Dane DeValcourt is not just a network engineer or developer—he’s a deeply forged human being, shaped by wild places, deep scars, fierce love, and relentless growth.

Professionally, he’s a force of nature: a senior network engineer designing resilient service provider fabrics with Arista, Juniper, and Cisco Nexus. He builds, maintains, and optimizes critical infrastructure across complex environments where performance, redundancy, and security must always converge. His designs are deliberate, efficient, and scalable—because at his core, Dane doesn’t just make things work, he makes them understandable.

That same philosophy carries into his other major project: SwampTreasure, a SwiftUI-based iOS app backed by AWS that helps coin collectors and local coin shops manage inventory with power and precision. It blends Core Data for local storage, S3 for image hosting, AI-driven image and text analysis, and soon, a full web portal built on Amplify, Cognito, Lambda, API Gateway, and DynamoDB. It’s designed to scale, to simplify complex inventory processes, and to make collecting more accessible and rewarding.

But for Dane, SwampTreasure isn’t just an app—it’s a reflection of who he is.

He doesn’t just build systems; he “deconstructs complexity”—in code, in networks, in people, and in himself. He examines, analyzes, and simplifies. He believes “you can’t improve anything unless you understand it completely”. Whether he’s optimizing infrastructure costs, evaluating how to streamline a user experience, or working through something deeply personal, Dane reduces it all to the essentials—and then builds it back better.

This mindset permeates his life. When Dane commits to something—work, a hobby, a relationship—he pours himself into it. Not for accolades, but for understanding. Every pursuit is a chance to grow. That’s why he’s held advanced ham radio licenses, built bonsai gardens, played drums, restored his old Jeep, studied geology for fun, and collected coins with scholarly precision. He’s a self-taught craftsman of knowledge, always learning, always refining.

A modern-day Renaissance man, Dane has hunted whitetail in Louisiana and Texas, mule deer in Montana, and elk in Colorado. He’s fly-fished the rivers of Colorado, deep-sea fished the Gulf, and cast lines in lakes, ponds, and oceans across the U.S. He’s duck hunted in flooded blinds and been charged by wild boar. He’s rappelled cliffs in Colorado and New Mexico, camped under starlit skies, and run trails, mountain biked and hiked through Louisiana, Texas, Colorado, Utah, Oregon, Wyoming, Montana, and Washington. He’s boiled crawfish he harvested himself. He’s smoked brisket to perfection and nailed every Cajun classic you can imagine. He’s climbed 14,000-foot peaks, been swept away fly fishing in freezing rivers, and sailed solo. He once rode bulls, castrated livestock, raced barrels. He’s lived out of a suitcase for months, driven coast to coast, survived a robbery at gunpoint, and delivered life-saving supplies post-Katrina while surrounded by armed looters—rescued only by fate and a soldier with an AR. These aren’t just experiences—they’re rituals of learning.

He’s trained alongside elite professional triathletes and USPSA shooting champions at weeklong immersive camps. He’s won shooting competitions throughout his life, ran cross country, competed in triathlons (even when swimming was his nemesis), and nearly every sport out there at some point. He doesn’t chase titles—he chases growth.

At his core, Dane is a traveler—in geography, in thought, in spirit. He’s explored Paris, Venice, London, Rome, Mexico, Canada, the Bahamas, Jamaica, and more. He lived out of hotels while upgrading critical infrastructure across the U.S., working by night and exploring the landscape by day. He once rode trains through the Alps, wandered the streets of Florence, and ate the most meaningful meal of his life—a simple truffle risotto on a rainy night in Venice.

But perhaps nowhere has shaped him more than the stillness of Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park—his personal sanctuary.

His journey is filled with paradoxes: a man of logic and introspection, of adventure and restraint. He’s been married, divorced, heartbroken, and reborn. He’s a father above all else—guided daily by the weight and wonder of raising daughters with intention and love. Every mile, every decision, every moment is for them.

He’s also a survivor. Abused as a child by someone who should’ve been a protector, Dane carried his trauma in silence for decades. Today, he shares his story not for sympathy, but for solidarity—so others know they’re not alone. His healing has made him more grounded, more empathetic, more real.

He diagnosed his own rare genetic disorder (McArdle’s), challenged conventional wisdom, and was ridiculed—until he was proven right. His relentless self-experimentation with ketosis changed lives, earned him a podcast and book feature, and helped others reclaim their health.

He’s flown planes, failed at flying helicopters, and had his mind expanded by travel, continuous education, and deep introspection.

He’s a TKE, a Mason, a builder, a protector, a survivor, a seeker and a man who owns every inch of his journey. He believes in truth over comfort, therapy over silence, and that nothing in life is wasted if you learn from it. He reflects deeply, grows constantly, and lives authentically.

His motto? “Systems should serve people. Experiences should shape them. Love should guide them.”

And through it all—he keeps going. Keeps building. Keeps showing up. For his daughters, for his craft, for the man he continues to become.