Education

Bachelor of Science—Network and Communication Management, DeVry University of Kansas City

Graduated Summa Cum Laude, October, 2008

Awards and Scholarships:

  • DeVry University Dean's Scholarship
  • DeVry University Presidential Scholarship Alternate
  • ARRL Irving W. Cook, WA0CGS Scholarship

Key Strengths

  • Systems Integration: Connecting applications between systems and across environments to facilitate the flow of information through and between organizations
  • Automation: Using and building tools to make simplify complex tasks and remove human error from software testing and deployment
  • Software Engineering: Solving problems with software in many languages, including Python, Rust, and C
  • Infrastructure-as-Code: Ensuring consistency and reliability of IT and DevOps infrastructure using configuration management, version control systems, and continuous integration pipelines
  • Team Leadership: Training new hires, facilitating discussions, defining and organizing tasks, and growing enjoyable and productive relationships

Skills

Programming Languages

  • Python
  • Bash/POSIX Shell
  • Rust
  • Awk
  • Groovy
  • JavaScript/Typescript
  • Lua
  • C
  • C♯
  • C++
  • Java
  • PHP

Applications & Software Stacks

  • AMANDA
  • Apache HTTPD
  • Atlassian Bitbucket (Stash)
  • Atlassian Confluence
  • Atlassian JIRA
  • Bitwarden
  • BURP
  • Elasticsearch
  • Frigate
  • Gitea
  • GlusterFS
  • Grafana
  • Graphite
  • Graylog
  • HashiCorp Vault
  • Home Assistant
  • Jenkins
  • Koji
  • Nextcloud
  • nginx
  • Mosquitto
  • PostgreSQL
  • Prometheus/Victoria Metrics
  • RabbitMQ
  • Redis
  • Synapse (Matrix Server)
  • Sonatype Nexus
  • Zabbix

Cloud & PaaS/IaaS

  • Amazon Web Services
    • Amazon Machine Images
    • CloudFront
    • EBS Volumes, Snapshots
    • EC2 Instances
    • Elastic Beanstalk
    • Elastic File System
    • Elastic Kubernetes Service
    • IAM Roles, Policies
    • S3 Buckets, Policies, ACLs
    • Virtual Private Cloud
    • Web Application Firewall
  • Microsoft Azure
    • Resource Groups
    • Virtual Machines
    • Virtual Machine Images
    • Image Galleries
    • Virtual Networks

Frameworks, Libraries, & SDKs

Systems & Network Infrastructure

  • Active Directory Domain Services
  • Active Directory Certificate Services
  • Ansible
  • Certbot
  • collectd
  • dnsmasq
  • Docker
  • firewalld
  • FreeRADIUS
  • HAProxy
  • HashiCorp Terraform
  • iptables
  • ISC BIND
  • ISC DHCPD
  • libvirt/QEMU+KVM, virt-manager/virt-install
  • MIT Kerberos
  • nftables
  • NUT
  • Podman
  • Postfix
  • radvd
  • rsyslog
  • Samba Domain Controller
  • Samba/Winbind
  • strongSwan
  • Squid (Caching Proxy)
  • systemd
  • VMware vSphere
  • Windows Deployment Services
  • Windows Network Policy Server
  • Windows Server Update Services

Operating Systems

  • Buildroot
  • Debian Linux
  • Fedora Linux
  • Gentoo Linux
  • Microsoft Windows Server
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS

Career

FireMon: Principal Engineer (2013–Present)

FireMon is a software development company based in Overland Park, KS. As the System Architect, I focus on building a scalable platform for delivering FireMon software to customers that is easy to use. FMOS, the FireMon Operating System, is a mechanism for delivering the FireMon SIP to customers and a collection of tools for deploying and managing the software in a wide array of environments, ranging from a single server to massive multi-node ecosystems.

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Perceptive Software: System Administrator (2013)

Perceptive Software is a software development company in Shawnee, KS. At the time I worked there, it was a subsidiary of Lexmark International, Inc. As a member of the System Administrator team, I was responsible for maintaining the internal IT systems that served employees in the Shawnee headquarters building. Mostly Windows-based systems, these servers were housed in an on-premises data center. My primary focus was the consolidation and relocation of systems to a new campus. This project involved countless migrations of systems from physical machines to virtual machines or cloud instances, application redeployments, and sunsetting of disused services.

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Softek Solutions: System Administrator (2011–2012)

Softek Solutions is a software development company located in Prairie Village, KS. As the IT manager, I was responsible for deploying and maintaining internal systems used by Softek's software engineers, sales representatives, support agents, and administrative staff. In addition, I was responsible for ordering Dell servers and provisioning them with Softek software for delivery to Softek customers.

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Supertechs: Network Administrator (2007–2011)

Supertechs was a locally-owned computer repair shop in Kansas City, MO. I started work there in college, working on consumer equipment. Customers brought in all manner of machines from brand new laptops to ancient desktop towers to fancy all-in-one iMacs. As an in-shop repair technician, I removed viruses and other malware, fixed misbehaving software applications, replaced failed or defective hardware, and assembled custom computer systems. Later, I moved into an on-site role, where I worked with small businesses to deploy server and network equipment, integrate systems, and maintain applications. Eventually, as Supertechs grew, I became responsible for the company's internal systems and network infrastructure, and developed internal software to manage and automate business-critical operations

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arcplasma.com: Network Administrator (2005-2011)

arcplasma.com was a small family business run from my parents' home. When they first moved into their home outside of town, Internet access options were limited. No cable or DSL service was available, but SBC was happy to connect a T1 line to their house. As an avid amateur radio operator, my father already had a 120-foot personal radio tower, so we decided to mount a WiFi access point on it and share the T1 service with the neighbors (some of them almost 10 miles away).

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Amacom: ISP Systems Operator (2004)

As one of only two technicians at the dial-up and fixed-wireless ISP in my home town, I had a wide range of responsibilities. Amacom not only provided Internet access to business and residential customers all over town, but also offered general computer repair services. When I was not busy tracking down runaway growth of someone's e-mail inbox, I always had at least a few machines that had a hard drive that was failing or a modem that had been damaged by lightning.

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