Cody Franklin

I was born in Toledo, Ohio. My dad's a pilot, and I grew up around aviation, watching him fly everything from piston twins like Aerostars up to jets. I've been fascinated by engineering for as long as I can remember.

I was born with a genetic condition called ocular albinism. In my case, it meant I was legally blind and would very likely never drive, let alone solo an airplane. My vision has been an obstacle, but I think it's one of the greatest blessings, because it taught me to keep going at things until they worked. Over the years my vision improved from 20/400 to the point where I was finally able to get a driver's license at 28. It also means I'll be able to fly.

I met Matthew McManus in 2016 while volunteering on the tech team at a church in Southwest Florida. That turned into a residency as technical director, running live broadcast production, and we designed and deployed a full Blackmagic broadcast system in-house with volunteers. What I learned there is that excellence comes from the team, not the equipment.

I founded Unified IT in 2019. The name was never meant as a reference to Ubiquiti; it means one team for the whole job. There was nobody in Southwest Florida you could call for a complete deployment under one roof, so I filled the gap. Matt started the Unified IT YouTube channel in 2022, and I went full-time with Unified IT the same year.

In 2024, I joined Ubiquiti as Technical Marketing Director and spent a year inside the company that builds the platform we've built our entire business around. While I was there, Matt led the company and doubled the YouTube channel. Unified IT kept moving without me, which says a lot about the team.

I returned to Unified IT in late 2025. We're not exclusively UniFi, but I believe in it. We have 400+ projects behind us and we are a UniFi Certified Partner. My goal is for Unified IT to be the company you hire when you want to deploy UniFi at scale. We're not going to be the cheapest, but we are going to be the most capable.

I'm now working toward my pilot's license. When I'm not working, I'm camping or driving to the coast to watch a rocket launch.