My early career was centered around my family’s hardware store’s in Hastings, MN and Isle, MN. I began counting change back to customers when I was approximately 5 years old (1995). Being part of the family-owned business was a huge part of my upbringing and has lead to extensive customer service experience. When my father purchased Isle Hardware Hank and Rental in Isle, MN, my passion for technology blossomed. During this time, I also consulted for the same point-of-sale vendor that was used in the store as a network and server administrator. My core career focus has been in Systems and Cloud Engineering (2013 – Present) as a Systems Engineer and Cloud Administrator, collectively spanning over 12 years. This work has involved:

• Transition management
  • I was the primary technical lead during the 2024-2025 transition from Gensler to N. Harris Computers
  • Successfully migrated ~40 users/devices from on-prem Active Directory to Intune managed devices with minimal interruption
  • Successfully built and secured new on-premise Active Directory environment.
  • Migrated approximately 15 metal and 150 virtual machines to aforementioned Active Directory domain with no downtime
  • Implemented temporary Active Directory Trust over IPSec VPN
  • Migrated workstations from Microsoft Defender ATP to CrowdStrike Falcon Complete
  • Migrated servers from Microsoft Defender ATP to Crowdstrike/Rapid7 via Ansible playbooks
  • Reimplemented disk to disk backup solution from on-premise NetApp appliance to AWS FSx for OnTAP hosted solution
  • Deployed new dedicated fiber internet and 5G-based backup circuits, along with auto-failover between links in case of outage
• Server and Virtualization Management
  • Managing and maintaining approximately 200 virtual servers on VMware vSphere (versions 5.1 through 8.0)
  • Modern versions of Microsoft Windows Server and Ubuntu/Rocky/Alma Linux.
  • Managing vendor-built virtual appliances (ex. Dell OpenManage Enterprise, ESET Protect)
  • Growing Experience in Docker/Kubernetes deployment and management
    • Includes Containerization of pre-existing legacy applications
  • System monitoring and logging platforms including: Zabbix, ElasticSearch/LogStash/Kabana, Splunk SIEM, LogRhythm SIEM

• Cloud Engineering and Disaster Recovery
  • Managing and administering production and disaster recovery environments at public IaaS provider
  • Stateful management of cloud resources utilizing Terraform & OpenTofu
  • Designing and building secure cloud networks, utilizing Security Hub and Guard Duty, along with the following AWS components:
    • Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), with EC2 & AWS Hosted service endpoints
    • Secure remote access via VPC Transit Gateway with Transit Gateway S2S VPN
      • Utilizing BGP Routing over IPSec
    • Multi-tier hosting architecture (transit/dmz/private tiers)
    • AWS hosted services (Elastic File System, FSx for OnTAP, Relational Database Service (Aurora MySQL/Postgresql), Backup, Elastic Disaster Recovery)
    • Storage Optimization utilizing S3 intelligent tiering & EFS intelligent tiering
    • Implementing comprehensive Web Application Firewall rulesets, along with regex-based exceptions
    • Managing public DNS resolution via AWS Route53 & GoDaddy DNS
    • Purpose-built microservices used to support workflows using AWS Lambda (Mail forwarder in NodeJS, CloudWatch Alarm consumer written in Python)
    • Implementation of best-practice cloud logging standards via AWS Security Hub (AWS CIS Foundational Benchmark, AWS Foundational Best Practices)
    • Ensuring data integrity and security with Elastic Block Storage (EBS) encryption utilizing Key Management Services (KMS) and logically air-gapped backups via AWS Backup
  • Maintain product and system Service Level Agreements by implementing a Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) solutions (CloudEndure, AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery)
  • Expertise in building and managing secure cloud networks at Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure
• Network & Security
  • Proficiency with network infrastructure configuration and management, including:
    • Cisco IOS/iOS-XE, Palo Alto Networks (PanOS), and Aruba AoS
  • Experience on the following network hardware platforms:
    • Cisco C2960x, C3500R+E, C9200(L), C9400R, ASR1001-X, ISR2900, ISR3900, Nexus 3K (iOS-XR), Nexus 9K (iOS-XR)
    • Palo Alto PA-440, PA-850, PA-3200, PA-5200
    • Aruba InstantOS/AoS 8.6, 8.10 (Access points)
    • HP Procurve Managed Switches
    • Ubiquiti Switches and Access Points (via web mgmt and virtual network controller)
• Applications & Support
  • Installing and maintaining enterprise applications include, but not limited to:
    • Microsoft SQL Server 2014/2016/2019/2022
    • MySQL 5.5, 8.0, 8.4 LTS / MariaDB 5.5, 10.x, 11.4 LTS / PostgreSQL 13-17
    • VMware vCenter Server Appliance
    • Proxmox v8/v9
    • Atlassian Jira, Confluence, BitBucket
    • Microsoft Azure DevOps
    • Gitlab Self-Hosted (Community)
    • ESET Remote Administrator/Protect Server
• Programming and Scripting experience
  • Proficient in PowerShell/PowerShell Core
  • Proficient in Bash/Shell scripting
  • Proficient in PHP Programming
  • Proficient in HTML/CSS design
  • Proficient in Terraform/OpenTofu IaC products
  • Proficient in Ansible configuration management and automation
  • Working knowledge with Python, NodeJS, Javascript/TypeScript
  • Knowledge in debugging and fixing of Java, Classic ASP (VBScript), ASP.NET (VB & C#)
  • Educational knowledge in C, C++, Go, Rust