Michael Coats, IT Infrastructure Manager and Cloud Solutions Architect at Kalamazoo Regional Educational Service Agency/Southwest MiTech
Michigan, USA
Champion since 2022
Mike Coats spent almost a decade as an engineer with a managed service provider doing Microsoft and VMware engineering and support, before changing gears at Kalamazoo RESA, the local Educational Service Agency for Kalamazoo County in southwest Michigan. As a parent of two, he found his passion there, helping local students and teachers. During his time at Kalamazoo RESA, a K12 support consortium was created called Southwest MiTech, which now partners with 20 schools and ESAs across seven counties, and other entities such as the local library, the region’s unemployment offices, and a variety of statewide application development projects.
Mike now leads the Kalamazoo RESA infrastructure teams, including their Cloud Services team, and is working to “go statewide” to help support any school in the state with their AWS cloud journey. Mike regularly speaks at statewide K12 technical conferences and hosts AWS training events for area schools’ tech departments.
Learn more about Michael
What is the AWS Education Champions Program?
The purpose of the AWS Education Champions program is to recognize, celebrate, and support education leaders driving digital transformation with cloud computing. Through this program AWS helps amplify their stories and voices, as well as supporting their continued innovation with our services. The individuals selected to be part of this community share a mission to transform and advance education, and promote AWS services, solutions, and best practices in education.