Proven Technical Leader 🫡
From assisting CCIE candidates with hands-on lab work to managing a global team, I've held almost every role related to technical services. When I joined Uplogix in 2006, I became the first member of their 24/7/365 paid technical support team. Over the years, as we grew, I trained new employees and established a preferred way of helping our customers. As a Lead, Manager, and eventually, Director, I was responsible for setting the tone of Uplogix Support.
My approach involves creating efficient processes, fostering excellent written communication skills, and prioritizing customer satisfaction. To support the team, I built custom web applications and integrated tools like Zendesk, Jira Service Desk, and HelpScout to keep our customer satisfaction rate above 95% during my tenure. This led to a 90%+ renewal rate for paid support, providing almost $5m in ARR.
Disciplined Technical Writer đź“ť
My experience as a technical writer began out of necessity when Uplogix lost its dedicated technical writer, and I stepped in to fill the gap. Since then, I have written and maintained a wide range of documentation, including User Guides, Setup Guides, Command References, and Knowledge Base articles. My BA in English has been invaluable in this role, enabling me to communicate complex technical information in a way that is both understandable and accessible.
My goal was not only to write great documentation but also to provide the technical services team with easily referenced articles that they could share with customers, which reduced the amount they had to write in ticket response and allowed them to respond faster.
đź”— Writing Samples
Senior Systems Administrator đź’»
I have extensive experience in systems administration, particularly in deploying and maintaining LAMP stacks for web applications. I can quickly set up and configure a Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP environment. Ubuntu is my preferred Linux distribution due to its ease of use, stability, and large community support. I also have experience with RedHat, CentOS, and Debian. Whether working on the command line or clicking around in Windows, I’m equally comfortable managing system configurations, troubleshooting issues, and optimizing server performance.
Expert Technical Instructor 👨‍🏫
One of the things we liked to say at Uplogix was we don't sell tools; we sell toolboxes. While our products could do a million amazing things, customers sometimes felt overwhelmed by trying to figure out how our appliances worked rather than focusing on what problems they were trying to solve. That's where customer training came into play. Training not only empowers users to fully leverage the products and services they've purchased, but it also establishes us as subject matter experts in various technologies.
Throughout my career, I've developed comprehensive training programs for groups large and small in both online and in-person settings. The goals of these programs were to educate the user, demonstrate our consultative worth, and ensure our products become the standard in their networks.
I particularly enjoyed face-to-face training with customers, which allowed me to build lasting, personal relationships. Good training is just the beginning of a long period of cooperative work with the customer.
Self-Taught Full-Stack Developer ⚙️
Let me be clear: I am not a software developer. I am, however, fond of automating complex tasks. When I joined UT System as a college student, I was part of a 10-person team responsible for looking at a calendar and routing video streams for long-distance learning classes. Over time, I realized that I could write some code that would pull the class schedule from an Oracle database, figure out the best route for the video, and then log into various DACS (Digital Access Cross-Connect System) servers via Telnet to make the appropriate connections. My program worked flawlessly, saving UT System over $25,000 in proprietary software and eliminating all student positions.
That program, lovingly called DAXinator, was written in Java, which I found overpowered for my later needs. Eventually, I discovered the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) and learned to build dynamic web applications quickly. Over the years, I've refined my skills in all aspects of the LAMP stack and added other technologies like APIs, JSON, cURL, jQuery, and Bootstrap. Today, I can rapidly and efficiently create robust, user-friendly web applications that are fast, process-focused, and scalable.
