Gary Whitcomb

1430 Sioux Trace

St. Charles, MO 63304

Phone: 816-645-9555

Email: whitc7443@yahoo.com

 

OBJECTIVE

To obtain a Network Engineering or NOC technician position with a growing and enterprising company.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

· A twenty-six year telecom veteran with a wide range of highly portable technical skills and ready for the next challenge.

· A former military veteran with a top-secret security clearance; an installation and troubleshooting professional very familiar with Netcool, change management, disaster recovery, most telecom business models—RBOC, CLEC, IXC—and major industry platforms and systems, equally capable in back office and customer-facing environments.

· Customer-focused, results-driven Network Technician with over 26 years experience installing, configuring, optimizing, and supporting LAN and WAN within mission-critical environments.

· Skilled in network management systems, fault-isolating/troubleshooting network outages and disaster recovery.

· Worked with vendors while performing trouble shooting to help resolve network/circuit troubles on the government network.

· Problem solving skills with emphasis on resolution of technical problems, experience working on disaster recovery and demonstrates ability to quickly understand and remediate network issues.

· Provides superior quality and service.

· Strong customer service skills including verbal and written communications.

· Active DOD Secret Security Clearance.

 

EQUIPMENT EXPERIENCE / PROFICIENCY

Testing Tools: Procomm, Net Analyst, Firebird, Data Scopes, protocol analyzers (Wireshark), Osiloscopes, Telnet, TIMS and BER test sets.

Databases Used: TBS, NCCM, WWOLS, Remedy, Service Now, TCOSS, RIMS, MS SQL, Terradata, Harris, Preside and Clarify.

Security Appliances: Cisco, Cisco AnyConnect, Local Director, VirusWalls, CheckPoint Firewalls, VPN and remote access VPN, Blue Coat Cloud, IP subnetting & Telnet/SSH.

Hardware: Sycamore 16000 & 9000 ODXCs, Cisco 15454 & 15310 nodes, Ciena optical transport nodes, Juniper 4300 & 3300 nodes, OPTI-6100 Adtrans, Lucent 5ESS Switches, Lucent  Tellabs (Titan) 5500 & 532 DACs, Alcatel 1630, 1631 and 1671 DACS, Riverbed (Steelhead), Tomcats, Adtrans, Fujitsu and Nortel DMS switches, Sonus switches, Honeywell MRCs and nodes, BBN C30 & C300 nodes, BBN C10 PADs, Avaya, Cisco, and Juniper routers.

Internet/Intranet

Technologies: Microsoft Site Server, Microsoft Proxy Server, Explorer and Netscape browsers, WWW, HTTP, LDAP, HTTPS, FTP, Blue Coat Cloud & DNS.

Network Operating Systems: Novell NetWare 3.1x-4.11 Microsoft NT Server 3.5x, NT Server 4.0, Beta Tester for NT Server 5.0/2000 and Active Directory Services, RDS Farm, Java and JavaScript, Microsoft Proxy, Citrix and HSS Optimizer Servers.                 

Operating Systems: SUN Solaris, UNIX, MS Windows 7/8/XP/2000, 2008 & 2012, Lynix, HPUX (Redhat) and IBM Mainframe.

Monitoring Systems: Netcool, HP openview, Solarwinds, Netsmart, Cisco Transport Manager (CTM), Silvix Manager (ODXC network), Ciena Core Stream (DWDM), SNMP, NerveCenter and Tivoli.

Topologies: Ethernet Shared, Switched, Fractional T-1, T-1 (1.5 MB), STS1, DS3 (44.7 MB), DS3c (51.2 MB), OC3 (155 MB), OC3c, OC12, OC48 (2.5 GB), OC192 (10 GB), ATM, Token Ring, RS-232, V.35, SS7 and PBX.

Protocols: MPLS, X.25, OSPF, ARP, STP, VTP, ACLs, HSRP, IPSEC, IP Sec VPN, TCP/IP, UDP, DHCP, DNS, MPLS, EIGRP, IGRP, BGP, HSRP, FTP, SFTP, STP, RSTP, TACACS+, VoIP, ACS, RADIUS, RSA, SecureID, GRE, LACP, SS7, SNA, ISDN, GLBP, NAT/PAT, SIP, RIP & OSPF.

Network Management: HP OpenView, Sniffers, IBM NetView 6000 and Cisco Works.

