Director of IT for DLS, performing IT leadership duties across Security, Systems, Helpdesk, Networking, and ERP/Data services. We support 3 remote sites from our HQ in Itasca and facilitate both the Keep The Lights On as well as the Process Improvement side of IT across all divisions.Major initiatives include maturing our cyber security program, removing single points of failure in production systems, monitoring and alerting, and solidifying our ERP footprint.

Working with experienced systems, networking, security, and helpdesk personnel, I work towards standardization across all disciplines within IT.This is a hands-on technical role that requires project planning, mentoring, troubleshooting, communication, and documentation skills.Within this role, my primary focus has shifted to managing helpdesk and systems administration functions with process improvement, standardization, and long-term strategy planning as ancillary functions. With over 600 endpoints, 6 production locations, and 500 physical and virtual servers, the entire team works diligently to achieve operational goals.

As the Director of IT, I grew the IT team in both FTEs and knowledge, set budget guidelines, assumed priorities for projects, and performed all network-related changes.Assisting a company grow from 600 to 900 employees, and doubling from 6 locations to 12, I helped with all technical oversight during our M&A growth era.

As the Manager of Network Services, I oversee the Networking Team, the Systems Team, the Security Team, and other initiatives. My primary focus is developing other members of the teams, improving workflows, planning projects and leading work efforts. I also co-chair our annual budgetary board for all IT purchases and manage vendor relations.The networking team consists of planning, implementation/configuration, and maintenance of all network devices including switches, routers, firewalls, wireless access points, internet connections, and VPN connections at several different interconnected sites. Security logging and tracking in a HIPAA compliant environment - and working with security staff - falls under this group's responsibilities. Obligatory Buzzwords: Cacti/RRD, PRTG, Orion, RANCID, SSL VPN, DHCP, DNS, MPLS, ACL, NAT, IDS/IPS. We currently leverage Cisco, Ubiquiti, Meraki, and Dell for our network needs.The Systems Team handles all virtualization, SAN, NAS, patching, documentation for internal and external users, Disaster Recovery implementation and testing, continued HIPAA compliance, Linux, Oracle, Exchange/Office365, CRM Dynamics, Anti-virus, Cisco Callmanager, and physical servers between two colocations and two office locations. As a 75% Microsoft shop we utilize System Center for our ticketing and runbook orchestration. SCCM, IRM, NPS, AD, Nagios, VMWare, Compellent, Solaris, FreeBSD, Oracle, Windows 2008/2012, ZFS, NTFS. We currently leverage Dell, Supermicro, and Oracle/Sun servers running Linux, BSD, VMWare ESXi, Xen, Proxmox (KVM), and Windows.The Security Team handles all data security and compliance efforts and includes penetration testing, vulnerability scans, architectural review and approvals, and remediation of all open security issues.The current company has over 215 full time entities, 50 physical servers, nearly 300 virtual guests, 5 data centers, and 3 remote offices.

Currently employed as the Senior Network Administrator in a six person IT group at an SMB in Illinois. I manage all technical trainings, hardware purchases, system setups, and IT projects.A primary goal is to set standards and also save the company money. I have already proposed, tested, and implemented a completely new backup system at a company savings of over $20K a year. I have also designed and built several storage servers that meet or exceed the specifications set by management all with a savings of over $100K.Implemented a SAN solution with five VM Hosts to support high availability and future company growth. Creating a DR solution of similar specifications as a failover solution.My main focus in Q3 and Q4 is converting a server closet into a server room with redundant cooling, power, and biometric access and also continuing my education.Other ongoing projects include an Exchange upgrade (to 2010), Security upgrades (endpoint and virus protection), PCI Audit compliance (ongoing), and switch-stack upgrades (from 10/100 to gigabit).

Primary engineer for nine ESXi servers, 250 virtual machines, three data centers, and a truckload of cisco equipment.Part of a team of engineers responsible for keeping SLA on customer equipment, in some cases the SLA is 1 hour or less.Use my extensive knowledge of Microsoft, Macintosh, Linux, Networking, and Security to fix and setup customer equipment on an hourly basis.Recently finished an entirely new rollout from ESX 4 to ESXi 4.1 with vsphere, HA, and DRS with no downtime to customers.Converted an existing 120 user company with seven locations to a virtual "cloud" environment - all Windows 2008 R2, Exchange 2010, Sharepoint, SQL, IIS, FTP, DNS (and a few more buzzwords) under budget and earlier than expected.

Primary job is to make sure that the systems are up and running so the programmers can do their job(s).Two server farm locations with over 25 physical Windows and Linux machines. Virtual machines, for testing purposes, double this number.Systems range from Windows 2000 Advanced to Windows 7 Ultimate.

Primary responsibilities include:Network operations including switches and routersBackup of data and restoration when applicableCisco Phone communicationsCisco VPN communications/ASA 5000 SeriesSonicwall Firewall updates and securityServer maintenance (17 Win2003 Servers, 4 Linux Servers, 4 Call Managers, 4 Unity Servers, 8 VMWare Servers)Group PoliciesRemote AccessExchange 2007 ServersCitrix ServersDNS ServicesVMWare ServersDesktop maintenance (60+ internal employees and 20+ VPN users)Head installer for Server and Desktop installations/configurationsHead web developer for internally used web-based applications (PHP/MySQL, HTML, XML)Consulting services for Home123 and StraussMalk

Originally a Returns Specialist in the showroom who was in charge of training new employees, I moved to the warehouse computer configuration center after a year. In the configurations department I was responsible for configuring 60-120 computers every day according to customer specifications.