“I had the privilege of managing Ryan Johnson during his tenure as Senior Staff Solutions Architect for Cloud Foundations at VMware, and I can say without hesitation that Ryan is simply one of the most exceptional technical leaders I've encountered in my career. Ryan is that rare breed of architect who doesn't just solve problems—he transforms entire approaches. He single-handedly revitalized VMware's Infrastructure-as-Code presence, breathing new life into the vSphere Terraform provider and earning recognition from HashiCorp for his extraordinary contributions. His personal project, packer-examples-for-vSphere, became so valuable it was adopted as an official VMware initiative. Most impressively, Ryan led the strategic pivot from document-based guidance to automation-based solutions, fundamentally changing how we delivered value to customers. What makes Ryan truly special isn't just his technical brilliance—it's how he elevates everyone around him. He became the go-to mentor for our entire Solutions Architect team, patiently guiding colleagues into open source contributions and IaC practices. Watching him celebrate a junior architect's first successful pull request with genuine enthusiasm showed me the kind of leader he truly is. Ryan has this remarkable ability to make complex concepts accessible and to bring people along without anyone feeling left behind. Customers and field teams consistently requested Ryan by name for their most challenging engagements because they knew he'd deliver. But beyond solving their immediate problems, Ryan had this uncanny ability to anticipate what they'd need next—often before they knew it themselves. Ryan combines deep technical mastery with authentic leadership, strategic vision, and an infectious passion for both technology and people. He's the kind of architect every organization dreams of having but rarely finds. I recommend Ryan without reservation —any organization would be incredibly fortunate to have him.”
About
Experience & Education
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Broadcom
View Ryan’s full experience
See their title, tenure and more.
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Licenses & Certifications
Volunteer Experience
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Volunteer
Young Actors Theatre
- Present 6 years 6 months
Arts and Culture
Set Committee and Technical Infrastructure
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Assistant Scoutmaster and Advancement Coordinator
Boy Scouts of America
- 3 years 5 months
Education
Troop 114 in Tallahassee, Florida
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Assistant Den Leader
Boy Scouts of America
- 3 years 11 months
Education
Pack 727 in Saint Cloud, Florids
Publications
Patents
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Managing L4 Ports
Issued US 20230021019 A1
Transforming ports (L4) from passive conduits of data into security aware code ("software defined") that have the ability to securely configure themselves so that applications and network traffic are actively secured.
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Projects
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Terraform Provider for VMware Cloud Foundation (Maintainer)
Terraform Provider for VMware Cloud Foundation
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Packer Plugin for VMware (Maintainer)
The Packer Plugin for VMware is a plugin that can be used to create virtual machine images for use with VMware desktop hypervisors ( VMware Fusion Pro, VMware Workstation Pro, and VMware Workstation Player) and VMware vSphere Hypervisor.
The plugin includes two builders which are able to create images, depending on your desired strategy:Other creators -
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Packer Plugin for VMware vSphere (Maintainer)
- Present
The Packer Plugin for VMware vSphere is a multi-component plugin can be used with HashiCorp Packer to create virtual machine images for VMware vSphere. The plugin includes three builders and two post-processors which are able to create images, depending on your desired strategy.
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Terraform Provider for VMware vSphere (Maintainer)
The Terraform Provider for vSphere is a plugin for Terraform that allows you to interact with VMware vSphere, notably vCenter Server and ESXi. This provider can be used to manage a VMware vSphere environment, including virtual machines, host and cluster management, inventory, networking, storage, datastores, content libraries, and more.
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Terraform Provider for VMware Aria Automation (Maintainer)
A self-contained deployable integration between Terraform and VMware vRealize Automation which allows Terraform users to request and provision IaaS resources such as machines, networks, load balancers, along with the configuration of cloud accounts, zones, and projects. This provider supports both vRealize Automation Cloud (SaaS) and vRealize Automation 8 (on-premises).
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Packer Examples for VMware vSphere (Maintainer / Creator)
- Present
This repository provides infrastructure-as-code examples to automate the creation of virtual machine images and their guest operating systems on VMware vSphere using HashiCorp Packer and the Packer Plugin for VMware vSphere (vsphere-iso).
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PowerShell Module for VMware Cloud Foundation (Maintainer Emeritus)
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PowerShell Module for VMware Cloud Foundation
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PowerShell Module for VMware Cloud Foundation Password Management (Maintainer Emeritus)
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PowerShell Module for VMware Cloud Foundation Password Management
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PowerShell Module for VMware Cloud Foundation Reporting (Maintainer Emeritus)
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VMware.CloudFoundation.Reporting is a PowerShell module that has been written to support the ability to provide insight to the operational state of VMware Cloud Foundation through the use of PowerShell cmdlets. These cmdlets provide quick access to information from the PowerShell console as well as the ability to publish pre-defined HTML reports.
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PowerShell Module for VMware Validated Solutions (Maintainer Emeritus)
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PowerValidatedSolutions is a PowerShell Module that has been written to explicitly support the automation of various procedures associated with the implementation of Validated Solutions for VMware Cloud Foundation.
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Honors & Awards
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VMware vExpert 2013-2025
VMware, Inc
VMware vExpert Profile: https://vexpert.vmware.com/directory/1250
Recommendations received
10 people have recommended Ryan
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