Career Target: Systems Engineer

Infrastructure Management | Solutions Architecting | Systems Engineer | Virtualization Design

 

Successful IT professional offering rich career experience spanning solutions analysis, troubleshooting and support, design, development, and implementation. Proven talent leading multimillion-dollar IT projects, steering technology teams, and managing sophisticated global integration projects. Broad-based expertise encompassing project team supervision, workflow planning and prioritization, resource allocation, global software solutions design and deployment, patch management, disaster recovery architecting, technical documentation, project planning, budget management, high-impact presentation facilitation, and more. Able to communicate technically sophisticated concepts with professionals throughout an entire organization. Focused, driven, analytical, and innovative.

 

Core Skill Areas

 

q       Systems Engineering q       VRealize Suite q       CCNA Boot Camp q       VMware 6

qGlobal Communications qSystems Architecture qSystems Support qEfficiency Improvement

qProcess Design and Deployment qSecurity Compliance qData Center Management qStrategic Planning

 

 

-Create project plans, present initiatives to executive team, and institute strategies throughout the globe.

-Catalyst in driving executive team IT decisions as instrumental resource tasked with providing information technology data, Intel systems support, analysis, and more.

-Drive bottom-line productivity enhancements as key contributor focused on developing server and workstation solutions that enhance organizational efficiency.

-Strengthen business value by anticipating future technological advances and innovations.

-VMware experience design and implementation of Host platform security, Server Consolidation, Data Center Consolidation, Virtual Desktops and Server Virtualization

 

 

Adecco – Durham, NC

Senior Systems Engineer (March 14, 2016 – current)

Contracted to EMC.  My assignment is to work on new storage technologies.  These new technologies are considered secret to EMC until they become GA (generally available).  I can speak about the specific technologies except that I am working on all flash storage arrays as well as new generations of VNX and VMAX storage products.

 

VCE – Durham, NC

Senior Systems Engineer (October 8, 2012 – January 4, 2016)

Virtualization solutions architect designing and building 150 virtual lab experiences for more than 300 high profile corporations.  Technical lead for 83 long running customer engagements involving technical deep dive presentations and demonstrations of VCE vBlocks including series 100, 200, 300 500 and 700 and all their elements.  I have built and maintained 20 vBlocks of various series models with a wide range of different element components making up the Converged Infrastructure which is the vBlock.  I have completed more than 20 Logical Builds of a manufactured vBlock and upgraded / downgraded the elements of 20 vBlocks according to the Release Certification Matrix depending upon customer requirements.  I have consistently achieved the highest ratings in all customer’s reviewing of my presentation / demonstration work.  The demonstration experience for the customer involves building specific environments to meet exacting workloads the customer may request.  This includes creating Advanced Management Pods local and remote, the installation and configuration of Windows Active Directory, Vmware Virtual Center, View Desktops and Unisphere storage array configurations as well as isolated VLAN switch configurations and of course complete documentation of each case.  I am considered an expert in UCS and recently successfully completed a UCS-Central deployment for lab management.  I have also installed and demonstrated VCE Vision Intelligent Operations, Workload Mobility, VPLEX options, Avmar and Data Domain solutions.  Working with Vmware vRealize suite of solutions is often requested in a customer engagement.  I also have experience with EMC UIM auto provisioning.  I wrote and maintained a VCE blog noting those most interesting and exciting technology innovations I was directly involved in from the CTO and Customer Technology Organization perspective. I built and maintained a Microsoft Hyper-V environment on a vBlock utilizing bare metal UCS blades.  This was a test environment for a vBlock outside of the supported vBlock matrix.

 

 

LAKELAND HEALTHCARE – St. Joseph, MI

Senior Systems Engineer (January 17, 2011 – October 1, 2012)

Systems administration and engineering of Intel environment across 3 datacenters encompassing 400 virtual Wintel servers 40 physical servers and 9 VMware ESXi hosts.  My current focus is on the VMware environment.  Since beginning with Lakeland Healthcare I have completed an upgrade of their VMware 3.5 environment to 4.1 update 1 and have added 5 new ESXi Hosts to build out their cloud infrastructure.  I have built a VMware View pilot environment, anticipating a successful test leading to a full View deployment of 1,900 virtual workstations.  I have also begun testing Cisco UCS hardware for the View infrastructure.  I am a member of a team of engineers responsible for new design, deployment and support in the Wintel space.  As part of my responsibilities I provide support to other team members when needed and serve On-Call on a regular rotation.  In addition I have found several areas I was able to use my expertise to help improve performance of existing and new systems.  An example would be I did a complete analysis of VMFS volumes to identify disk misalignment to be corrected.  I also analyzed new deployment procedures and found several best practices to be added to the deployment process.  Other areas of responsibility include project engineering for Wintel systems to support the Epic electronic records management ERM implementation.  This is a large undertaking of digital health records management utilizing more than 50 terabytes of storage and 50 virtual Wintel servers. Working with the Epic team I build and support this new environment as we move to a phased go-live.   HIPPA and PCI compliancy as it relates to infrastructure is also a responsibility of our team to secure Active Directory, Microsoft Exchange, Citrix, VMware, PACS, HBOC and many other critical systems in the environment.

