is trying to grow the tech industry in San Antonio.<\/p>\n
Alderete Gavito\u2019s father had served on city council. That, combined with her increasing civic engagement work at Tech Bloc, encouraged her to take the next step and run for office.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She wants to make San Antonio into a place people want to be. It\u2019s a common theme among Rackers \u2014 the desire to make San Antonio more appealing for skilled workers and, therefore, the companies that want to employ them.<\/p>\n
Rackspace was a tech giant at the outset of the 2000s, but few large companies have followed in that industry. Groups like Tech Bloc are trying to change that and part of Alderete\u2019s work she says is creating opportunities for innovation, growth and entrepreneurship in San Antonio.<\/p>\n
Following the company\u2019s founders<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/BonnieArbittier_tech_bloc_tech2sday_achieving_a_carbon_neutral_sa_burgerteca_9-24-2019-9.jpg\")
Lew Moorman, Co-Founder of Scaleworks Credit: Bonnie Arbittier \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n
Lew Moorman was a leader at Rackspace for 16 years, serving as a board member, chief strategy officer, president and one of the company\u2019s earliest leaders.<\/p>\n
\u201cI joined the company when it had roughly 30 people in 2000,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was a fantastic experience. It was a unique experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moorman remembers Rackspace\u2019s meteoric growth and key role in building the internet as we know it today. After he left the company in 2016, he took time to focus on his family and then co-founded ScaleWorks.<\/p>\n
ScaleWorks is a San Antonio-based investment company that buys software companies looking to grow or change and, well, scales them up.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe tend to try to buy companies that are trying to figure out their next step,\u201d Moorman said. \u201cIt\u2019s really just taking on a company that\u2019s not a clear winner \u2026 and giving them some direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
That often includes bringing that company, its workers and its opportunities to San Antonio. Moorman grew up in San Antonio, he raised his kids here and he believes in San Antonio\u2019s potential.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He\u2019s been involved in efforts like Tech Bloc to help realize that. Moorman wants San Antonio to be ready for the next company that sprouts up in San Antonio\u2019s backyard.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d love for people to come here because there is opportunity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Growing San Antonio\u2019s tech sector<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/BonnieArbittier_cityfest_city_fest_panel_sunset_station_4_rivard_report_11-8-2019-16-1.jpg\")
Lorenzo Gomez III Credit: Bonnie Arbittier \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n
While Moorman has continued to work in the private sector and Alderete Gavito has shifted her focus to the public sphere, some Rackers have worked in between those worlds.<\/p>\n
Lorenzo Gomez III grew up in San Antonio and spent a formative decade at Rackspace until he left in 2010. He joined the company without a college degree and rose into leadership roles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was really indebted to Rackspace. I was an inner-city Hispanic kid,\u201d Gomez said. \u201cIt really changed my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
We were watching and helping the internet expand,\u201d he added. \u201cIt was exciting, as a young man, experiencing the internet in a whole new way.\u201d<\/p>\n
He enjoyed the mission-driven challenge; Rackspace was a company devoted to serving others. That mission felt slightly different to him when the company went public, Gomez said, and he departed in search of other missions to take on.<\/p>\n
Gomez has worked closely with Graham Weston, one of Rackspace\u2019s founders, on the 80\/20 Foundation and Geekdom. Gomez, Weston and a group of former Rackers have focused on altering San Antonio\u2019s urban landscape and downtown core.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor about eight or nine years, I ran 80\/20 and Geekdom at the same time,\u201d Gomez said. \u201cI didn\u2019t realize how much I would fall in love with urbanism.\u201d<\/p>\n
80\/20 donates to groups with an eye on fostering job growth and entrepreneurship. Geekdom started as a coworking space and has broadened its work as a startup incubator. Gomez said he saw lots of Rackers leave San Antonio when they left the company. He met other tech workers who would never consider coming to San Antonio.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyone that was a hiring manager at Rackspace realized the futility of trying to recruit young single people to San Antonio,\u201d Gomez said. \u201cThis is a problem. There should be a whole bunch of jobs that we should be able to go to for our next careers and that just never was there.\u201d<\/p>\n
After leaving 80\/20 and Geekdom, he has worked as a writer and started Voice of San Antonio, a media platform where people can share their ideas and journeys in the city.<\/p>\n
From entrepreneur to investor<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/ScottBall_Active_Capital_Pat_Matthews_Pat_Condon_Tech_downtown_10-15-2018-6.jpg\")
Credit: Scott Ball \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n
Pat Matthews didn\u2019t come to Rackspace, Rackspace came to him. His software company was acquired in 2007 and he moved to San Antonio to help run the Rackspace cloud.<\/p>\n
\u201cI planted roots here,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was an incredible time at Rackspace.\u201d<\/p>\n
He stayed at the company until 2013. Rackspace was ambitious, he said, competing with large tech companies and obsessed with successfully serving customers. It was a winning formula that gave all its workers an opportunity to grow and be a part of that, Matthews said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was always a very entrepreneurial guy and Rackspace always put me in the most entrepreneurial positions,\u201d Matthews said.<\/p>\n
