Resume of Solutions Architect

Title
Solutions Architect

Primary Skills
Design, deployment and administration of WAN/LANs, with strong telecommunications knowledge.

Location
US-PA-Pittsburgh

Posted
Feb-20-08


Technology
Networking and Telecommunications: Design, deployment and administration of WAN/LANs, with strong telecommunications knowledge. Advanced IP knowledge, including load-balancing, traffic-shaping and network performance monitoring.
Security: Hands-on planning, deployment and management experience with firewalls, IDS/IPS, and IPSEC and SSL VPNs, authentication and identity management systems. Strong knowledge of threat assessment and web security.
Application Development: Experienced at client and server application development with Java, PHP, and Perl. Familiar with advanced web elements (including XML,JavaScript and CSS), network protocols (SNMP,SMTP,HTTP,HTTPS), open-source solutions (Linux,FreeBSD,Apache,Linux,MySql) and object-oriented programming principles.

Business
Sales and Customer Focus: Entrepreneurial attitude with deep provider service background with experience in vendor relations, quote-to-cash processes, pre- and post-sales engineering, process and network integration, service management and customer migrations.
Communication: Excellent writing skills with experience ranging from customer-facing technical documentation to business vision documents. Confident public speaker, capable of effectively generating and delivering presentations on complex subjects.
Management: Collaborative team manager, effective at guiding distributed work teams in both matrix and hierarchal organization structures. Skilled at using collaborative technologies to focus teams and projects.


PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
LEVEL(3) COMMUNICATIONS, Pittsburgh, PA 2006-present
Product Manager, Dedicated Internet Access (DIA)
Product management, product development and project management supporting nationwide delivery of an enterprise-focused Internet product.

* Led several efforts effectively integrating the product delivery processes of six acquired ISPs. Developed end-state product delivery strategy and aligned integration efforts with long-term plans. Directed a project rapidly expanding the number of DIA markets by cataloging acquired transport networks and modifying order entry systems.
* Pioneered the use of corporate collaborative portal technologies to guide DIA project teams, manage knowledge and promote team-generated content.
* Rapidly built and guided a product delivery core team spanning several locations, organizations and legacy companies despite turbulent corporate-wide integration and reorganization efforts.
* Developed a number of tools aiding nationwide Internet sales, guiding provisioning efforts, and generating capital budget forecasts.
* Authored several highly-praised Business Vision documents that effectively captured and articulated stakeholder requirements for critical new product features.

NETWORK ACCESS CORPORATION, Pittsburgh, PA 2004-2006
Solutions Architect
Network and security engineering consultant for enterprises and educational institutions.

* Designed, implemented and supported routing, layer 2 and layer 3 switching, and security architectures for scores of colleges, universities, public schools, law and medical firms, manufacturers, and other commercial enterprises.
* Spearheaded effort to develop penetration-testing, network monitoring and SSL VPN products. Lead architect for a successful VPN product targeting customers dissatisfied with their service provider frame-relay infrastructure.
* Quickly acquired necessary product certifications with Cisco, Fortinet, WatchGuard and Packeteer with work toward F5 product certification. Qualified to advise on performance optimization, network redundancy, and on best-practices for SSL and IPSEC VPNs, firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and secure architectures.

INTEROCITER TECHNOLOGIES, Pittsburgh, PA 2002-2004
Principle, Security and Network Engineering Consultant
Independent contractor providing telecommunications and information security consulting, network design, and project management for small organizations.

* Developed an easy-to-manage network monitoring package and security tool-kit securing web-based services, benchmarking traffic patterns, tagging security concerns, and conducting penetration tests.
* Developed 'Interociter' library of Java classes supporting a secure and scalable knowledge management framework.
* Developed library of Java-based network discovery and mapping classes.


VERIO/NTT, Pittsburgh, PA 1997-2002
Director, Broadband Access Network Engineering (2002)
Regional network engineering director for international Internet Service Provider and Web Hosting firm. Oversaw operations of points-of-presences (POPs) in Pittsburgh(PA), Boston(MA), and Rochester(NY) and a network composed of multiple OC12/OC48 circuits supporting several thousand dedicated Internet, web-hosting and data-center customers.

* Led efforts to develop SONET and Metropolitan Ethernet access methods for scalable and cost-effective Internet product in the Pittsburgh and Boston markets. Developed easy-to-manage, low-cost, high-bandwidth, highly scalable access product based on dark fiber.
* Key participant of national strategic-planning engineering team, evaluated the efficiency of customer aggregation solutions throughout the U.S and assessed telecommunication costs against revenue potentials.
* Oversaw the construction of a state-of-the-art POP and a major backbone bandwidth upgrade in Pittsburgh, dramatically increasing customer connectivity options and the level of regional revenue.
* Filled sales engineer role for high-bandwidth prospects and instrumental in negotiating several high revenue customers representing over $20,000 in monthly reoccurring revenue.
* Oversaw regional team projects documenting "remote hands" procedures for a national disaster recovery initiative, implementing a comprehensive national asset tracking effort and identifying billing discrepancies. Despite challenging morale issues, my team was recognized for prompt completions of these tasks.

