Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area
I aim to improve the lives of others by easing their interactions with technology. IT so often focuses on treating the symptom - we solve an Incident, or implement a solution, and send our customers, internal and external, on their merry way. If we take the time to listen to the true nature of their request, and then give them tools to improve their workflows and solve business problems, we can reduce frustration, ensure productivity, and create a safer and more secure workplace. Better relationships with IT through understanding and collaboration.
Contributing Manager for team of IT Infrastructure engineers supporting and solutioning for compute (VMware), storage (Pure Storage), networking (Cisco/f5), identity (Azure AD), and security (Rapid7), for back-office IT systems and Scoring & Reporting Products serving large state educational assessment contracts in a Windows stack (2012 R2-2019/IIS/.NET/MSSQL/MECM). Project and service design, enhancement, and delivery. Budgetary, performance and merit decisions, attract, retain and develop talent. Hired by NWEA as part of acquisition.
Managed and contributed to IT Infrastructure projects centered on compliance and information security vulnerability remediation for both back-office IT systems and platform/product. Note: This job was at Questar prior to acquisition by NWEA.
I lead the IT End-User Experience Team which exists to make it easy for Questar employees to work no matter where they work. We evolved from a team almost entirely focused on traditional reactive service desk work, to one knowledgeable and passionate about leveraging cloud platforms like Azure and Office 365 to both remove the barriers of traditional infrastructure and make best security best-practices built-in. In addition to managing a team of engineers, I take part in both the day-to-day technical work and project planning and execution to improve the technical lives of Questar employees. Achievements • Successfully expanded the team’s focus to include all internal end-user platforms • Migration from on-premise Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams • Roll-out of Azure AD Multi-Factor Authentication and Self-Service Password Reset • Enhanced Azure AD as preferred identity platform across the enterprise • Worked with VAR to transition from a Microsoft EA to a CSP agreement, saving the company tens of thousands of dollars
I lead the Technical Service Delivery teams at Imagine IT. My primary goals are to instill and reinforce Imagine IT's Core Values, and to provide nigh-perfect service delivery for every Partner. As the voice and face of Imagine IT, we are the embodiment of the ideals and goals of the organization. I am responsible for the overall health, effectiveness and efficiency of the Technical Service Delivery teams that include Remote and Field-based Engineers, including setting and meeting/exceeding meaningful goals and maintaining a high standard of both technical work and customer service. I am accountable for identifying opportunities for and delivering or arranging for technical and soft-skills training, and building a strong sense of team through information sharing, constructive meetings, and after-hours gatherings. I am an escalation point for my team members, working to make sure they have access to the tools and technical resources they need to perform their job. I also work with other managers and company leadership to ensure our goals are aligned with our objectives as a company. Primary responsibilities: Bi-weekly one-on-one meetings team members and maintain high level of team engagement Weekly Operations Leadership meetings to solve service delivery problems and monitor quarterly technical and process-related initiatives Monthly service team meetings Monthly ServOps meetings (DevOps for MSPs created in-house) Metric-aware performance evaluations Technical and resource escalation Point Monitor Partner satisfaction Secondary responsibilities Develop and deliver internal and customer-facing training WatchGuard Vendor Champion Accomplishments: Assisted with development and implementation of new Ops Teams structure 94% positive customer service feedback in 2017 Officevibe Top 1% in Employee engagement Develop, maintain and deliver end-user security training to our Partners
Imagine IT Systems Engineers support a diverse customer-base and a wide range of technologies, with the ultimate goal of minimizing reactive break/fix support. Imagine IT's philosophy of Zero Tolerance means engineers aspire to nigh-perfect levels of service delivery at all levels of the organization. As a field-based engineer, I work with other team members to design, implement and support business-enhancing technologies. Our stack includes Watchguard firewalls, Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V and ESXi environments, Office 365 and on-premise Exchange, network switches from a number of manufacturers, homegrown ShadowProtect backup systems, and Datto backup appliances. We also support customers' interactions with software and PBX vendors, Internet Service Providers and other hardware vendors. To support our efforts we use ConnectWise to track our time and technical notes, LabTech for monitoring and automation, LogMeIn for remote access, and SharePoint for documentation.