Thank You Chris Benson
“After high school, I joined the US Army where I worked on big-rig trucks and drove a wrecker for my unit, following our trucks around the US and overseas,” Chris explains. “I served in Desert Shield/Desert Storm in 1990-1991, and when I left the Army, I attended Portland Community College and Portland State University to become a software engineer. Between 1997 and 2003, I worked on various teams within Symantec Corporation (they design the Norton Antivirus line of software).
“I then decided to start up a home computer repair business named ‘Geeks A Knockin.’ We were a bit like ‘Geek Squad’ before ‘Geek Squad’ was big,” Chris laughs. “We made house calls and served clients throughout the Portland Metro area. Four years later, we shifted from consumer IT to corporate/business IT and rebranded as AlwaysOnIT, focusing on small to medium-sized businesses. As a full-service company, we help our clients leverage technology to save money, become more resilient and efficient, and make the most of their IT budgets.”
Chris’s wife Aly, who had been volunteering with Furry Friends for several years introduced him to Furry Friends. Both Aly and Chris believe strongly in supporting local organizations that help animals, and they used to volunteer with several local Humane Societies. As for Chris, he became a Silver Sponsor because he believes in our mission and LOVES cats: a purr-fect fit. The fact that it’s a cause Aly is passionate about “is always a plus,” he readily admits. And over the years, the couple has fostered many of our shelter cats.
While Chris’s favorite part about being involved with Furry Friends is knowing that he’s helping the cats we save find forever homes, his proudest moments are hearing that those who have been here the longest have finally found their forever homes. As the proud father of two children, Evan, who’s 14 and in 9th grade, and Elle, who’s 10 and in 5th grade, he says,
“When it’s time for our fosters to go to their own forever homes, explaining this to Elle without causing a lot of tears is difficult. That’s why we wind up keeping some. We currently have five cats, Milo, Penguin, Skittles, Emmett, and Ice. We had six, but the ‘old man of the house,’ Pepe, passed away in July at the age of 17. We had had him since he was two days old, so that was tough!
Stressing the importance of giving back to businesses and organizations in the local community, the issues that Chris is most passionate about besides animal rescue are veterans’ issues. He also volunteers with Guitars 4 Vets, an organization that provides music therapy to veterans suffering from PTSD.
“I’ve played the guitar since I was seven,” he says, “and it’s my main hobby. Always part of some band in my younger years, I have, since 2017, been participating in various ‘Guitar Camps.’ I spend a week with 100 to 200 other guitar players, hanging out with, learning and jamming with such top-level professional musicians as Peter Frampton, Steve Lukather, Joe Satriani and Nuno Bettencourt. The highlight of these camps has been the opportunity to play on stage with Steve Vai who is my all-time favorite guitar player. He’s played with Frank Zappa, David Lee Roth, Whitesnake and many others. Most non-guitar players probably don’t know who he is, but it’s been a dream come true to be able to participate in these events – the added benefit is I get to ‘geek’ out with 200 other people who also know these guitar players.”
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Furry Friends VIP Spotlights are compiled and written by Nomi Berger who is the bestselling author of seven novels, one work of non-fiction, two volumes of poetry, and hundreds of articles. She is a volunteer writer for Furry Friends in Vancouver, WA and also volunteers her writing skills to animal rescue groups in Canada and the USA.
