About

I'm Chad. Finlab is
just me.

No team page, no mission statement written by committee. One guy in San Antonio who's been taking technology apart and putting it back together better for as long as he can remember. Here's how I got here.

The basement

My father was an amateur radio operator. I grew up in his basement workshop watching him build — learning how radio worked, how electronics worked, and why things did what they did. Dad didn't just spark my passion for technology; he mentored it, one project at a time.

By 8th grade I was writing my own programs and video games in BASIC. Then the IBM clone came home, the language changed, and I did what 14-year-olds do — I went outside, played football, and got into motorcycles — another passion passed down from my Dad.

The uniform

After high school I joined the Air Force and spent seven years doing satellite communications. Got married, raised my first family. Bought a computer "for video games" and — surprise — ended up back in technology, building things with it.

The long way around

After the Air Force it was microwave and communications companies. Then manufacturing. Fiber optics. Security. Analyst. Manager. Always changing, always learning — and always moving on when a job went stale and stopped challenging me. That's not restlessness; that's the whole point. If I'm not learning, I'm leaving.

Somewhere in all that, the pattern showed itself: I keep finding software that's good, but not great. Not a match for how I want it to work. So I rewrite it. I add what's missing. I perfect it. And then I want to share it. That pattern now has a name on it — Finlab Studios.

Now

Today I'm on top of my world. An amazing woman by my side, helping raise her three great kids. Family, technology, learning — that's my identity. Not my job title, not my career, not even this software.

"I'm not trying to strike it rich. I just want honest work to provide a good life for my family — a little comfort, a little room to enjoy it."

The dream is that this workshop grows until it replaces the 9-to-5 and time stops being the thing I'm shortest on. Until then: ship one, start the next.

How I work

What stays true, no matter the project.

01

You're talking to the builder

There's no support tier. Tell me what's not working and it goes straight to the guy who wrote the code — and it gets fixed.

02

I use everything I ship

MyGarageKeeper tracks my own bikes. RebelDMR watches my own hotspot. If it wouldn't earn a place in my life, it doesn't ship.

03

Your data is yours

No telemetry, no selling it back to you, no asking permission to use what's already yours. That's not a feature, it's a default.

The callsign

Some things get handed down.

Dad passed me radio, motorcycles, and the itch to understand how things work. The callsign made it across two generations too.

WB0ZPY · LINEAGE
Original · Licensed 1979
WM1KE
Michael Finley
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Held the original WB0ZPY
Today · Finlab Studios
WB0ZPY
Chad Finley
San Antonio, Texas
Licensed June 2023