I began supporting Novell Netware and Microsoft Windows servers right out of College in the early 1990s and quickly gained the Novell CNE and Microsoft MCSE certifications. During the mid 90s I was involved in a very large multimillion dollar Peoplesoft ERP project, for which my manager required a UNIX resource, and sent me to HP-UX training and certification. As a certified HP resource, I spent ten years, between 1996 and 2006 supporting various versions of HP-UX on PA-RISC and Itanium hardware.
In 1996 a project I was working on required a monitoring tool and I suggested deploying it on Red Hat Linux. At the time, Linux in the enterprise data center was unheard of, and my success using Linux meant that I would recommend it repeatedly over the years. As I would jokingly tell people afterwards, I was working with Linux when the Penguin was in diapers.
Between 2000 and 2006 I led one of the most capable UNIX Server Engineering Teams in the Midwest, at Northwestern Mutual in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. From there, I went on to introduce Linux to several very large enterprises, including United Airlines, which saved many millions of dollars by moving to Linux, and Blue Cross Blue Shield Association which also saved a lot of money by switching from the mainframe. Along the way, I picked up numerous other supporting skills including Veritas (VCS) Clustering, VMware virtualization, Amazon AWS and Azure Cloud.
My past has included starting and successfully running a technology company, and growing it to 15 employees and several million dollars in revenue. As such, I have done everything from hiring and firing, to creating HR manuals, procuring and administering benefits for employees for my company, creating sales presentations and marketing materials, as well as maintaining an in-house data center. This particular company was started in 2001 and dissolved in 2008.
Between 2010 and 2017 I led the Linux Server Engineering teams for Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and Zebra Technologies. During this time I worked very closely with their CISOs on numerous Cyber Security projects and initiatives. Working with CISOs at these two companies, I picked up additional security skills including the ability to architect, engineer, support, monitor and maintain safe computer networks, servers, desktops and a secure Enterprise Computing Environment using the latest and greatest security tools in the market. I mastered the ability to monitor threats and vulnerabilities (CVEs) and remediate or mitigate them with patches, bug fixes, code changes, firmware, hardware, or OS and software version upgrades. I deployed security agents across the enterprise and utilized the same to evaluate security holes, lapses, as well as threats internal as well as external drive process improvements to reduce risk and/or improve operational efficiency. I remediated findings from internal as well as external assessments. I performed periodic penetration testing in order to validate remediation effectiveness. I lead the implementation of select new security technologies and lead the charge in incident response activities including forensic investigations. I implement and maintained security tools across the enterprise as well as private, public, and hybrid clouds, including, Qualys, Nessus, Rapid7, iptables, Secunia, SCAP, CrowdStrike, LogRhythm, Satellite Server; UNIX/ Linux Patching, SCCM, ServiceNow, and Altiris. Most recently I have been working as an independent contractor for Fortune 500 companies around the country, mostly on data center relocation, cloud and security projects. Currently I am working on a contract at Citadel Securities, LLC in downtown Chicago, Illinois.
While I love technology, most of all, I am an extrovert — a people person. My Myers-Briggs personality is: EXECUTIVE (ESTJ-T) My career goals are lofty but achievable, and all end up in the C-Suite or Boardroom.
While I love technology, I am foremost a big picture person — a technology manager with real world business experience and smarts. I hold a mini-MBA from the International Business Management Institute in Berlin, Germany.
As an extrovert, I love to network with and meet new people, as well as to foster, develop and nurture existing relationships. I have been extremely successful at management, as well as at sales and marketing roles in the past. In addition to large and small business, I have been involved with several dozen Gubernatorial, Senatorial, Congressional and Mayoral campaigns, including all aspects of the campaign from literature creation, walk and knock, phone banking, GOTV efforts, media relations, dear neighbor letters, direct mailing, campaign creation, phone banking, fundraising, visibility, campaign website management, demographic targeting, editorial letters, as well as advertising and branding. I carefully review the position of each candidate I endorse for public office, and over ninety percent of the candidates I have endorsed thus far have won election or re-election…! I returned to my Christian faith in 2007 and was subsequently Baptized in 2009. Since then I have spent several years taking Moody Bible Institute, Trinity Divinity College, Dallas Theological Seminary, Knox Seminary and other Bible classes and hope to someday complete an MDiv. In the interim I have been extremely active in the Church community, volunteering at Churches, leading Bible Studies, and planting new Church campuses. I give generously both to Churches as well as to numerous non-profit organizations.