Tampa, Florida, United States
I got into IT in 2002 armed with a screwdriver, deeply misplaced confidence, and a pathological need to press buttons and see what happened. Somehow, nobody stopped me, and here we are. Over the past two decades, I've held just about every job title the IT industry offers, working my way up from desktop repair tech to systems administrator, systems engineer, and cloud operations manager, collecting job titles like achievements in a video game. Each role came with bigger problems, stranger edge cases, and more creative ways to break things before figuring out how to make them unbreakable. I've loved every minute of it. Today I serve as Senior Manager of Infrastructure Engineering at Prison Fellowship, the nation's largest Christian nonprofit working with incarcerated people, returning citizens, and their families. Before that, I spent time at Greenway Health keeping a healthcare cloud running for clinicians who needed it to just work, at Boomi building workflows that actually shipped, and at ConnectWise, PwC, and Fintech doing the unglamorous work of untangling Active Directory forests, migrating mailboxes, and replacing backup systems that had no business still being in production. I also spent six years as a CompTIA Subject Matter Expert, helping write the questions behind the A+, Network+, and Security+ exams. I didn't set out to shape how the industry trains its next generation. It just sort of happened, and I'm glad it did. The certifications are numerous: AWS Solutions Architect, VMware VCP, SecurityX, Linux+, Cloud+, CAHIMS, ITIL, Meraki, Scrum, and a forklift operator certification that rounds out the collection in a way I find personally satisfying. Right now, I'm refining my workflows by incorporating AI tools and deepening my DevOps expertise, including CI/CD pipelines, Kubernetes, Docker, and DevSecOps practices. I'm interested in the practical, what-does-this-actually-do vision rather than the hype. Outside of the office, I serve on a church elder board, volunteer in leadership roles for nonprofits, and hold an honorary commission in the Great Navy of the State of Nebraska, which is landlocked and has no navy, which I think is exactly the point. I'm also a Kentucky Colonel and a Guinness World Record holder. I try to be the kind of person who solves problems before they become someone else's emergency and builds things that are still standing long after I've moved on. I keep learning, and genuinely enjoy the work, which, it turns out, makes all the difference.
I led the team behind Greenway Secure Cloud, ensuring reliability, security, and performance for the clinicians and health systems that depended on us. I worked closely with engineering, security, product, and leadership to keep cloud initiatives aligned with business goals. Over time, my role grew to include architecture, shifting my focus from daily operations to designing infrastructure that scales. With deep AWS experience across Windows and Linux, I translated technical decisions for nontechnical stakeholders while shaping the long-term direction of our cloud platforms.
I designed and built custom workflows and web applications on the Boomi Flow low-code platform, reducing time-to-market through reusable components and scalable templates. I created dynamic interfaces that worked well across web and mobile platforms, including in offline scenarios with limited connectivity. I owned projects end-to-end, from discovery through deployment, managing timelines, budgets, and risk. I collaborated closely with sales, engineering, and product management to keep solutions aligned with broader strategy. I also mentored peers on architecture and security, and delivered training and documentation to help clients maintain what we built.
I helped develop and refine certification exam content for A+, Network+, and Security+. I wrote, reviewed, and revised questions while validating technical accuracy against current industry standards. Through workshops, I collaborated with other SMEs to evaluate exam structure and interpret psychometric data. I also beta-tested new exam formats to make sure updates reflected emerging technologies. The work supported CompTIA’s reputation for producing respected, high-quality certifications.
I led infrastructure initiatives that improved reliability, security, and modernization across the organization. I cut nightly backup failures from roughly 25% to under 1% by deploying Cohesity and restructuring workflows. I rolled out LastPass Enterprise for unified password security, implemented Trend Micro Worry Free for endpoint protection, and introduced Semperis for Active Directory change tracking and backup. I also migrated all on-premises Exchange 2010 mailboxes to Exchange Online by building a new M365 tenant from scratch. On the infrastructure side, I deployed vRealize Operations Manager for improved vSphere oversight. I used Alsid to identify and remediate hidden Active Directory security risks. These efforts raised the company’s security posture and positioned the environment for future growth.