Summary

I have been in my current role since October of 2020. In this role I lead a team of server administrators that are responsible for virtual server deployments and the on-premises virtualization environment to support enterprise applications at The George Washington University (GWU). My team supports over 200 services for GWU either by managing the servers, providing techincal support for applications, or knowledge transfer and training if required. The team is also responsible for managent of GWU’s GitHub Enterprise for Education offering, managed file transfer through Axway’s Secure Transfer, and backend mail services.

I’ve helped the team migrate some impactful changes to both their workflows and the IT infrastructure for the University. We’ve combined separate Windows and Linux team members to a common server administration team. We’ve migrated many of our on-premises workloads to AWS. While lift and shift has been the order of the day, we’ve made adaptations to service delivery in the way of removing unneeded servers and performance tuning along the way. AWS’ native optimization and automation are next steps.

For those next steps, I’ve worked to help my team acquire the base skills needed to transition away form click-ops to infrastructure as code. 90% of my team is certified with GitHub Foundations. At the end of 2025, that same percentage will be certified with GitHub Actions. These fundamental skills position them to quickly adapt to any cloud provider changes.

From 1994 until transitioning to my new role, I’ve worked at GWU in various systems administration roles, each with increasing levels of responsibility. I began my career as a student worker doing desktop support and my last individual contributor role was as team lead for GWIT’s Unix/Linux team.

Employment

Manager of Server Administration October 2020 - Present

Platform and Cloud Computing, GWIT The George Washington University

Systems Engineer February 2016 - September 2020

Senior Information Systems Coordinator April 2013 - February 2016

Analyst, User Technical Support February 2012 – April 2013

Systems Engineering Services, GWIT The George Washington University

  • Initiated the expanded use of Puppet to support applications administered by the mail, desktop support, web services, and the research computer teams
  • Created automation/DevOps pipelines with Jenkins and Gitlab CI/CD to support Puppet and AWS deployments
  • Regularly mentor and coach staff on DevOps tools, such Git, Puppet, scripting, and CI/CD pipelines
  • Created and updated system deployment standards to improve the efficiency of the process and expediency of delivery
  • Led the search for and subsequent usage meetings for a cloud deployment tool, working around budgetary restrictions to deploy the group’s first cloud service (Confluence)
  • Authored Puppet Modules to support AWS deployments, including patching, user management, mail, and network component management
  • Hosted bi-weekly automation meeting to support the effort to integrate upgraded versions of hypervisor, network management, and system configuration (VMware, Ipam, Puppet)
  • Documented and provided training materials for new workflows and to allow application owners insight into processes to improve integration and eliminate bottlenecks in current workflows

Analyst, User Technical Support July 2006 - Feb 2012

Customer Support Services, Division of IT The George Washington University

  • Lead engineer for team supporting 75 Linux servers running Apache, MySQL, DHCP, and system monitoring services
  • Successfully created and implemented standards for deployment, monitoring, and reporting to assist the team in server administration (VMware and Linux)
  • Supported Apple servers used in creating, maintaining, and deploying workstation images on Apple Computers.
  • Created and maintained the standard Apple workstation image for Staff and Faculty
  • Maintained documentation platform (MediaWiki)

Systems Specialist November 1999 – September 2006

Student Academic Support Services (SASS) The George Washington University

  • Linux server administration including for divisional websites and custom application development.
  • Assisted with maturing the development process for web application developers, introducing test and development environments
  • Created and coded internal ticketing system for desktop support group with PHP and MySQL for desktop support group
  • Primary support for mail, dns, version control, monitoring, and system backups for the division
  • Supervised student workers and managed day-to-day technical support operations
  • Mentored student supervisor’s in IT processes and procedures

Student Computer Technician September 1995 - November 1999

Student Academic Support Services (SASS) The George Washington University

  • Provided field and phone support of Windows as well as user management in eDirectory/LDAP.
  • Support of student computers for newly wired residence halls on campus, including creation of technical documentation for use by residents and other support staff
  • As a senior student employee I began to manage Linux web servers(apache) that provided a platform for the division’s web developers

Professional Certification History

Skills/Tools I’ve Used

  • Platforms/Applications: Linux, Puppet, Terraform, Jenkins, GitLab with CI/CD, GitHub, Packer, Git, AWS, VMware, Nagios XI, Spacewalk/RedHat Satellite, Confluence
  • Programming Languages: Puppet, Bash, php, some Perl, some Python. Ada, Java, C, C++ used while seeking undergraduate degree

Education

The George Washington University Washington, D.C.

Bachelor of Science, Computer Science May, 2001