Brian Gerk Email & Phone Number

Santa Barbara, California Area

Manages Sonos Care Escalation Engineering team in Santa Barbara, Boston and Melbourne. Monitors and measures trending issues, working closely with company Hardware, Development & Engineering teams to identify and resolve software/hardware bugs and third party interoperability issues. Ensures excellent customer service levels, departmental goals and company customer satisfaction goals are met. Creates and implements processes related to workflow, software/hardware escalations, global service outages, VIP escalations, and trending issues. Leads special project teams. Assists with implementation of software tools related to tracking and troubleshooting escalated incidents.

Santa Barbara, California Area

Managed unresolved incidents escalated from the Tier 1 team or through service management. Contacted escalated customers directly to troubleshoot and identify the root cause of failure before recommending an appropriate solution. Investigated, reproduced, and reported bugs or interoperability problems between Sonos and 3rd party equipment. Escalated issues to the Tier 3 team that could not be resolved and communicated problem details to aid in their investigation. Provide exemplary support for high-profile customers. Managed FAQs and Forums to communicate important information to customers for self-help. Managed music partner outage process. Participated in Alpha and Beta testing support.

Ventura, Ca

Owner and operator of a network consulting and implementation company, conducted IT consulting and operations in Santa Barbara and Ventura County. Engineered LAN and WAN solutions such as e-mail infrastructure, server architecture, VPN, remote surveillance, remote desktop, and cabling. Managed outside consultants subcontracted as necessary. Worked with high profile clients to provide superior customized IT solutions. Installed and supported LAN/WAN environments for over 100 different customers. Utilized MS Project and Visio to document customer designs and infrastructure.

Managed the day to day operations of Sonora Design (manufacturing satellite television and cable components) supervising a staff of seven. Oversaw e-commerce sales, production, domestic & overseas manufacturing, accounting, personnel, and information systems of the company. Interfaced with vendors to achieve Sonora’s business goals. Assisted with strategic planning and direction of company regarding digital television, primarily satellite. Coordinated overseas Asian manufacturing and shipping schedules to meet customer needs. Designed and implemented complete e-commerce web site for consumer sales.

Systems engineer and project manager on the following technology installations: Windows Server 2000/2003, Citrix Metaframe XP, Cisco 802.11x wireless WAN/LANs, Cisco routers (1900 & PIX), high touch deployments, and Altigen Phone Systems. Key engineer for a 70 office, 700 user Windows 2000, Citrix Metaframe XP; Cisco Wide Area Network project for Fortune 500 company in Santa Barbara. Used MS Visio to document projects. Consulted for a wide client base of more than 50 businesses and 20 high profile, large custom homes in Santa Barbara and Ventura County with the above types of technologies.

Point Mugu, Ca

Product Manager for the CENTERLINQ Internet web kiosk product. Spearheaded development, contracting and installation of 130 kiosks at 21 separate shopping malls nationwide. Managed Programming, Quality Assurance and Creative departments comprising 18 people. Implemented distributed audio and video systems up to a mile in distance using fiber optic and MPEG video server systems. Used MS Project to track progress on CENTERLINQ project.

Managed Year 2000 data remediation project for over 1,400 users at Union Bank of California. Coordinated five engineers during inventory of all computer software assets at Union Bank’s Southern California offices using NetCensus. Interfaced with multiple departments within UBOC to facilitate goals of the project and successful remediation.

Managed product qualification, documentation, and deployment for all desktop systems within Kinko’s enterprise, including 14,000 PCs and 5,000 Macintosh platforms. Also directed qualification of 4,000 digital printing devices including color copiers, large-format printing and high-speed printers. Created requirements and implemented 900 Ascend ISDN routers, and all other network hardware and software for use within Kinko's Computer Services departments nationwide. Managed development of CD installers for all Macintosh and Windows rental systems (approximately 4 CDs per year). Supervised construction of 1,100 square foot development laboratory.

Designed complete graphical user interface for next generation point of sale solution. Created specifications to customize IBM’s StorePlace software for use in Kinko’s retail environment. Coordinated customization of software through Joint Application Development sessions and research of industry retail standards. Managed specification exchange and change management process with IBM. Authored user’s guide on Kinko’s National Internet Access Roll-out project.

Implemented On Track for Training relational database for tracking of training administered nationwide by Kinko's, Inc. customized application using ACI 4th Dimension. Used MS Project to track progress on all projects. Managed permanent and temporary co-workers to assist with various special projects within training department. Projects included: Kinko’s University, Kinko’s Picnic, KHQ kickoff and new co-worker training program.

Tucson, Arizona Area

B.S., Aeronautical Science

Activities and Societies: Commercial, Multi-engine Pilot with Instrument Rating Society for Collegiate Journalists (SCJ) Managing Editor.

Some Mba Work, 3.0

Activities and Societies: Completed 30 post graduate credit hours of MBA course work in organizational development, accounting, marketing.

High School Diploma