E-Mail Platforms: Novell GroupWise 4.1-5.2, Microsoft Exchange 5.0-5.5, 2000 Netscape.

Host Connectivity Systems: Novell SAA 1.33b-2.01, Microsoft SNA 2.0-3.0, several IBM platforms.

 

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Apex Systems | St. Louis, MO.                                                          July 2016 - present

Network Engineer / Technician (contractor)

· Taking inventory and of all telecom equipment and providing maintenance services at all BJC Healthcare hospitals in the greater St. Louis area.

 

Four Points Communications | St. Peters, MO.                                Sept 2015 - April 2016

Network Engineer (contractor)

· Designed and implemented Juniper EX4300, EX3300 nodes, high speed fiber optic and copper circuits into TSIPs (Technical Service Implementation Plans) using subnetting, MS Visio and MS Excel spreadsheets for all of the U.S. Air Force bases under the BITI government contract.

· Dispatched out to the Air Force bases to configure and install all Juniper equipment, which replaced all Cisco equipment in the network that was end-of service and end-of-life.

 

Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) | Scott AFB, IL        

GCN OSC NOC Technician (Contractor)                                             Mar 2014 - Aug 2015

· Monitored the GCN OSC network for circuit/device alarms reported in Netcool and Cisco alarm browsers.

· Worked with vendors and (MDA - Missile Defense Agency) to isolate and rectify network issues.

· Isolated various equipment and line deficiencies in a timely manner and ensure customer satisfaction.

· Updated all DISA databases with new circuit information and documentation of circuit alt-routes.

· Worked with vendors while performing trouble shooting to help resolve network troubles on the government network.

· Documented all standards, policies and procedures to make sure ALPs (acceptable level of performance) were met.

· Documented Remedy trouble tickets with detailed troubleshooting steps and status summary.

 

Centene Corporation | Clayton, MO                                                 Sept 2013 – Mar 2014

ITOC/IT Network Engineer

· Responsible for monitoring and troubleshooting BGP, OSPF, IGRP and EIGRP protocols.

· Documented alerts that reported in Solarwinds and other software monitoring tools.

· All problems reported by our monitoring tools or by our customers were immediately investigated and resolved in a timely manner.

· Coordinated conference-calls between team members, our Engineering department and clients in different geographic locations in order to rectify customer problems and disaster recovery.

· Logged into network or customer routers and servers to trouble shoot any problems and repair the issues.

· Worked with vendors to help resolve network/circuit troubles.

· Tickets, change orders and CTasks were opened and updated daily in our Service Now ticket system to keep other technicians, engineers and management informed of network issues. Deployments and software upgrades are also conducted by myself regularly.

 

Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) | Scott AFB, IL        

MSPP/OTN NOC Engineer (Contractor)                                             Mar 2011 - Sept 2013                                                            

· Performed tier 1/ tier 2 level trouble shooting and loop testing on the government network to resolve problems.

· Tested remotely with field and vendor technicians to help resolve network/circuit troubles.

· Documented all standards, policies and procedures in NCCM and WOLSR.

· Monitored the government network for any circuit or device alarms reported in Netcool, the Cisco and Ciena alarm browsers. 

· Worked with change management and disaster recovery situations.

· Documented Remedy trouble tickets with detailed troubleshooting steps and status summary.

· Installed cross-connects and performed alt-routes on the DISA (Defense Information Systems Agency) Optical Transport Network (OTN) and the Multi-Service Provisioning Platform (MSPP) transport networks. These networks were comprised of the Ciena Core Director, Sycamore ODXCs, Cisco 15454s, Cisco 15310s Adtran and Promina nodes. This work was done to isolate various equipment and line deficiencies in a timely manner and to ensure customer satisfaction.

 

XO Communications | St. Louis, MO                                                Jul 2004 – Feb 2011

Network Operations Switch and Transport Technician  

· Network surveillance - proactively working outages reported by Netcool monitoring systems in a timely manner to ensure customer satisfaction.

· Testing and troubleshooting DS3 to OC192 signal levels.

· Working outages reported by clients in a timely manner and coordinate testing with field technicians to insure network integrity.

· Monitored and performed troubleshooting on Cisco, Nortel, Positron, Ciena and Infinera sonet rings on the XO backbone network.

· Worked on transport technologies including Titan 5500, 532 DACs and Lucent 5ESS switches.