He left Rackspace and ended up founding Active Capital. That San Antonio-based venture capital firm is similar to ScaleWorks, in that it helps firms learn and grow, but focuses on very early stage companies that are finding their feet.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to be an investor, but I also wanted to be an entrepreneur, so I combined those,\u201d Matthews said. \u201cI\u2019m totally in my sweet spot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matthews is also part of a broader effort to grow tech in San Antonio and serves on Tech Bloc\u2019s board. Tech, and the wealth that accompany it, foster other investments in restaurants and local businesses, Matthew said.<\/p>\n
To him, a civic focus and giving back are parts of the tech industry\u2019s ethos. It doesn\u2019t surprise him that Rackers have stayed involved in San Antonio and want to make it better. It\u2019s sentiment many Rackers share \u2014 wanting to see whatever comes next be wildly successful.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery parent wants their kids to succeed,\u201d Matthews said. \u201cI love catalyzing founders and entrepreneurs to go pursue their passion and their life\u2019s work.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tech success story you didn\u2019t hear about<\/p>\n
Josh Odom was one the wildly successful tech stories that emerged from Rackspace and stayed in San Antonio when he and co-founder Will Conway sold their company Mailgun for $1.9 billion in 2021.<\/p>\n
He joined Rackspace in 2007 as an intern and worked there for seven years before he left and then returned to help spin Mailgun out from under the Rackspace umbrella and into its own company.<\/p>\n
For Odom, Rackspace\u2019s period of rapid growth was where opportunity emerged.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could do different things. Every quarter, when the company is growing like that, you have to reinvent yourself,\u201d he said. \u201cThat creates opportunity for people who just jump in and figure things out. Job titles almost didn\u2019t matter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Odom has continued to work in that space. He enjoys the early days of tech companies and the problem solving that comes with it. He wants others to have the opportunity to learn and grow in the same way in San Antonio.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really aspire for people to have more options here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s why he serves on Tech Bloc\u2019s board of directors and he and Conway are locally focused for their next venture.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to put a heavy emphasis on prioritizing hiring people locally in San Antonio,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to make sure we\u2019re investing in the capability and talent of people here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018All of this came out of Rackspace\u2019<\/p>\n
![\"Pathwire](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Image-from-iOS.jpg\")
Pathwire CEO Will Conway Credit: Courtesy \/ Pathwire<\/p>\n
Conway is reflective when it comes to Rackspace. He joined the company in 2008 and eventually worked on Mailgun with Odom. The experience taught him valuable lessons.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d always planned to go to law school, but when I got into Rackspace, it was growing,\u201d Conway said. \u201cWhen it was growing, my career grew.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rackspace\u2019s boom years were an opportunity to be at the forefront of internet technology, Conway said. He started as an online sales specialist, but consistently got new opportunities.<\/p>\n
\u201cI probably changed jobs every year or so, but never companies,\u201d Conway said. \u201cThe buzz was amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some of that was lost, Conway said, when Google, Amazon and Microsoft started to compete with Rackspace. He found that entrepreneurial energy, though, when working with Mailgun in 2012 after it had been acquired by Rackspace.<\/p>\n
Mailgun had a smaller team, Conway said, and he enjoyed making contributions to a tight-knit group spread between the West Coast and Texas.<\/p>\n
Mailgun was spun out of Rackspace in 2017, Conway said. He and Odom worked to hire staff as investment and revenue grew quickly. Many of their new employees were Rackers who wanted to stay in San Antonio.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was so transformative,\u201d Conway said. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy to think all this came out of Rackspace.\u201d<\/p>\n
Conway took lessons from his time at Rackspace \u2014 some cautionary. He saw a need for a more performance-focused culture. Conway wanted people to be invested in the product\u2019s success.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re a business, we have to perform for others. If we can\u2019t do that, we can\u2019t exist,\u201d Conway said. \u201cLet\u2019s not have this illusion that we have to be best friends, but let\u2019s be human. Let\u2019s be soft on the person, hard on the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mailgun was smaller and focused on its market niche, Conway said. But it still took pages out of Rackspace\u2019s playbook, including high-level support staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always saw it as an evolution of the Rackspace culture,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The Rackspace culture spreads<\/p>\n
Erik Carlin, Chris Kiel and Chris Cochran met at Rackspace where they learned the ins and outs of building public clouds and cloud management.<\/p>\n
Carlin worked at Rackspace from 2008 to 2018. Now, he\u2019s the chief product officer for ProsperOps, a company founded by the three Rackers which manages $5 billion in public cloud infrastructure to help its clients save money.<\/p>\n
