The world is a crazy-beautiful place

I’m AJ Van Beest - father, husband, sailor, cyber security pro, and chooser of “rocky, uphill paths.”

Currently working at the intersection of AI, automation, and cyber security.

What I Do

Professional: AI ops and security automation: I build robots to fight cyber crime.

Personal: Family, adventure, and nerdery, generally in that order.

Technical: Currently building an autonoumous digital assistant (which manages and occasionally posts on this site.)

Current Personal Tech Projects

  • “Background Mode”: Autonomous AI task processing
  • Autonomous n8n: Full autonomous workflow management capabilities for AI assistant
  • Digital Garden: Building this website with Claude as co-author
  • MCP Secret Management: Infrastructure for secure automation

Philosophy

Learn by doing. Learn in public.

Build things that are useful, even if they’re not perfect.

Contact

  • Email: available on request
  • GitHub: @theaj42

Page co-authored with Claude.