Improved security of the Entra Connect sync servers by ensuring they were properly using dedicated service accounts. Additionally, I ensured the permissions of the other dedicated service accounts were locked down to the least permission necessary.

Rescued the stalled migration of a critical physical on-prem database server after the MAC addressed changed which caused the migration agent to crash due to its utilization of the MAC address to generate the UUID. MAC Address change was caused the active NIC on a bonded interface changing from the secondary back to primary. FIND OUT MORE HERE

Spent countless hours resetting an OKTA AD service account due to it constantly becoming locked out. Ultimately the problem was the OKTA service account was a member of a group that was connected to the Domain Admins group via 3 or 4 nested groups.
FINISH THIS STORY HERE.

Recovered corrupted VMware drives after a prolonged power failure and generator malfunction, diagnosed partial data corruption, repaired corrupt volumes, and reattached volumes to hosts/VMs, and restored the entire environment – averting major business interruption.

NOC Team reported a Sev1 data leak from a vendor. So I recognized the impact and jumped on the task, despite having ZERO experience managing that aspect of AWS file access and permission.
I was able to lock down the inappropriate access in less than 15 minute. READ THE FULL STORY HERE

Resolved multiple vendor-induced firewall misconfigurations that stalled a large-scale server migration project, quickly diagnosing and correcting rule changes to resume operations—preventing extended downtime for migration of critical healthcare software.

This occurred after two separate 3rd party vendors had spend over 3.5 hours trying to resolve the migration failure. I identified the problem and had a resolution implemented in under 1.5 hours.

Parent company had a WordPress website that was not functioning due to a failed update after migrating the server. Other technicians had not handled such a problem. So I volunteered to help and had the website up and running in less than 4 hours despite not encountering that problem before and despite at that time having minimal WordPress experience. This quick resolution prevented enabled the company to retain its new clients and it led to my promotion to Lead Technician and expanded web admin responsibilities.

One year prior to my arrival a vendor had installed a generator and installed outlets in the server closet. The generator was exclusively installed to protect servers, however the previous sysadmin or vendor did not bother to split the power to the server so that it was connected to both the Grid and the generator. I reconfigured the setup for proper redundancy, ensuring uninterrupted power during outages and enhancing system reliability.

While this shouldn’t have to be on the list, I have talked with many individuals who did not realize that power should be split between different power sources, so for that reason alone it is some what notable.
This was not caught earlier while at that employer because the generator had not actually been used until that time.

Improved number of apps connected to OKTA for SSO and increased the number of apps that were properly utilizing SSO with SCIM or oAuth provisioning.
FIND ALL THE DETAILS HERE

Revitalized outdated digital signage system using Ubuntu and the opensource software Xibo, to create a dynamic and up-to-date digital signage system that had more features than the original had. Including live weather updates, live twitter feed from school news crew, integrated google slideshow, and a much smoother and more user-friendly UI.

This deployment enabled the revival of old hardware that a vendor had ceased support for and saved the district thousands of dollars by preventing them from needing to purchase new hardware for a new digital signage system.

Fixed a conditional access error* caused by security enabling an untested conditional access policy on the user device level and the Entra Connect sync user for one of the domains having insufficient privileges, caused by the msds-KeyCredentialLink attribute to not being writable.
The security team had enabled Entra Seamless SSO and had blocked unmanaged devices from accessing Office.com.
*NOTE: 2-3 other team members had spent over a month working on this with no improvement.

Enhanced server reliability by configuring high availability (HA) and automation in VMware vSphere, reducing downtime and ensuring seamless failover for critical business applications—achieving near-perfect uptime in a demanding manufacturing setting.

Customer bought in a Mac that had important family photos and tax documents on it. The mac would not boot and the Apple Genius bar told them it was “impossible” to recovery the data from the Mac. Customer bought it to me, then using a Live Boot Linux USB I pulled all of the desired data off, despite the Mac not booting to the OS. This success launched new data recovery services at MichianaPC, demonstrating my ability to solve hardware-level issues where certified experts failed, ultimately boosting customer trust and store revenue.

Despite my inexperience, I had the CIOs seal of approval to continue to manage the Salesforce environment of over 250 people. I had assumed the administrator position when the tickets for Salesforce support started to flood in shortly after we had adopted the software and just after we ended our relationship with the Salesforce vendor for consistent failure to meet deliverables.

I managed the platform troubleshooting various problems, created sandbox environments (all of which were linked to our SSO), set up various integrations, and resolved permissions issues significantly before the Salesforce support engineers at multiple levels could even point me in the right direction, even after days of communication.

Mapped major processes, providing the first clear view of data flow in 10 years.

Analyzed available password management solutions by developing a weighted scorecard system that quantified subjective criteria (ease of use, vendor responsiveness, integration capabilities, cost-benefit ratios) into objective measurable metrics.