\u201cRackspace gave us the context to really become experts in cloud computing,\u201d Carlin said.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t just the technical work that Carlin learned, though. Those core values of Rackspace \u2014 servant leadership, a focus on customer service \u2014 are things he works to emulate.<\/p>\n
\u201cRackspace was a world-class culture. So much of what we\u2019ve done at Prosper Ops we basically stole from Rackspace,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just a job, it\u2019s kind of a mission.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many other Rackers have gone on to work at ProsperOps and tech companies across the industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s had a big impact in San Antonio, it still does, but it\u2019s had a big impact in other industries,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Solving problems with technology<\/p>\n
John Engates worked at Rackspace for nearly 20 years, starting in 2000 and departing as chief technical officer in 2018.<\/p>\n
Engates has served in multiple CTO roles since then, first at Japanese company Nippon Telephone and Telegraph (NTT) and later at CloudFlare, a multinational company that manages access and security for millions of websites. He also spends time in an advisory role at UT San Antonio and on boards for Frost Bank and his children\u2019s school.<\/p>\n
Rackspace took a different approach to the tech industry, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cRackspace was built a little differently. We knew we were a customer service-oriented company, so we hired people who had a good attitude, who were service-oriented,\u201d Engaged said.<\/p>\n
Rackspace\u2019s offices, built in an old mall and in wide-open spaces, emphasized a collaborative environment. People were excited to come in and solve problems together.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were not there just to make money,\u201d Engates said. \u201cWe were there to solve problems with technology.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s continued to emphasize customer-facing work his work at NTT and CloudFlare. It\u2019s important for him to meet customers in person, to build trust with them and to listen to their problems with his company when those do come up.<\/p>\n
Rackspace\u2019s leaders built that into the company\u2019s culture. The company phone number was front-and-center on the website and there was always a person on the line, Engates said. Rackers bought into that mission.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody felt invested in and involved,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was truly a unique company in that era. Even today, it\u2019s hard to find success stories like that in San Antonio.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018It\u2019s in your bones\u2019<\/p>\n
Prashanth Chandrasekar joined Rackspace in 2012 as a chief of staff to one of the company\u2019s general managers. In his seven years with the company, his role morphed and grew. There were always opportunities to do more, and Chandrasekar worked to manage a major partnership with Amazon and the company\u2019s foray into cloud computing.<\/p>\n
At the time, he said, there were abundant opportunities to grow if you showed talent and promise.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I\u2019m really grateful for at Rackspace was I had some great mentors,\u201d Chandrasekar said.<\/p>\n
In 2019, he was named CEO at Stack Overflow, a coding and software development platform.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was a shift to a more business- and sales-oriented role, Chandrasekar said, but he still brought lessons from Rackspace to his new job. He\u2019s tried to emulate Rackspace\u2019s culture and its focus on customer service.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat you learn at Rackspace is do everything you can for the customer,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you\u2019re there long enough, it\u2019s in your bones.\u201d<\/p>\n
At Stack Overflow, Chandrasekar helped develop Stack Internal, a knowledge base or library platform. The company has added products and services for businesses and was bought by South African company Naspers for $1.8 billion in 2021.<\/p>\n
He hasn\u2019t forgotten Rackspace, though. Nor have many in the tech industry. Rackers have spread far and wide across the tech ecosystem, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Racker network is really strong. Rackspace built this great reputation for service delivery excellence,\u201d Chandrasekar said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Few companies have had the meteoric rise \u2014 and impact \u2014 in San Antonio that Rackspace managed in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":489917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5133],"tags":[220997,159932,5229,220998,28903,159936,220999,221000,221001,221002,49501,221003,221004,221005,46985,7202,40658,7203,221006,47708,221007,358,7453,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,7455],"class_list":{"0":"post-489916","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-80-20-foundation","9":"tag-active-capital","10":"tag-america","11":"tag-erik-carlin","12":"tag-geekdom","13":"tag-graham-weston","14":"tag-josh-odom","15":"tag-lew-moorman","16":"tag-lorenzo-gomez","17":"tag-mailgun","18":"tag-marina-alderete-gavito","19":"tag-pat-matthews","20":"tag-prosperops","21":"tag-rackers","22":"tag-rackspace","23":"tag-san-antonio","24":"tag-san-antonio-city-council","25":"tag-sanantonio","26":"tag-scaleworks","27":"tag-tech-industry","28":"tag-tech-industry-in-san-antonio","29":"tag-texas","30":"tag-top-story","31":"tag-tx","32":"tag-united-states","33":"tag-united-states-of-america","34":"tag-unitedstates","35":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","36":"tag-us","37":"tag-usa","38":"tag-wc-1500-2000"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115832390239288320","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}