Resume
Introduction
I am a self-taught IT Consultant with a strong background in systems and consulting clients. With a decade of professional experience (8 years being in managed services), I have a strong understanding of the IT needs in a wide variety of business sectors. My passion is to automate and simplify IT processes / systems to allow businesses to focus on their business problems and not on technology problems.
I have a wide knowledge base that includes: Servers (Windows and Linux), Networking (Firewalls and Switches), Storage (NAS and SAN), Virtualization (VMware, Hyper-V, Proxmox), Containerization (Docker and Podman), Automation (Ansible), Cloud (Azure and AWS), and DevOps (Ansible, Git, PowerShell, and Bash)
With my varied skill set, I can work with any team in an organization to find ways to achieve desired business outcomes. At the same time, I can assist my team with automating and improving processes that can span across different IT verticals.
I am a strong proponent of continuous learning to keep my skills sharp in an ever-changing industry. I intend to become a Red Hat Certified Architect to further expand my skill set.
Experience
Ansible Dedicated Operations Technical Account Manager
August 2023 - Present
- Serve as the primary customer advocate within Red Hat, facilitating communication and collaboration across teams
- Provide proactive guidance and recommendations to customers on best practices and approaches to address their specific business needs
- Manage and prioritize the resolution of customer issues, including the coordination of resources within Red Hat and customer environments
- Develop and maintain relationships with key customer stakeholders to help them achieve their business goals
- Provide technical leadership and guidance to customers to help them achieve their business goals
- Develop and deliver technical presentations and demonstrations to customers
- Provide feedback to the Red Hat product management and engineering teams on customer requirements and issues
- Contribute to the development of best practices, knowledge articles, and other technical documentation
- Participate in the development and delivery of training and enablement programs for customers and partners
- Contribute to the development and execution of customer success plans
- Hands-on support with clients to help them implement the Ansible Automation Platform and other Red Hat solutions
Core Maintainer
February 2023 - Present (Volunteer)
- Engage with the community to understand their needs and desires for the project
- Coordinate with other contributors to ensure that the project is moving forward
- Develop and maintain relationships with key stakeholders in the community, Red Hat, and the Fedora Project
- Contribute code to the project to help it meet its goals
- Develop and deliver technical presentations and demonstrations to the community (see here for my media appearances)
- Provide feedback to the project leadership on community requirements and issues
- Contribute to the development of best practices, knowledge articles, and other technical documentation
- Provide support to the community through forums, social media, and other channels
Podcast Host
April 2025 - Present (Volunteer)
- Co-host the Fedora Podcast, a long-running podcast that covers all things Fedora
- Assist with the production of the show, including editing and publishing episodes
Core Contributor (Emeritus)
February 2023 - April 2025 (Volunteer)
- Engage with the community to understand their needs and desires for the project
- Manage the project roadmap and ensure that the project is on track to meet its goals
- Coordinate with other contributors to ensure that the project is moving forward
- Develop and maintain relationships with key stakeholders in the community and the Fedora Project
- Contribute code to the project to help it meet its goals (my specific contribution was with our ISO builder)
- Develop and deliver technical presentations and demonstrations to the community (see here for my media appearances)
- Provide feedback to the project leadership on community requirements and issues
- Contribute to the development of best practices, knowledge articles, and other technical documentation
Systems Engineer
Metropolitan Council of the Twin Cities
July 2022 - August 2023
- Documented existing environment
- Upgraded Satellite to the latest version and re-architected it to have access to air-gapped environment
- Deployed Red Hat Insights to all non air-gapped environments
- Proposed and executed on a project to implement the Ansible Automation Platform in Azure
- Wrote Ansible Playbooks to automate infrastructure management, deployments, security controls, and patching
- Assisted with processes surrounding Azure DevOps to start building pipelines and processes for infrastructure deployments
- Executed the migration of several workloads from Oracle Linux 7 to RHEL 8
