About
A senior IT operator's consultancy — built deliberately small.
Twenty years of IT, distilled into the projects that matter most. IT Nerdia is led by Michael Callaway and focused on the work where senior judgment is the difference between a good outcome and a difficult one.
I'm Michael Callaway, the founder of IT Nerdia.
I've worked in IT for more than 20 years — in roles that have ranged from running a 30-server government data center, to sole-administering manufacturing and real-estate environments, to consulting across roughly 25 small-business clients earlier in my career.
I started IT Nerdia because I kept meeting organizations that didn't need a full-time hire and didn't want to be passed around inside a large managed-services firm. They needed someone who had actually done the work, who could scope a project honestly, and who would be the same person on the call six months later.
That's what this is.
What I focus on
- Microsoft 365 and Entra ID as a registered Microsoft 365 Partner — migrations, identity, Intune, conditional access, and ongoing modernization.
- Email migrations into M365 from Exchange, Google Workspace, and hosted mail platforms — including the cleanup work that usually comes with them.
- Practical, layered security for organizations without a dedicated security team — MFA, EDR, vulnerability scanning, mail filtering, and the documentation to keep it sustainable.
- Network design, segmentation, and managed Wi-Fi on Meraki and SonicWall — plus site-to-site and remote-access VPN for distributed teams.
- On-prem and hybrid infrastructure — Hyper-V, Proxmox, servers, NAS/SAN, VPS hosting, and the cloud services that sit alongside them.
- Private AI and local LLM deployments for organizations that want modern AI capabilities without sending data outside their environment.
- Smart-building and OT integration — BMS, Niagara/JACE, access control, surveillance — into a properly secured IT stack.
- Cleanup work: untangling environments that have grown faster than their documentation.
"The reason this works is that you get a 20-year operator on the actual problem — not a sales engineer in front of a junior team."
How I work
I take on a small number of engagements at a time, deliberately. That keeps the quality high and lets me stay genuinely responsive. Most projects are fixed-fee where the scope allows it, or hourly with a clear cap when it doesn't. I document as I go, and when an engagement ends, you own the documentation.
You'll get a written scope before any work starts, status on a cadence we agree on, and a clean handoff when the project closes. No retainer pressure, no engineered dependencies.
Where I'm based
Atlanta metro area. I work remotely for most engagements and on-site for projects that genuinely require it — typically in Georgia and the southeastern U.S.
Credentials and background
A more detailed career history is on my LinkedIn profile. Specific references and case detail are available under NDA after an initial scoping conversation.
An independent consultancy
IT Nerdia is independently owned and operated. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or representative of any current or former employer. No employer client lists, systems, data, accounts, equipment, software licenses, or proprietary information are used in connection with IT Nerdia engagements. All work is performed outside of regular employment hours, using independently licensed tools and personally owned equipment. IT Nerdia does not solicit business from, or perform work for, organizations where doing so would create a conflict of interest with any current employment relationship.
Want to talk about a project?
The fastest way to start is the contact form — a few lines about the environment and what you're trying to change is enough.