· Worked with change management and disaster recovery situations.

· Documented all trouble shooting and status updates were provided in the Remedy ticket system. Controlling restoration activities in the event of an equipment or facility failure was part of my everyday duties, as well as coordinate testing with field and LEC technicians to ensure network integrity.

 

Birch Telecom | Kansas City, MO                                                   Jan 2001 - Jul 2004

Equipment Engineer / Tier III Maintenance Technician

· Supported the Birch Telecom / Ionex Communications merger by loading all telecom equipment into TBS (Telecom Business Solutions) and Remedy databases. This involved building the equipment, establishing termination points and designing circuits from DS3 to DS0 levels.

· Maintained TBS and Remedy databases.

· Traveled to new Ionex switch sites to perform audits and gathered information for the Engineering and the NOC databases.

· Trouble shooting and monitoring the network which consisted of ATM switches, 532L DACS, Lucent 5ESS, Juniper routers, DS3, T1 and DSL circuits.

· Worked outages reported by clients in a timely manner and coordinate testing with field technicians to insure network integrity.

· Used TBS, Harris and Net Analyst software tools.

 

Global Crossing | Cleveland, OH                                                    Mar 2000 - Dec 2000

Telecommunications Technician (Contractor)   

· Testing and troubleshooting circuit and network problems through the use of Centest650 and Sage950 test systems.

· Working remotely with the Titan 600E switches to ensure our customer’s phone numbers (ANIs) were programmed correctly in the switch and that call routing was correct.

· Tester and coordinator for special services projects.

 

U.S. West | Minneapolis, MN                                                         Sept 1999 - Mar 2000 

Customer Communications Technician (Contractor)  

· Developed documentation and design templates to be deployed for multiple customer sites.

· Tester and coordinator for special services projects in Minneapolis and Denver.

· T1, DS3, OC3 and OC12 signal levels. Responsibilities included coordination with project managers, field technicians and customers to ensure successful completion of projects. Position also required the ability to interpret circuit layouts to ensure multiplexers, repeaters and network interface units were optioned properly and that hardware and software digital cross connects were made in the 5500 DACS.

AT&T (HITS) | Honolulu, HI                                                        Aug 1998 – Aug 1999

Telecommunications Technician (Contractor)

· Switched over all military circuits at all Central Offices from GTE to AT&T service.

· Wired and installed every type of service from 2-wire voice circuits to DS3s in the 5E central offices on several different military installations. This included wiring the circuits at the Demarcs and the CO main frames and coordinating the ‘cut-overs’ on scheduled dates and times.

· Project was contracted by the Dept. of Defense (Secret Security Clearance).

 

GE Information Services | Rockville, MD                                    Apr 1990 - Jul 1998

Network Communications Specialist

· Responsibilities included twenty-four hour operation of the NOC (Network Operations Center) which included traveling to remote and client sites to install or repair services when needed.

· Installed and trouble shot all network devices along with testing all circuits while monitoring and troubleshooting problems in a global, multi-network environment.

· Configured, installed and repaired all of the network devices in the NOC when necessary, including Honeywell MRCs, nodes, Cisco and Juniper routers, and all network modems.

· Spent several months moving the entire NOC from the 9th to the 2nd floor.

· Maintained the PBX, voice network, Honeywell MRCs and switches, and all network modems.

· Utilized data scopes and  protocol analyzers for both local and international clients to monitor X.25, SNA, ISDN, BGP routing & TCP/IP.

 

United States Army | Fort Detrick, Maryland                              Apr 1987 – Apr 1990  (honorable discharge)

Primary Communications Technical Controller

· Duties included operation and monitoring of the Communications Primary Technical Control Facility. 

· Worked on satellite, microwave and diagnostic equipment as well as modems BERT testers and cryptographic equipment in support of the Pentagon, White House Communications and the Armed Forces.

· Learned various trouble shooting techniques to solve problems with analog, digital and T1 circuits that ran from our station to other facilities worldwide.

EDUCATION

· Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College - June 1986, August 1996 - June 1998

Marketing & Business Management.

· Advanced Individual Training (U.S. ARMY) - October 1987

Training for my military occupational skill (32D). This training involved the basics of troubleshooting digital and analog circuits, installing mainframe wiring, reading and measuring signal levels and the basic principles of signal flow.

· Superior Senior High School - June 1985 Diploma