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Steadfast founder and former CEO, Karl Zimmerman, was a pillar within the Chicago IT community for more than 20 years. Karl passed away unexpectedly in March of 2020 at the young age of 36.
The story of Steadfast began with a 14-year-old Karl in 1998. With a passion for technology, Karl used $100 of his Christmas money to purchase a reseller account and start a shared hosting business from his parent’s home in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin. Karl started teaching individuals and small businesses HTML coding to help build websites that eventually evolved into hosting their websites, as well. With special permission from the school counselors at Winnebago Lutheran Academy, Karl was the only child allowed to carry a mobile phone at school so that he could work with clients in between classes. With a growing business, Karl joined Northwestern University as a freshman in 2002 to study Economics. During his sophomore year, Karl hired his first full-time employee, moved his hosting services into a world-class data center facility at 350 E. Cermak in Chicago, and a year later made the decision to leave school and spend 100% of his time growing Steadfast Networks. Today Steadfast is a multi-million-dollar cloud and managed hosting services provider.
Karl was not just an ambitious entrepreneur; he was a valued member and advocate of the Illinois technology community who wanted to help others succeed as he did. Karl used Steadfast as a platform of influence in the service of promoting educational and technology initiatives for students in Illinois. As a board member on the Rotary Club of Chicago, Karl spearheaded programs, such as the JOB1 program which trains Chicago high school students and helps to place them into summer internships with local companies. Karl sat on the board of directors of the Chicago Engineers Foundation, where he was working to help promote STEM education programs for computer science in Chicago Public Schools. Karl also served as a member of the Internet infrastructure (i2) Coalition, where he frequently traveled to Washington DC to advocate for an open and fair internet to politicians and policymakers. Karl championed LGBT rights and used his influence to fight for equality. Additionally, Karl has been an active member and key supporter of economic growth programs from the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, Hyde Park Angels, Illinois Technology Association (ITA), Small Business Advocacy Council (SBAC) and many other associations.
More important than all the accomplishments, it was Karl’s character that will endure. Karl was a loving and devoted son to his mother and father and his family, a true and humble friend to all of those that knew him, and a mentor and role model to those that were fortunate to work with and learn from him. His legacy will grow eternal from the wisdom and example he gave to many.
“Karl committed himself and Steadfast to the goal of helping others to bring their ideas to life, as others had done for him”, said Paul Voswinkel, CFO of Steadfast. “Our team will continue to drive these efforts in honor of his memory.”
While Steadfast lost their founder, it did not lose its commitment to carry out his efforts. The Steadfast Management team continues to execute on the blueprint and execution plans that Karl had built to strengthen Steadfast’ s focus into more cloud- focused consultation, engineering, and hosting business services. It is fitting that Karl’s last plan for Steadfast was to develop even more ways to simplify cloud technologies for customers and partners to drive their own business success.