Manager, Network Engineering (2000-2002)
Regional network engineering manager leading a team of five network engineers and overseeing operations of more than a dozen POPs in New England, upper State New York, and Pennsylvania. Project manager charged with streamlining operations while enhancing service in my region and in New York City and New Jersey.

* Negotiated competitive contracts with ILEC and CLEC telecommunication carriers for both backbone and customer aggregation circuits.
* Network Engineering's divisional representative on national Sales Exception board, acting a liaison with national sales team and assessing the viability of opportunities outside of the national product book.
* Formulated many procedures for facility closure and customer migration that were incorporated into company's "best-practices" template, including: procedures for notifying customers of network changes; negotiating customer billing issues; handling difficult customers; engineering customer circuit migrations; and coordinating circuit cut-overs with telecommunication vendors.
* Developed highly praised project leadership techniques for guiding a geographically-dispersed team of more than 30 engineering, customer support, communications, legal, real estate, telecommunication provisioning, and sales colleagues through several complex concurrent projects.
* Successfully closed eighteen redundant facilities in Northeastern U.S. on schedule and migrated several thousand customers while safeguarding and augmenting customer revenue.

Senior Network Engineer (1997-2000)
Managed Pennsylvania's portion of national Internet Service Manager and oversaw project merging legacy statewide WAN and customer base into national network and support infrastructure.

* Led negotiation efforts for circuit upgrades and data-center rack space, specified and budgeted high-performance and highly reliable backbone router and switch hardware; collaborated with national backbone engineers to integrated networks on IP level.
* Oversaw a project migrating legacy customer support to national Customer Care call center.
* Sales engineer for new sales force, assisting sales efforts and customizing customer connectivity solutions. Generated and delivered a four-part orientation course on IP networking for new sales team.
* Developed a library of SNMP, encryption, and packet capturing objects supporting Java applications for network and security monitoring.
* Developed, implemented and managed a point-to-point wireless Ethernet product offering cost-effective and carrier-free Internet.
* Awarded "most valuable employee in eastern U.S." for safeguarding customer base during a lengthy and disruptive acquisition process.

PREPNET, Pittsburgh, PA 1995-1997
Network Engineer (1995-1997)
Responsible for operations of a pioneer non-profit ISP WAN connecting almost 250 dedicated customers serving over 500,000 users. Quickly filled engineering role during tumultuous period and provided highly praised on-call customer support.

* Dramatically increased stability, performance, and ROI from aging network equipment and congested links by reengineering statewide WAN, introducing benchmarking and real-time monitoring tools, and upgrading routing protocols.
* Implemented centralized authentication measures and DOS/DDOS filtering techniques. Also devised and implemented automated abuse alert system greatly increasing incident response time. Performed security audit of state-wide WAN identifying and removing vulnerabilities.
* Advised customers on internal network designs and security concerns. Provided 24 hour customer support.
* Developed suite of Perl-based SNMP network management tools, reducing operations costs by simplifying and automating network management and customer support.. Also developed Perl-based packet-capturing, vulnerability testing and web-based database applications.

Network Support Specialist (1995)
System administration for office UNIX and Macintosh LAN. Managed domain name services for over 1,200 customer zones. Provided pre-sales customer support for network design, connectivity, and security issues.

PENNSYLVANIA ECONOMY LEAGUE, Pittsburgh, PA 1988-1991
Systems Administrator / Research Associate
System and network manager for a non-profit public policy consulting organization. Performed staff training, software and hardware need assessments, and general office computer support. Author of a number of public policy studies performing cost analysis and strategic planning for local government agencies in human services, education, public safety, and emergency management.

* Invigorated publication standards by introducing state-of-the-art desktop publishing techniques.
* Automated a procedure to produce individually tailored and graphically illustrated community tax reports for over 400 municipalities.
* Authored a major study of human service delivery in Mercer County, forecasting funding and costs, and recommending strategies for resolving predicted shortfalls.
* Principal researcher and author of a three-volume study of police management trends in Allegheny County.

CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY, Pittsburgh, PA 1985-1988
Programmer/Research Assistant/Teaching Assistant
Programmer for distributed computing historical demographic geographical information system (GIS). Conducted research for projects in both the Department of History and the Graduate School of Industrial Administration (GSIA), focusing on organizational development. Presented lectures and seminars for undergraduate and graduate courses in cultural, social, economic, demographic and local history.

EDUCATION

Ph.D. Candidate, Applied History and Social Science - Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
BA, History - Ball State University, Muncie, IN
BS, Environmental Design in Landscape Architecture - Ball State University, Muncie, IN

CERTIFICATION and PROFFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION HISTORY

Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA), Fortinet Certified System Engineer, Watchguard Certified System Professional, Aventail Certified Professional, Packeteer Certified Expert. Member of Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) Pittsburgh chapter.

Certifications
See above


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