Stephen (Steve) Strout Email & Phone Number

Falls Church, Virginia, Us

Us

Atlanta, Georgia, Us

As Director, Internet and Cloud Services (ICS), I had responsibility for 2 groups. First was the Enterprise Monitoring group which I managed as a Sr. Manager. The group of 6 engineers were responsible for the administration of applications which Assurant, uses to ensure application and infrastructure availability and performance. Tools utilized were CA's UIM, DynaTrace, DynaTrace NAM, DynaTrace Synthetic and Login VSI's LoginPI. I also had responsibility for Assurant’s Performance Testing team. This team of 4 engineers had responsibility for stress testing applications to ensure they would perform well as utilization and load went up. This function was critical in assurance of Assurant’s SLA’s with business partners. The two tools used for performance testing were HPe/MicroFocus's Load Runner and NRG Global's AppLoader. Responsibilities included strategy for Assurant’s enterprise monitoring toolset and performance testing toolset, service offerings and processes, integration of other tools, staff goal setting and performance appraisals as well as day to day personnel activities like coaching, providing feedback, approving time off and time sheets. I had responsibility for a ~$3.5 million-dollar budget. Customer satisfaction was another important aspect of the job. Both my teams and I were expected to provide excellent customer service. Project management skill was also needed to perform in this position. Projects needed to be prioritized, managed, delivered on-time and within budget. Worked with procurement and finance teams, external vendors as well as C level management to cost justify new expenditures or expansion of staff. I participated in many sub-teams on areas that affected Assurant as a whole. An example would be the committee that ultimately chose ServiceNow as Assurant's ITSM/ITOM solution of the future. Constant collaboration took place with all technology areas including but not limited to network, server, security, web hosting, database.

Atlanta, Georgia, Us

Led team of seven engineers who were responsible for the administration of the applications which Assurant, a Fortune 500 Insurance Company, uses to ensure their applications and infrastructure are available and performing well. Responsibilities included strategy and planning of Assurant’s enterprise monitoring toolset, service offerings and processes, staff goal setting and performance appraisals as well as day to day personnel activities like coaching, providing feedback, approving time off and time sheets. As Senior Manager, Enterprise Monitoring I had responsibility for a $2.0 million-dollar IT budget. Customer satisfaction was another important aspect of the job. Both my team and I were expected to provide excellent customer service at all times. A great deal of project management skill was also needed to perform in this position. Projects needed to be prioritized, managed, delivered on-time and within budget. Worked with procurement and finance teams, external vendors as well as C level management to cost justify new expenditures or expansion of staff. Reported on project status, team productivity, and goal achievement on a monthly basis. Enterprise monitoring barely existed at Assurant in 2008. All accomplishments were the result of building a strong team which started from scratch to offer Enterprise Monitoring services at Assurant.

Atlanta, Georgia, Us

After six months on monitoring team was promoted to manage team of Monitoring Services engineers. Responsibilities include providing feedback to personnel, monitoring and approving time/attendance, performing annual/semi-annual reviews, and assignment of projects. Act as primary liaison between Monitoring Services team and stakeholder organizations to gather monitoring requirements and assign tasks to team members to satisfy requirements. Perform managerial reporting on a weekly/monthly. Must work with vendor management and finance teams to evaluate and procure software as well as renew maintenance on current monitoring applications. Participated in CMDB and Product Service Catalog projects both of which target transforming the way Earthlink looks at its environment from looking at individual elements to looking at business services as a whole and the components that make up those business services. In addition to managing team, continue many engineering responsibilities.

Atlanta, Georgia, Us

Responsibilities included day to day support of the monitoring tools (Netcool (Omnibus, Webtop, Impact, Probes, Gateways), OpenService NerveCenter, Cacti, BigBrother, BrixWorx, Keynote, Compuware) Earthlink uses to manage their Narrowband/Broadband Access, Municipal WiFi, Voice, Web Hosting and corporate networks. Tasks included installation and administration of applications, development of new monitoring checks, integration of monitoring tools into Netcool and Remedy, and documentation of monitoring systems and applications. Developed custom scripts primarily in PERL and PHP to accomplish certain monitoring tasks.

Round Rock, Texas, Us

Responsible for sales of EMC/SMARTS products to Fortune 1000 clients in the Southeast U.S. Responsibilities included delivery of product presentations, fostering of client relationships, development of sales proposals and negotiations of sales contracts.

Managed team of up to 6 Systems Engineers in the mid-atlantic and southeast sales regions while providing pre-sales system engineering support to major regional accounts in the southeast and for several service providers nationwide. Management responsibilities include recruitment, interviewing and hiring of new engineers, mentoring of those new engineers, day to day management of personnel including scheduling, handling of grievances, and ensuring proper training as well as conducting annual/semi-annual performance reviews.

Provided pre-sales support to eastern region sales organization. Responsibilities included delivering product presentations, installation of evaluation software, development of test plans, training of new Systems Engineers and technical management of accounts. Assisted account managers in qualification of prospects and generation of leads.

Us

Provided pre-sales support for Lucent Technologies and AT&T. Assisted customers in data network design for the upgrade of existing network infrastructure and the design of data networks for new facilities. Responsibilities included performing product presentations, facility surveys, proposal generations, and design reviews.

Associates, Telecommunications

Education record