Built Excel-based evaluation framework with formulas that weighted features by organizational priority, enabling objective comparison across otherwise qualitative vendor strengths and weaknesses. Conducted initial large-scale testing to validate scoring model predictions against real-world performance before final selection.

NOTE:
Figures shown are conservative estimates. Some projects achieved an additional 5-18% in savings. Most calculations are for 1 year of savings despite providing ongoing cost saving benefits. Detailed calculations are found in the “Details” section of each project.

In under 2 hours, I determined the root cause and developed a solution for an unexpected AppLocker issue that was bricking 100+ devices. I solved this faster than Microsoft’s official level 2 / level 3 support. The cause was a conflict between AppLocker and an improperly tested browser control mechanism that a coworker pushed out via a 3^rd party MDM tool.  READ THE FULL STORY. 

Built scripts to automate SOX compliance reporting (primarily concerning Active Directory group membership) reducing report creation time by nearly 97% (from 20 minutes to 30 seconds)

Completely updated and redesigned neglected TV studios that were still using equipment from the 1980’s. Now studios are using Full HD 1080p streaming content over IP video feeds with audio and video mixing, overlays, and pro quality mics. Was able to keep cost low, doing the whole project for < $160,000, which shocked the school board because they thought that was $150,000 per TV studio, which they were originally ready to approve anyways.

This initiative enhanced educational broadcasting for PHM Schools, fostering student engagement and demonstrating strong project management skills that saved over 65% compared to vendor quotes.

While some technicians will hide their mistakes I try to be transparent so that I have a high degree of trust with my team and any supervisors.

So when I made a change early Friday morning that accidently broke user VPN login for half of the company on the west coast, I confessed and rushed to repair the problem. I was grateful that most West coast employees would not be online for another 2-3 hours.

What Happened

I had made a change to user login attributes in what I thought was the demo environment but was actually the productions SSO environment. This caused usernames in active directory to change and the VPN relied on that username to verify users. So when users tried to user their normal username the VPN couldn’t not find them.

But I put together a plan and restored the usernames in a matter of hours and implemented safety checks to prevent this from happening in the future.

In total we had a small number of people (around 20 to 30) who were unable to login to the VPN, but otherwise they were able to access other core systems. My quick thinking and problem solving skills allowed me to restore systems back to normal by the time the Sales team finished lunch.

Created all scripts necessary to deploy a scalable implementation of Zabbix in a high demand cloud environment with custom Zabbix apps and custom micro apps and scripts for Linux that were built to interact with our custom inhouse applications. This was an essential piece that helped to enable our environment to migrate both our production and development environments away from Docker images to an Infrastructure as code solution.

The automation reduced new server deployment time from 4 hours to 15 minutes, allowing proper monitoring for core and edge systems for an IT environment that serves millions of users globally every day.

Fixed an Entra Connect Sync issue that was preventing 40 machines from enrolling into Intune properly. The issue was caused by the Sync service user having insufficient permissions to modify the msds-ConsistencyGUID AD attribute. Others had spent over 18 hours troubleshooting with no progress CONTINUE THE STORY HERE to find out how I solved this problem almost instantly.

A remote employee’s VPN connection kept failing despite 5+ hours of troubleshooting by Level 2 and Level 3 technicians who tried everything.
When I learned where the user lived, I immediately recognized an unusual pattern and taught the Help Desk something they will never forget.
FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED HERE.

Overcame resistance to reconfigure a vulnerable flat network where POS systems shared segments with production machinery, implementing VLAN segmentation despite an “expert” vendor’s assurances of there being no risk. READ MORE HERE

Orchestrated redesign of 15+ websites for a large school district, managing vendors for theme migration from WordPress to Drupal, coordinating stakeholder input, and implementing features like responsive web design, LDAP integration, improved content management, and more user friendly admin interface.

This involved change management, vendor management, and managing a wide variety of expectations and concerns from various staff and school administrators.

Initial discussions started in March 2014 and culminated in a massive redesign of the district website in August 2014.

This was followed by other school specific websites being updated throughout the school year with most being completed by Friday, January 2, 2015. Just in time for students and families be greeted by a beautiful new website after Christmas break.

Created a reporting script to show user & group access to folders & shares. Had developed plans to enable the script to automatically run and automatically send the results in an email, when triggered by receiving an email from the reporting team.

Initiated company domain prep for Intune enrollment, a stalled goal for 3-4 years.
FIND THE WHOLE STORY HERE

Resolved a Sev2 data sync issue for Entra Connect in less than a day. The problem was caused by the security team having excessive permissions to the production Entra / Intune environment and they then consequently enabled policies that killed multiple Entra connected services due to improper permission scoping.

Initiated auto pilot prep via creating enrollment script and autopilot profile setup

Created policies and Intune apps to enable the automatic distribution of key software such as the security suite, teams, Chrome, etc.
FIND THE WHOLE STORY HERE