MOONLIGHTER FABLAB - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Marketing Director / Marketing / Planning
A native Miamian, Abbey Chase has been a community activist and involved in Miami's business and arts community for over thirty years. From 1984-1994, she played a key role in the founding of The Beacon Council, Miami-Dade's county-wide economic development organization, building expertise in strategic planning, development, production of marketing collaterals, management of media relations, meetings and special events. Her greatest accomplishment was helping raise $1 million dollars to the donor base for the organization.
Job Titles:
- Technologist
- Technology Director
Mario Cruz is an accomplished technologist, entrepreneur, investor, and musician. Currently serving as a Director at Watsco Ventures, he has worked in a variety of executive capacities including serving as Head of Product Development at Viggle from 2014-2015, CTO of Choose Digital from 2011-2014, CTO of Grass Roots America from 2009-2011, CIO of Rewards Network from 2001-2009, Director of Technology Infrastructure at Hotel Works from 1998-2001 and Senior Engineer at Executive Data Systems from 1994-1998.
Mario also excelled as an entrepreneur in 2011, when he Co-Founded Choose Digital which was later acquired by Viggle in 2014. His success is a product of over 19 years of experience and growing expertise in Cloud, Security, IoT, DevOps technology, and operations solutions for various industries including digital media, loyalty, SaaS, financial services, airlines, and Fortune 100 corporations.
His work has earned him many honors including the CIO Impact Award for Cloud Computing and the CIO Impact Best-In-Class Award from Frost & Sullivan, the Techweek100 Award from techweek.com, and the 2009-2010 CIO of the Year Award from the South Florida Business Journal. He has also been awarded Patents in 2011 and 2007 for two technologies he co-invented.
Mario is passionately committed to building community by producing the Miami Maker Faire and creating positive change through his work as a mentor at MentorDay, Venture Hive, StartUp FIU, StartUp Weekend, and for various tech start-ups. He has spoken at the Jenkins User Conference, Dev Ops Days Conference, DockerCon, Sime Miami, and Google Startup Grind. He also regularly hosts MeetUps for Docker, DevOps, and Raspberry Pi open-source electronics, as well as actively writing OpEds in The Miami Herald to discuss topics in Technology, Entrepreneurship, and Making.
When he is not working or engaging the community, you'll find Mario playing the drums for his band, Switch, or creating a new maker/electronics project with his kids at Moonlighter.