about/a_little_more
I grew up in the great city of Rockford, IL where my grandparents owned a store in the Rockford area. Why do I mention this? Well, early in my childhood, my grandparents upgraded their store computers and in that process gave me one of their old Commodore 64’s. At this point, you may be able to imagine a young boy, sitting in his room, wires and parts strewn absolutely everywhere..
After some trial I was presented with my first experience with the Command Line Interface. The Command Line was certainly a love/hate relationship but it was a challenge I willingly accepted. I worked my way around the help menus and eventually learned how to load games and software. Eventually I learned how to print ASCII art images on a dot matric printer. Shortly after, much to my parents chagrin, I had green lined wallpaper lining the walls of my room.
A year later while attending Elementary School I found myself to be the computer expert. Setting up multiple Commodore 64’s for my teacher who not entirely sure why, allowed me to continue adding games, helping students and just, “let me run”. At the time, I don’t know if he understood just how much that might shape my future. I found that I truly loved helping my classmates and others learn.
Fast forward to high school and I found myself still in love with computers but more from a gaming perspective. As such a few friends and I coded websites in html/php and created forums for ‘clans’ or communities that we would form. Gaming back then, was primarily and almost completely reliant on people or communities setting up servers for gamers. Because of this I found myself hosting servers on a small scale and discovered a passion for Networking.
How are those little packets getting from A to B over the internet? How can I improve latency and performance on my servers? This led me to Cisco Networking while in High School. I was truly infatuated and discovered that, according to my teachers, I could do very well with networking. That was the first time I realized that I could possibly have a career in technology. I completed all of my Cisco Certified Networking Associate courses and unlike some, I knew exactly what I wanted to go to college for. After finishing high school I enrolled in a dual degree program for Networking and another growing field, Information Security.
/about/skills
Leadership/Management
Throughout my experience I have amassed a great deal of experience in managing teams both in the office and remotely. 2020 presented unique challenges that forced management styles and employees to shift. During this time priorities and projects were adjusted to meet needs of the organizations I work with but still ended the year successful in scheduled projects and Service Level Agreements.
As such in my career I have experienced recessions, pandemics and have had to rebuild teams where necessary. In this process I focus not only on a candidates technical knowledge but their willingness to learn, empathy to situations and of course their personality. Doing so allows the organization to achieve the best possible dynamics within the team and the organization.
My experience includes:
Managing and helping staff establish and meet goals.
Hiring and termination of employees.
Employee Retention.
Presenting material/information to Executive Leadership and applicable committees.
Strategic planning.
Department Strategic planning.
Project Management
Budgeting
“When I’m wrong, I’m learning. When I’m in-between, I’m learning. And when I’m right, I’m learning. Life is my teacher.”
Information Security
Clearly one of the largest growing areas of technology is information security or Cyber Security. My experience in Cyber Security is broad covering roles such as analysts, audit and Incident Response . My roles in previous positions help me better understand how to balance Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability within organizations.
I have training and experience in the following;
Analyzing potential threats
Patch Management and Remediation
Auditing
Risk Analysis, Cyber Assessment Toolkits (CAT)
Incident Response - Management
Incident Response - Executive
Endpoint Detection and Response and Managed Detection and Response Services.
Firewall/VPN Technologies
“Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.”
Infrastructure
Many organizations by now have moved some or all of their infrastructure to cloud based infrastructure, whether this is private or public or a combination of the two (hybrid) I have experience in managing teams that actively monitor and manage the resources and infrastructure in those clouds. While proficient in many technologies, one thing is true, there is always more to learn.
My experience includes:
Amazon Web Services
Azure/365
Converged Infrastructure
CRM
Data Warehousing
Cisco Viptela (SDWAN)
Cisco Networking
Cisco Meraki
HP Networking
IBM OS/400
Linux
Radius
MFA/2FA Technologies
MS Server
SSO
System/Service Lifecycle
Virtual Tape Libraries
VMware
Financial Services
I have worked in financial services for a majority of my career. As a result I have experienced numerous System Conversions, Bank/Service Acquisitions and digital transformation initiatives.
Vendor relationships:
Jack Henry and Associates
Finastra
Fiserve
FIS
Kasasa/BancVue