Expertise

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Representative Outcomes

  • Automated VM provisioning and provisioning, reducing customer delivery duration by 88% (from 9 days to <1). Reduced engineering effort by 85%, resulting in +4800 hours saved annually.
  • Reduced outages directly attributable to SSL Certificate Expirations by 80% by designing, building, and implementing an automated notification solution.
  • Reduced incident response labor costs by 90% (from over $600,000 to $6,000 per year) by expanding infrastructure availability monitoring to include end-user experience and application transaction monitoring.
  • Dramatically reduced overall downtime and major incidents through the deployment of a portfolio of enterprise tooling to drive proactive observability and response. Improved from +100 major incidents/year to consistently <12.
  • Produced a +70% reduction in MTTR by implementing an automated notification and escalation system, which eliminated costly manual processes. Delivered 250% ROI in less than a year, which resulted in +2000 hours saved annually.

Technical Execution

I proactively ensure that the technology under my management not only meets the business needs but also aligns with future state direction and does not expose the company to unnecessary risk. My guidance helps ensure teams view their technology as part of a larger business environment.

  • Able to translate concepts and goals from strategy and planning sessions into specifically identified initiatives for individual product and project teams and to successfully launch their execution and measure success.
  • Partnered with internal enterprise architecture teams and external vendor teams to ensure alignment with company directives and to ensure product mix and technical strategy satisfies business strategy and overall industry direction while addressing security and compliance requirements in a timely manner.
  • Managed multiple portfolios of internally developed products and vendor- provided tools throughout their lifecycle, from purchasing, deployments, upgrades, integrations, migrations, and retirement.
  • Experience leading large-scale and highly complex inter-departmental initiatives for a wide variety of technical products, including customer-facing applications (web and mobile), operations, security, automation, service management, and technology delivery.
  • I have led teams in every department of information technology through various phases of maturation.

Need more specifics about the various technology products and techniques used? Scroll through the big list.

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Organizational Leadership

I enjoy working with business and technology people of all skill levels to create a positive work environment. I am an expert at getting large groups of people (often with conflicting interests or workstyles) to work together to deliver tangible results.

  • Experienced leading teams through agile transformations, by putting specific focus on the most impactful aspects of agile (early earned value, minimum viable releases, iterative improvements) in addition to the execution and cadence fundamentals.
  • Able to new form teams, lead them through FSNP stages and into a collaborative performance state focused on driving measurable results. Experienced in leading in-person, remote, and hybrid teams for many years.
  • Selected to turn several struggling initiatives around where cross-departmental conflicts and siloed or rival engineering or leadership behaviors stalling technology efforts.
  • I have personally led well over 1000 hours of high-intensity, high-pressure outage, and production release calls with every possible combination of talent (remote, onsite, globally distributed, technical, non-technical, business, entry-level, senior-level, executive).

Financial Management

It may be strange to some, but I absolutely enjoy working with large, complex budgets. The reason is simple: financials drive decisions, and decisions drive action. Illustrative achievements:

  • Responsible for delivering within budget constraints, managed both capex and opex budgets for +12 years, ranging from 5M to 50M, with responsibility for planning, forecasting, budgeting, reporting and stakeholder communication.
  • Managed both individual projects and overall department budgets consisting of people, technology, software licensing, vendors and training.
  • Led departmental financial activities during years of significant organizational restructuring, including amortization/depreciation rule changes.
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Mentoring

  • Founded and directed a student mentoring program (AAA Cares) by establishing community partnerships, assembling an internal team of mentors, and designing a technology and business-focused curriculum.
  • Led the program for +5 years and was recognized for driving internal volunteerism, and community engagement, and contributing to the company receiving the 1000 Points of Light award. Videos are here, here, and here.

Education & Certifications

  • Master of Business Administration (MBA) – Arizona State University (Technology Management focus)
  • Bachelor of Science (BS) – University of Illinois (Chemistry, Physics & Literature)

Recent Certifications

  • ISACA CISM Certified Information Security Manager
  • Design Thinking and Creativity for Innovation, University of Queensland
  • AWS Certified Security Specialty & Solutions Architect Associate
  • Azure Foundations

Previous Certifications

  • Project Management Professional (PMP)
  • Certified ITIL Expert in IT Service Mgmt (Strategy, Operational Support, & Release)
Download Resume
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About Me

I am an impactful, solutions-driven technology leader with extensive experience leading complex inter-departmental technology initiatives, leading agile transformations and building teams. With a cheerful, enthusiastic, and engaged leadership style, I love to work with other committed and intelligent people.

While I am certainly results focused, I emphasize adaptability, empowerment, customer focus and collaboration. I’m comfortable leading change within unstructured environments and can gain trust at all levels of a multi-cultural organization, from C-Level executives to interns. I am extremely budget-savvy, have managed complex budgets up to 75M.

My various roles have enabled me to gain a breadth of experience, and my certifications ensure I have the depth of knowledge to be effective. My work ethic was curated from a mid-western upbringing, and I’ve cultivated a growth-based mentality my entire life. This exposes me to endless opportunities for personal development and more importantly to encourage others in their own career journey.

Easy ways to start conversations with me include … your favorite pets, music, fitness, piano, Xbox, dad jokes, podcasts, cooking, national parks, family, and whatever unique interests you have.