Lead the 3rd line escalation for server infrastructure and software systems in live, development, and test environments, assuming the overall lead in the USA while collaborating with UK-based colleagues. Deploy and operate a variety of systems, including on-prem and Cloud services, ensuring availability, reliability, security, and meeting performance demands. Support business-critical systems, performing diagnostic and intervention actions to maintain high availability for virtual hosting, operating systems, directory services, storage, email, and SaaS products. Implement new IT technologies and services in collaboration with architects to enhance overall infrastructure. Identify and remediate known IT security vulnerabilities, actively contributing to Disaster Recovery planning and testing. Create clear and concise reports demonstrating the effectiveness of the environments, providing technical support/input to team projects. Organize and manage maintenance periods, implementing changes to keep the infrastructure current and highly available. Demonstrate strong expertise in Microsoft Cloud tools including Office 365, SharePoint, Exchange, Teams, Entra ID, and Azure Virtual Desktops for seamless integration and performance. Manage hardware and software platforms associated with virtual technologies, including NetApp, Palo Alto VMware/NSX, Commvault, Azure Active Directory, Rapid7, Mimecast, and SCCM. Engage with a range of stakeholders inside and outside the IT department, developing solutions while adhering to international and security standards.

Led onsite incident response team performing triage and investigation for clients affected by ransomware cyber-attacks. Managed and directed activities of onsite consultants, including creating reports and participating in client calls. Collaborated with client IT teams on the restoration of desktop, server, virtual systems, storage, and networking equipment. Restored physical and virtual systems to client requirements, including rebuilding VMware and importing verified clean VMs. Reviewed security posture, including access controls for on and offsite resources, GPOs, and firewall rules. Provided expert guidance on technical issues and consultation on security best practices. Coordinated with EDR vendor to maintain security posture through monitoring and alerting after the onsite team completed restoration.

Brought on to support the implementation of the Legal Group’s application upgrades. Support Legal applications including: iManage document storage, comparison tools, time tracking, patent information, and general workstation issues. • Individualized training with senior legal leadership. • Troubleshoot application integration. • Supported deployments using Agile methodologies and utilized Jira to track development and support issues. • Build documentation for knowledgebase articles and support tools.

Recruited as an Infrastructure Expert to lead business groups taking ownership of application infrastructure in preparation of Cloud-First mindset. Lead Engineering group supporting CTG (Corporate Technology Group) consisting of 2 offshore and 1 onsite resource. Collaborated with 5 business groups of developers supporting CTG applications in support of over physical and virtual servers and overseeing the CapEx budget. Analyze infrastructure, budgets, and charges to reduce infrastructure costs and reduce footprint. Manage projects to improve governance, meet financial objectives, and meet security requirements. Build multiyear plans and operational budgets to meet business goals. Create tools and documentation and reports to aid in future state planning and decision making. Collaborate with business partners to accomplish goals. Manage the Technology Lifecycle Management adherence of software updates and patching. Prepare cost analysis for architecture planning and senior leadership reporting. ● Created Infrastructure diagram in first 90 days to present to SVP and CIO.● Reduced Infrastructure costs by $800K (20%) in 2017.● Assessed capacity and utilization and created automated reports to aid in decision making.● Conducted Architecture review with DevOps groupsManaged multiple concurrent projects to upgrade infrastructure:● Oracle 11g to o12.1 upgrade across 10 applications spanning 5 environments including 5 teams.● Create a shared IIS and SQL environment to consolidate management and reduce cost.● Complete emergency patching for Meltdown and Spectre reaching 100% compliance of 900 servers in 60 days.Create procedures and align to IT vision:● Spearhead meetings with product lines to create multi-year plans to reduce infrastructure cost and enable cloud adoption.● Assess automation ability for repeatable tasks and review Chef cookbooks and puppet scripts.● Design continued OS patching procedure to reduce risk and future emergency efforts.

Recruited as Senior Storage Architect specializing in NetApp storage with Oracle DB support. Team Leader for steady state engineering team of 5 offshore resources. Devilered optimum storage solutions and essential documentation on all storage systems for North American auto plants and corporate functions. Aggressively prospect new vendors that offer the best cost, highest quality storage, and backup solutions.● Develop deployment automation for Oracle Development environments.● Develop Storage roadmap using capacity and utilization reports for a $5B contract.● Budget planning for $5M storage system environment.● Ensured infrastructure reliability over 3 data centers:● Reduced storage provisioning SLAs by standardizing procedures and training team members.● Coordinated efforts with distributed technology teams to increase the effectiveness of planning and implementation, breaking down barriers in procedures.● Facilitated collaboration meetings to integrate infrastructure into business groups.

