Two technologists who decided to actually do something about it.
We spent years watching small businesses fall further behind because enterprise-grade IT expertise was out of reach. ClayForrest exists to close that gap.
Clay Ashby
Co-Founder
Clay built his career as an application engineer across hospital, healthcare, insurance, and manufacturing environments — a demonstrated history of keeping mission-critical systems running under very different compliance and uptime demands. He's a strong support professional in both Windows and Linux administration, and just as comfortable writing C#, PHP, or JavaScript when off-the-shelf tools fall short. That range — infrastructure, code, and cloud — is what he brings to project delivery at ClayForrest: he's seen enough environments to know what actually breaks, and enough languages to fix it himself.
Jason Elliott
Co-Founder
Jason spent years in Finance and Health IT, supporting the full lifecycle of enterprise applications and managing vendor relationships across large fleets of Windows and Linux servers. He's the one leadership turns to for triaging security vulnerabilities and shaping cloud strategy, and the one junior staff turn to for mentoring. That combination — deep troubleshooting instinct paired with the ability to translate technical risk into terms leadership can act on — is what he brings to every ClayForrest engagement.
Our story
Clay and Jason met supporting IT for the same large enterprise with different roles, but the kind of overlapping problems that had them on the phone with each other for hours some days, working through whatever needed to be solved at the moment.
What kept those calls going wasn't just the technical puzzle. It was noticing how much difference it made when someone took the time to understand the business behind the ticket, not just the ticket itself, and combining each other's strengths to actually connect with people and get results, not just close a request.
Years of working that way built a shorthand neither of them wanted to lose when their career paths eventually split. ClayForrest is how they kept working together and sharpening the same skills, on their own terms, for clients who need real attention instead of a ticket number.
How we work
Outcomes over outputs
We measure success by what changes in your business — not by tickets closed or hours billed.
Ownership transfer
Every engagement ends with your team able to operate what we built. We document everything and train your people. Always.
Honest scoping
If a project is the wrong solution for your problem, we say so before we take your money.
No jargon
Technology decisions affect your whole business. You deserve to understand what we're doing and why — in plain language.
Work with us
We keep our client roster small so every engagement gets real attention. If the timing is right, let's talk.