Meet the Team
Interested in joining the Reclaim Hosting team? Head on over to our careers page to see if we’re hiring.
Jim Groom
Cofounder
Jim Groom, formerly Executive Director of the Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies at the University of Mary Washington, has been working towards the idea of Domain of One‘s Own as far back as 2008 and has been dreaming of this opportunity for years. In the Spring of 2011 he opened up a digital storytelling course called “ds106” for anyone to take openly online and hundreds of people participated and continue to give back to that community. In Spring of 2013 he joined a group of hackers and thinkers at MIT to think about how an online framework could allow people to seamlessly syndicate the work they do across the web in a space of their own both on an academic and personal level. In Fall of 2015 he went full time with Reclaim Hosting and has not looked back since. #4life
Meredith Huffman
Senior Support Specialist
Meredith Fierro joined the Reclaim Hosting team in 2017, as Reclaim’s first dedicated Customer Support Specialist. During her time in this role she’s worked with customers to solve any problems within web hosting while taking the time to teach users, coordinating with internal teams on day to day operations, and onboarding new employees as Reclaim continues to grow! Meredith enjoys playing video games, building LEGOs, 3D Printing, tending to her growing collection of houseplants, and spending as much time outdoors with her husband and their Corgi, Dexter!
Chris Blankenship
SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATOR
Team Lead
Chris Blankenship graduated from the University of Mary Washington in May 2019 with a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science, and for the past few years he has been both working as a public computer assistant at a local library and playing bass in a hardcore punk band.
Goutam Vijay Narang
Junior Web Developer
Goutam is from Chennai, a city in south India. He worked in the IT and Infrastructure Services industry for almost 4 years before moving to Arlington, Texas in Fall 2019 to pursue his masters degree. Goutam graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington in May 2021 with a Master of Science in Computer Science. He has always been fascinated with the latest and greatest in the world of technology and tries to learn more about them. Goutam likes to listen to EDM, play PC games and binge watch TV shows or movies in his free time.
Pilot Irwin
Sales & Marketing Manager
Pilot graduated from Carleton College in 2020 with a Bachelor of Arts in Cinema and Media Studies. They then went on to work for Carleton in the Academic Technology department, where they first became acquainted with Reclaim. Throughout their life, Pilot has been interested in the point where technology collides with stories and the arts, and the way innovation fosters human creativity and vice versa. In their spare time, they enjoy playing tabletop games, writing, drawing, listening to audiobooks, and sci-fi and fantasy media of all sorts.
Taylor Jadin
Community Instructional Technologist
Taylor is Reclaim Hosting’s Community Instructional Technologist, as well as a proud husband and father, teacher, musician, avid camper, and unashamed nerd. He is passionate about educating and empowering people who want to make cool stuff on the web! Before joining the team at Reclaim, Taylor graduated from St. Norbert College with a Bachelor of Music in Music Education, and went on to teach K-12 Instrumental and General Music before returning to his alma mater to support faculty, staff, and students in their use of technology to elevate teaching and learning.
Amanda Schmidt
Instructional Support Specialist
Amanda has a background in digital humanities support and instruction at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Geneseo, Open Educational publishing with SUNY OER Services, a Bachelor of Arts in English, and her Masters in Library and Information Science. Amanda lives with her husband, son, and two cats. She’s an avid knitter and home cook, and is constantly attempting to keep a garden.
Noah Dorsett
Security Administrator
Jason Teitelman
Customer Support Specialist
Jason graduated from the University of Texas at San Antonio with a Bachelor of Arts in English. He has spent the better part of his career in EdTech supporting teachers, students, and administrators. He takes pride in helping them solve problems, overcome obstacles, and utilize their websites to optimize their educational experience. Jason spends the bulk of his free time with his family. They love hiking with their two dogs – Charlie and Patty, grilling in the back yard, and taking in as much live music as they can.
Dr. Maren Deepwell
Consultant
Dr. Maren Deepwell has worked in educational technology since 2008 and built a long-term collaboration with Reclaim as former CEO of the UK’s Association for Learning Technology focused on the OER Conference. The joint OERxDomains21 conference was a conference of firsts which provided inspiration for innovation in Reclaim’s events and community activities. Based in the UK, Maren works as a consultant across the company from edtech to sales to help ensure that our mission and values are reflected in what we do as the company evolves into its second decade. Alongside her work for Reclaim, Maren works as an executive coach with educators and leaders in Higher Education and industry.
Justin Webb
Managing Partner
Justin Webb has worked in IT since starting his career as a software developer in the late 1990s. He has held various positions including returning to his alma mater, the University of Mary Washington, to serve as Executive Director and later CIO for the University. It’s at UMW where he first met Jim Groom and Tim Owens and learned of the concept of Domain of One’s Own, a pilot project he was quick to support. In 2014, Justin started his own management consulting firm to assist businesses through transition and growth, and later began working with Reclaim Hosting in 2018 – focusing on process, customer contracts, policy and other behind-the-scenes initiatives. In 2024, the opportunity to join Reclaim as a minority owner and managing partner was presented, and Justin jumped at the chance to work more closely supporting the Reclaim team.
Cass le Fay
Escalated Support Specialist and Junior Systems ADministrator
Cass has been in website hosting since 2018. He graduated from Tidewater Community College in Virginia Beach, VA with an Associates of Applied Science in Network Engineering. Discovering how much he enjoyed the world of the Linux Operating System and finding that hosting used it most often, he decided to give that a try. He got hooked into WordPress and dove deeper into Linux. He enjoys bringing together customer support and hosting in ways which can advance the web. In his spare time, he enjoys his many pets, messing around on his personal technology, and continuing to expand his knowledge in any direction that sparks his interest.
