Holly Leopold and Mike Regan Are Now Claude Certified Developers
Congratulations to Holly Leopold and Mike Regan, who both passed Anthropic’s Claude Certified Developer, Foundations exam this week. Holly’s certification was issued on October 4, 2026 and Mike’s followed one day later on October 5. Along with our founder, who earned the same credential in August, Braintek now has three Claude Certified Developers on staff.
That number matters more than the first one did. One certified person is a credential. Three is a team that shares the same tested foundation for building with AI, and that is what our clients in Houston and DFW actually work with.
What did Holly and Mike earn?
They earned Anthropic’s official certification for people who build on Claude, the AI model family behind many of the business agents and coding assistants in production today. The Foundations exam is proctored and written by Anthropic. It covers prompt design, connecting AI to real tools and systems, grounding answers in a company’s own data, measuring whether an AI system is right often enough to trust, and the guardrails that keep it inside the limits a business sets.
Each certificate is issued to the individual, not the company, and each one can be checked by anyone:
Both certifications run for one year. Anthropic requires them to be earned again as the technology changes, which is the right call for a field that looks different every few months.
Why does a second and third certification matter to clients?
Because AI work that depends on one person is fragile. When a single expert holds all of the knowledge, every project waits on that person’s calendar and nobody is in a position to check the work.
With three certified people, an AI project at Braintek gets a second set of trained eyes. One person can build an automation while another reviews how it handles bad input, what data it can reach, and what happens when it is wrong. That review step is the difference between a demo and something a business can rely on, and it only works when the reviewer understands the technology as well as the builder does.
It also means the knowledge is spread across the company instead of sitting in one office. Holly and Mike studied for this on top of their regular work, and they passed an exam that was not built to be easy. We are proud of both of them.
How does this show up in the work we do?
It shows up in the tools we run every day and the ones we build for clients. Braintek uses Claude across the business, and we have written about a lot of it:
- An email signature system we built in a weekend that replaced a per mailbox subscription.
- A feature that AI wrote, tested, and prepared for deployment while we watched.
- A personalized video system that greets new prospects by name.
For clients, the same skills go into custom software, AI services, and Claude consulting for companies that want to put AI to work without guessing.
What should you ask an IT company that says it does AI?
Ask who on their team has been tested, and by whom. Nearly every IT provider in Texas now says it offers AI. Very few can point to a credential issued by the company that makes the technology, with a public link you can check yourself.
Then ask what they have built and whether they use it. A certification proves knowledge. Production systems prove judgment. You want a partner with both.
What comes next?
This is the Foundations level, and we will keep moving through Anthropic’s track as new levels are released. We treat it the same way we treat our Microsoft and networking credentials: something the team keeps current, not a plaque from one good year.
Congratulations again, Holly and Mike. Well earned.
If you want to talk through what AI could take off your team’s plate, we are happy to walk through it with you.