Jason Daniel Heltne passed away on May 17, 2025 in Austin, TX.  Jason was born on March 1, 1974 in Iowa City, IA to Cheryl Powell Heltne and David Heltne.

In 1980, Jason's family moved from Iowa City to Katy, TX.  Like most kids, Jason had multiple interests, but in 5th grade, he had a wonderful teacher who was instrumental in helping him develop a strong interest in computers.  That year Jason was selected as one of four students to attend her special after school computer class.  At that time the family only had one computer, which sat on the dining room table. Jason would spend hours there, often relinquishing the keyboard only when other family members wanting their turns protested.  He both frustrated and amazed his engineer father by taking on new computer issues without a clue how to resolve them…yet always managing to find a solution.

In 1992, Jason earned his Eagle Scout and graduated from Taylor High School in Katy.  He attended college briefly, but that was not his chosen path.  He continued to pursue his interest in computers by reading, attending computer classes and seminars, doing on the job training, and by simply experimenting on his own.

Jason traveled to California to work with his Aunt Jane in a startup company doing websites and tech support for small businesses.  With a couple years of working experience under his belt, he returned to Texas. His career blossomed as he developed expertise and gained experience on design, setup, management, server migrations, and security for large enterprise computer systems.

Jason later moved to Austin, Tx and formed his own consulting company.  He contributed to large scale projects as a system architect. Jason enjoyed working as an independent contractor for many years, but he was very happy to be hired by HPE as a full time employee in 2024 with the position of Windows/VMware Infrastructure Architect.  He loved this job and all the people he worked with there.

Jason loved living in Austin where he enjoyed the music scene, the great food, and spending time on Lake Travis with his friends. He loved live music and once commented that "I work in order to support my concert habit!" Among other things he also patiently provided computer support to very grateful family and friends.

Jason was preceded in death by his father in 2021.  He leaves his mother, Cheryl Heltne of Georgetown, TX, his sister, Julie Russi and her son, Nathaniel Russi, both of Austin.  He leaves his Aunt and Uncle, Jane and Bill Rundquist of Davis, CA as well as many cousins both in the midwest and on the west coast.  He also leaves his fiancée Amy Simpson of Layton, UT and  many dear friends.  Last but not least, he leaves his sweet puggle, Tek.

In lieu of flowers the family asks that any memorials for Jason be made in his name to your favorite charity.

A memorial gathering will be held for Jason at a later time, likely in the fall.