 

WHIRLPOOL CORPORATION – Benton Harbor, MI 1997 – 2011

SME GIS Senior Intel Operational Engineer (2009 – January 14, 2011)

Direct Reports: 9 – Technical Engineers; Project Budgets: $300,000 to 21+ million

Promoted internally to manage IBM strategic partner resources.  This is a new position created to ensure the accurate accounting and execution in all aspects of services provided by IBM according to the Statement of Work in the Intel space.  Cost Leadership and Fast & Lean objectives by executing the planned activities.  Design and implement technological enhancements in response to business needs.  Manage operational excellence of global infrastructure.  Focus on Intel server environment both physical and virtual utilizing NetApp storage.    Oversee the support provided by IBM for more than 1400 Intel servers and 300 ESX hosts in 4 datacenters around the world.

 

Senior Systems Engineer (2005 – 2009)

Direct Reports: 3 – Delivery Analysts; Project Budgets: $300,000 to 6+ million

Promoted internally to lead project management, development delivery and execution initiatives. Design and implement technological enhancements in response to business needs. Challenged with converting physical server equipment to virtual machines using VMware virtual infrastructure solutions. Integrate Active Directory globally through brand acquisition. Oversee global patch management activities to ensure standardization of 1,500 internationally located servers. Globalize company’s ability to patch and verify security to comply with all Sarbanes-Oxley regulations. Manage IIS servers hosting internal and DMZ external facing websites. Oversee publication of applications, and support a global Citrix environment for business remote access.

 

§Strengthened authentication and authorization protocols by successfully deploying a global Active Directory environment positively impacting personnel throughout the world.

§Enhanced technological security by implementing a formalized global patch management protocol.

§Guided comprehensive Novell elimination project aimed at migrating all Novell file storage and printing to Active Directory technology with a Microsoft cluster server attached to NetApp storage.

§Creating more stable, scalable, and recoverable environment by leading virtualized server plan implementation that positively challenges business needs, questions operations status quo, and breaks down paradigm barriers.

§Recognized for consistently attaining and/or exceeding annual performance goals.

Systems Administrator (2000 – 2005)

Earned opportunity to ensure five nines uptime by overseeing server functionality and support efforts. Managed and coordinated installations of current operating systems and hardware technologies, planned and implemented new hardware upgrades impacting $20 billion global corporation, and partnered with senior management team to schedule manufacturing division outage and server downtime when necessary. Assessed, troubleshot, and maintained internationally located server and spearheaded migration of data to new hardware during system upgrades.

§Positively impacted global efficiency by instituting standardized technology program worldwide.

Level 3 Workstation Support Technician (1997 – 2000)

Recruited as only level 3 employee. Charged with configuring and maintaining 15,000 workstations, writing workstation operational templates, and troubleshooting software applications concerns as the last point of escalation in the resolution process. Served as SQL Administrator for Facilities Management. Evaluated and chose anti-virus solution for workstation environment still in use today.

 

§Independently addressed and resolved escalated hardware and software utilization issues.

§Served as 1 of 2 support professionals assisting senior executive team with workstation support concerns.

 

 

Lead Analyst – The U.P. Computer Center

Senior Technical Analyst / Assistant Marketing Director – Monroe Bank & Trust

General Manger / District Manager – Alaska Family Video

Sales Account Executive – Frontier Business Machines

Training Supervisor / Personnelman – United States Navy Submarine Force Atlantic Fleet

Professional Firefighter – Fire District No. 1 Lakeland, FL

 

 

 

 

Education	SOUTHWEST BAPTIST COLLEGE – Bolivar, MO Music Major Program – Minor in Biological Science
Professional Development	Carnegie Melon Presentation, VCE Systems Professional, VMware VI4, VMware VI3 Install and Configure; VMware VI3 Deploy Secure and Analyze; Citrix Presentation Server 4.5 Administration; Active Directory Troubleshooting Plus; Windows 2003 Server Administration; SQL 6.5; Novell Netware 5.1 with eDir NDS 8.
Certifications	VCE Systems Professional, VMware V4 VCP 32556 and V3 VCP 32556; Citrix Presentation Server 4.5 Administrator; Novell CNE
Military Service	United States Navy – Submarine Squadron 16 – U.S. Atlantic Fleet Honorably Discharged
Honors & Awards	VCE Speaker Presenter Award – VCE, Outstanding Performance – Whirlpool Corporation, 2009 Diamond Contributor Award – Whirlpool. Good Conduct Medal; Battle E; Navy Expeditionary Medal – United States Navy
Technical Skills Inventory	Servers: VMware V6, V5, V5.5, V4, V3; View Desktops, Windows Hyper-V, Novell File and Print Servers; Microsoft Windows File and Print and Application Servers; Windows 2012 R2, Windows 2010 R2, Windows 2008 R2, Windows 2003 R2; Microsoft Windows 2000; Linux Suzie and Red Hat; Microsoft NT 4.0; Citrix Presentation Server 4.5 Hardware:  EMC VNXe, VNX, VMAX2, VMAX3, NetApp, Xiotech, HP Blades, IBM X series, Dell, UCS Servers and Compaq Servers and Storage. Cisco Catalyst and Nexus Switches. Operating Systems: VMware V6, V5, V5.5, V4, V3; Windows 95/98/2000/2010/ Windows XP/Vista/Windows 7; Windows Servers NT4/2000/2003 R2/2008 R2/2010 R2/2012 R2 Standard and Enterprise. Microsoft Windows Hyper-V.