Systems Administrator
August 2021 - July 2022
- Troubleshoot software/hardware issues on both workstations (Windows 7 - 10) and servers (Windows Server 2008 R2 - 2019) within our clients' environments remotely and onsite for over 20 individual clients
- Configure, deploy, and manage networking equipment (Cisco Small Business Switches, Netgate pfSense Firewalls, and Dell SonicWall Firewalls)
- Provide Scopes of Work (SOWs) to Sales and Project Team for solutions to implement
- Execute infrastructure projects for clients and internal initiatives
- Provide actionable input to the CEO and Service Manager to improve processes and service delivery
- Create PowerShell and ConnectWise Automate scripts to automate the deployment of software on workstations and servers
- Configure, deploy, and manage Storagecraft backup solutions (both local and cloud)
IT Consultant
Inside Edge Commercial Interior Services
December 2020 - August 2021
- Troubleshooting software/hardware issues on both workstations and servers
- Document work inside Jira for issues worked
- Write documentation for manual processes
- Provided expertise and suggestions for projects and other changes needed to keep infrastructure up to date and secure
Service Reliability Engineer
September 2020 - December 2020
- Create scripts to automate deployments, upgrades, and processes using Ansible
- Document work inside Jira for issues worked
- Write documentation for manual processes
- Work with the team on custom software implementations with the development team
- Utilize version control (Git) to document scripts and fix bugs in scripts
Managed Linux Server Engineer
November 2019 - September 2020
- Provide primary Linux Server support for a Fortune 500 client
- Troubleshoot issues related to their AWS implementation
- Design solutions for automation of management (patching, deployment of new resources, and proactively preventing issues) using Terraform, Ansible, and existing legacy tooling
- Serve as a backup for Windows Server related issues and other compute resources due to prior experience
- Assist with other client environments as needed (Windows or Linux)
- Collaborate with other departments, including account management, to ensure we provide excellent service
- Document troubleshooting processes to ensure we have a good baseline for automation and for assisting lower level engineers with troubleshooting
Systems Engineer
October 2014 - November 2019
Technical Duties:
- Troubleshoot software/hardware issues on both workstations and servers within our clients' environments remotely and onsite for over 40 individual clients.
- Configure and deploy hardware and software solutions remotely and onsite
- Configure and deploy networking equipment (routers, switches, and firewalls)
- Create scripts to automate the deployment of software and patch management on clients machines
- Configure and deploy backup solutions (both local and cloud)
- Serve as an escalation point for lower level engineers to assist with service items
- Approve Change Management requests for engineers
- Assist with Projects
Non-Technical Roles:
- Assist in technical account management for our largest clients
- Create quotes for Account manager to present to resolve IT issues
- Write technical documentation internally and for clients.
- Work with Finance, Manufacturing, Medical, and Service Industry-based clients.
Technical Proficiencies
Certifications
- Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) (RHEL 8 and RHEL 9)
- Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA) (RHEL 8 and RHEL 9)
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in Containers
- Amazon Certified Solutions Architect - Associate
- LPIC Linux Essentials
- CompTIA Network+
- CompTIA A+
- Datto Advanced Training (Disaster Recovery Product)
Cloud
| Name | Proficiency |
|---|---|
| AWS | Experienced |
| Azure | Experienced |
| Familiar |
Programming, Scripting, and Platforms
| Name | Proficiency |
|---|---|
| Ansible | Experienced |
| Bash | Experienced |
| Docker | Experienced |
| Git | Experienced |
| Kubernetes | Intermediate |
| OpenShift | Familiar |
| Podman | Experienced |
| PowerShell | Experienced |
| Python | Intermediate |
| Terraform | Familiar |
Networking
| Name | Proficiency |
|---|---|
| Cisco | Familiar |
| FortiGate | Intermediate |
| pfSense | Experienced |
| SonicWall | Intermediate |
| Ubiquiti | Experienced |
Operating Systems
| Name | Proficiency |
|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux | Experienced |
| Fedora | Experienced |
| CentOS | Experienced |
| Ubuntu | Experienced |
| Debian | Experienced |
| Oracle Linux | Experienced |
| Suse Linux Enterprise Server | Experienced |
| Windows Server | Experienced |
Virtualization
| Name | Proficiency |
|---|---|
| Hyper-V | Experienced |
| KVM | Experienced |
| OpenShift Virtualization | Familiar |
| Proxmox | Experienced |
| QEMU | Experienced |
| VMware ESXi | Experienced |