Rick Stout Email & Phone Number

Detroit, MI

• Providing leadership for the IT and Data departments includes managing and supporting all facets of IT infrastructure, Help Desk operations, IT security, hardware and software procurement, vendor management, and.
• Leading the IT and Data teams, providing direction to both teams totaling 11 employees, to manage all facets of SEEL’s technology footprint including on-prem and cloud-based infrastructure solutions
• Manage infrastructure, Help Desk operations, and all IT support for SEEL in addition to all companies under the parent company umbrella
• Developing the company’s maturity level as it relates to IT security and operations with policies, process, staffing, controls, etc.
• Personally led the effort to secure Service Organization Control (SOC 2 Type 2) security certification for the company, to provide information security, availability, and confidentiality
• Re-architecting the business continuity and disaster recovery plans to enhance availability & recoverability

Southfield, MI

• Collaborative problem solver who led a diverse team of subject matter experts (SMEs) to maintain technical infrastructure for Oracle databases, Oracle WebLogic and Apache Tomcat middleware server environments.
• Led the Database and Middleware department, directing two teams totaling 18 employees to manage large Oracle database environment, Oracle WebLogic and Apache Tomcat application server infrastructure, Apache ActiveMQ.
• Planned, coordinated and guided execution of multiple large scale cross-functional projects to upgrade application servers and databases to Oracle 12c, Apache ActiveMQ software upgrade, Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM).
• Supported Disaster Recovery (DR) preparedness, planning and testing efforts for critical application server and database environments.
• Managed employee retention, hiring and onboarding new employees and contractors while advocating for the promotion of team members, conduct bi-annual performance reviews, merits, and establish goals and objectives for.
• Responsible for gathering, planning and managing execution of incoming work requests from application owners and stakeholders.

Detroit, MI

• Managed multiple teams to maintain technical infrastructure supporting over 5PB of storage, 5,000+ Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server and IBM DB2 databases on 150 Unix and 375 Windows servers. Managed $15M in administrative.
• Led the Data Services department, directing three teams totaling 25 employees to manage complex projects, negotiated large purchases, and maintained IT Service Management (ITSM) for storage and database environments.
• Leveraged expert negotiation strategies to secure millions of dollars in cost savings on multiple occasions. o Negotiated hardware and software purchases to over 80% off. o Generated $1.6M in cost savings while.
• Managed employee retention, hiring and onboarding new employees, interns, and contractors while advocating for the promotion of team members, conducted annual performance reviews, merits, and established goals and.
• Developed and managed administrative ($2.7M), capital ($3-5M), and maintenance ($7-8M) budgets while playing an instrumental role in the procurement of $5-10M in annual infrastructure purchases.
• Created several business cases to gain management approval for capital infrastructure purchases.

Detroit, MI

• Managed technical storage infrastructure team supporting mainframe, distributed Storage Area Network (SAN), Network Attached Storage (NAS), backup and recovery, disaster recovery (DR), and eDiscovery functions..
• Attained $1M in return on investment (ROI) savings over a five-year span by creating a business case study, analyzing backup equipment at remote offices, determining pricing, and identifying a cost-efficient disk-based.
• Supported 30%+ annual storage growth while maintaining minimal team size and reducing costs.
• Researched new technology storage solutions to remain up to date regarding industry trends.
• Negotiated and managed annual hardware and software maintenance.
• Administered annual performance evaluation process.

Detroit, MI

• Responsible for distributed storage engineering, storage network (SAN) management and administration, subject matter expert on SAN, distributed backup and recovery, and disaster recovery.
• Implemented enterprise distributed backup and recovery solution IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) to eliminate manual effort related to server backups.
• Performed SAN proof of concept (PoC) and implemented first SAN at Blue Cross Blue Shield.
• Led the projects for the technical implementation of an Email Archive solution, Content Manager, and Content Manager On-Demand (CMOD).
• Installed and upgraded storage software on UNIX and Windows servers, wrote UNIX shell scripts to automate functions, and managed SAN storage on UNIX and Windows servers.