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Adam Bernstein Worker-Owner System Administrator & Commissioner of Public Works Adam most enjoys adapting EE services to meet changing needs, and building client relationships and partnerships with other providers. |
| Adam studied physics and astronomy at Oberlin College, graduated in 1992, and spent a few years as a “rocket scientist” at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. He moved into independent IT consulting for nonprofits, co-founding Tech Underground, and then moved into software and Internet services with the inception of EE. Adam lives in Oakland, and digs motorcycling, rock climbing, hot springs, Trekkies (the people and the movie), and making things in the kitchen or the woodshop. | |
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Benjamin Connelly Worker-Owner System Administrator & First Responder Explaining Internet technologies in human terms is one of Benjamin’s favorite parts of working at EE. He also enjoys keeping hardware happy and systems secure! |
| Captivated by computers early in childhood, Benjamin studied Computer Engineering at Tufts University. Before graduating in 1999 he spent one summer in San Francisco, which was all it took to fall in love with this place. He worked at Teradyne, engineering tests for electronics test equipment. Then he dabbled in teaching and video production, and stumbled into cooperative housing. Now he thrives working in the cooperative movement, bicycle camping, practicing archery, photography, euphonium, and celestial navigation. | |
Our Story
Electric Embers’ roots go back to 2001 with Adam and Brent, two San Francisco nonprofit technology consultants who first joined forces to create a loose collective of similar professionals, the Tech Underground. After discovering they were each also operating a small specialized open-source hosting service as a hobby, they decided to merge these two side hustles into a proper cooperative business. And so on May Day in 2003, Electric Embers was born, and Benjamin joined in 2005.
Since 2003, we have been lucky enough to do work we love for people whose work we admire. We are very grateful to the developers of the open-source and free software we use (including FreeBSD, Apache, MySQL, OpenSSH, Postfix, Sympa, MailScanner, SpamAssassin, Clam AntiVirus, BIND, Roundcube, PHP, nginx, and OpenSSL) without which our task would be impossible.
We are hosted at MonkeyBrains and RippleWeb.
Emeritus Members
- Brent Emerson (2003-2015)
- Anne Young (2014-2021)