Provide leadership as the senior member of the infrastructure engineering team after IPO. Directly report to and collaborate with the Head of IT and other C-level management. Devising workloads/schedules, review designs, deliver KPI metrics, and certify team adherence to policies and procedures.● Facilitate meetings with department executives to transition into a service orientated DevOps organizational model.● Create executive reports for strategic planning and board updates. Prepare the budget for $600K annual IT costs.● Manage IT portfolio for business-critical functions leading the multi-year planning initiative.● Direct the IT vendor services and maintain relationships. ● Hands-on work deploying and supporting VMware, Windows, Linux, ADFS, IP and SAN Networking, DNS, firewalls, load balancing, Oracle EBS, Hyperion, SUS, as well as various other applications. Project Highlights:● Cultivated successful vendor relationships. Succeeded in negotiations. Resulting in a savings of $50k annually. ● Acquired improved DB managed service. Saving the company $100K annually, and increased system support. ● Created the first IT Roadmap. ● Implemented SaaS Email Monitoring and Retention solution aiding with eDiscovery.● Worked with compliance teams in the creation of SOPs, job descriptions, audit controls, and best practice documents. ● Delivered audit resolutions to inquiries for hardware, backups, and file shares for FDA, SOX and GxP audits, resulting in no major defaults or defects. ● Create automation tools using BASH, PowerShell, and vendor support to reduce manual effort in day-to-day operations.● Provide architecture of new backup solutions, VMware based cloud environment, and storage solutions that increased effectiveness and reduced footprint.

Represented NetApp as the primary Expert Engineer for storage solutions at Liberty Mutual's site. Provided technical leadership, guiding Liberty Mutual's IT team on the design and optimization of NetApp storage solutions, supporting over 6 PB of NAS storage. Coordinated new technology implementations across departments, including cloud compute, networking, infrastructure, and data center. Assisted in designing and deploying storage-related technologies, ensuring seamless integration into the existing environment. Supported back-end storage for 11,000 VMs, defining backup strategies using NetApp SnapMirror and SnapVault. Led scripting efforts for SMVI data restorations, reducing time and effort needed for the process. Created virtual NAS filers and VLANs in Data Ontap for secure data segregation. Provided mentoring and training to Liberty Mutual's internal engineers in the US and Ireland. Documented procedures and created templates for future implementations and training. Supplied data for audits, remediated findings, and tracked security issues in server processes. Collaborated with NetApp application engineers to drive innovation based on customer needs. Mentored team members on NetApp storage best practices, fostering knowledge sharing.

Compliance Engineer-Supported multiple customers during audit data collection. Programmed security checking tools and worked with server administrators to correct issues found during the compliance check. Worked with the Sales team and executive level customer contacts to resolve or mitigate any discrepancies in the contract documentation for security checks. Storage Engineer-Supported SAN/NAS environment for over 400 customers in a 24/7 environment. Trained as a backup to the SME for NAS and quickly took over after his departure.Key Contributions: ● Provided SME support to sales team when negotiating contracts with executive level management for audit security checks reducing the findings of individual accounts by over 1,000,000 individual findings.● Created Tivoli health check scripts saving hundreds of hours of manual labor by system administrators.● Lead multiple successful projects for new systems installations managing a remote workforce, junior engineers and collaborating with other IT functions.● Coordinated migration plans for data migrations. Engaging business groups and user communities to provide a significant reduction in downtime.● Mentored junior engineers and assisted in creating training programs to enhance support of customer NAS environments.

Systems technical support role across a heavily distributed environment handling Windows Updates and Rollouts of various software packages.Key Contributions:● Continually achieved 98% completion of monthly workstation updates to over 300,000 systems.● Created test scenarios for update packages.● Maintained reporting on multiple projects

Performed on site technical support for HP contracted service. Primary duties include hardware and software replacement.

Sole engineer responsible for fulfilling all Windows Server consulting contracts including AD deployment, server builds and deployment, server upgrades and maintenance. Provided support for VoIP systems running asterisk and freepbx.org as well as traditional Avaya systems. Key Contributions:● Lead team of installers for data cabling in new construction of 2 new hotels. Provided mentoring and problem resolution.● Worked directly with SMB owners and CEOs to coordinate efforts during installation and upgrades on multiple systems.● Coordinated efforts with SMB internal IT to provide additional coverage and advanced support reducing the need for additional internal resources.● Negotiated service level agreements with customers.

Responsible for the IT environment for large insurance agency of over 50 people in 3 locations. Set direction for IT including filesystems, Email applications, and desktop computers. Manage vendors and consultants. Perform backups and adhere to set backup schedule. Key Contributions:● Lead project to replace Citrix environment with comparable Microsoft technology resulting in savings of $50,000.● Coordinated direction of IT with CFO and CEO.● Implemented HIPPA requirements● Oversaw document imaging implementation reducing the physical requirements for document management.● Reduced mailing costs by implementing electronic transmission of policy documentation.● Upgraded infrastructure for Networking, NAS servers, backups, and application servers.

Provided customer support for AFNI clients in the areas of insurance and cellular phones. Handled an average of 150 customer support calls per day.

Standardized data for conversion to e911 system. Assigned addresses according to set standards and worked with local government agencies to verify address coordinates.

Provided customer support for AT&T cable modems in the Chicago metropolitan area. Assisted users in all levels of support concerning their home networks and internet applications.Key Contributions:● Maintain 90% of calls answered within 30 seconds● Handled customer base of over 3000 customers per support technician