Provided direction, development, training and coaching to all levels of network engineering at Grainger, including network supervisors and team members that delivered the global data communications to provide maximum availability, reliability and performance of related infrastructure, systems and network related applications.Responsibilities:- Managed team consisting of 20 FTE’s.- Managed annual $18MM expense budget and capital projects up to $5MM+.- Researched, resolved and responded to inquiries from C-level executives.- Updated team monthly about business strategy changes (People, Process & Technology).- Engaged team members through multiple channels.High Impact Projects:- Launched a $2.5MM obsolescence project to replace various out-of-date network components.- Reduced operating expenses by over $300K/year by removing unnecessary circuits.- Provided twice the bandwidth with zero cost at critical sites.Operational Excellence:- Oversaw the quality of infrastructure projects through entire lifecycle.- Validated processes and regulations were followed and replaced the out-of-date procedures.- Lead communications and escalations with vendor management teams.- Identified shift-left opportunities to free senior engineers from mundane network tasks.- Decrease incident length by developing new processes.- Developed critical system health check procedures.- Developed Critical Site list.- Reduced configuration errors and costly network outages.- Performed audit and true-up of Cisco Smartnet maintenance coverage.

Managed global team of 10 engineers and security specialists that delivered IT operational excellence everyday. Provided 2nd & 3rd level network and security support for business operations, application delivery and committed blue chip IT enabled business projects. Leader of overall operational support for the global network infrastructure (LAN/WAN/Firewalls/DMZ/Proxy).Responsibilities:- Managed multiple key vender relationships.- Managed $5MM OPEX budget.- Accountable for providing CAPEX yearly IT Annual Operating Plan (AOP) in excess of $2MM.- Internal Security audit leader for infrastructure testing focused on external/internal attack and penetration assessments of network infrastructure. - Internal audits assessed vulnerabilities from various risk perspectives. - Application penetration testing - Social engineering assessments focused on obtaining employee credentials via phishing emails. - Assessed the effectiveness of internal controls to mitigate the risk of a successful APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) compromise of systems.High Impact Projects:- Saved $2.1MM by negotiating multiple $15-20MM three year global WAN contracts.- Saved $380K/year by consolidating Cisco maintenance contracts.- Saved $250K/year by implementing a hardware stocking strategy.- Saved $100K/year with the implementation of a Telecom Expense Management (TEM) system.- Saved $200K/year through the implementation of WAN Optimization services.Operational Excellence:- Responsible for solving all network incidents against prescribed SLA’s.- Change Advisory Board (CAB) member.- Accountable for the successful production of quarterly CEO webcasts.- Maintained road maps, standards, governance policies.

Accountable for all aspects of network engineering including design, implementation and support of large complex rollouts. Largest clients included Sears Holdings Corp., United States Postal Service, Cardinal Health Care, McGraw Hill, Sony, Fireman’s Fund Insurance & Starwood Hotels.Responsibilities:- Managed 17 US system engineers and contractors.High Impact Projects:- Saved $600K/year by decreasing warehouse router first-time defects from 50% to fewer than 5%.- Saved $1.5MM/year by facilitating the design and implementation of operations centers in Sao Paulo, Brazil and Bratislava, Slovakia.

Systems engineer responsible for large scale, premier customers utilizing various routing protocols, transport/data link protocols, remote access and specialty protocols.

WAN Technician responsible for providing first line support for large accounts.