Customer Service Project Manager

Gerard D. Cassano

* ********* *****

Simpsonville, SC 29680

864-***-**** (H)

214-***-**** (C)

*************@*****.***

Qualifications Summary

Extensive experience in Information Technology from both the pure technical

and technical support aspects. Further business experience developed as the

owner/operator of a small franchise. I am a leader; with proven abilities

in resolving critical issues, increasing sales, enhancing productivity and

building productive relationships with clients and end users. Excellent

communications, analytical, organizational skills and the ability to work

with new products from their manuals.

Key Competencies include: Product Demonstrations, Installations,

Maintenance, and Upgrades - Customer Relations and Support - Trade Shows

and Conferences - Account Management - Project and Program Management -

Systems Analysis and Diagnostics - Vendor Liaison - Processes and

Procedures - Quality Improvements - Staff Supervision, Training and

Development

Professional Experience

Sykes Corporation Contractor

4/2009 - 5/2010

Greenwood, South Carolina

Blackberry Technical Support and Order Manager Workload Reduction

Specialist

Initial Project; contract position to provide technical support for users

of Blackberry Smartphone devices and supporting systems, this is a pilot

project to see if outsourcing contract support will work for Sykes and the

RIM.

> Participating in the pilot training program for this role.

Technical support desk resolving issues with:

Blackberry handheld devices: device activation,

send and

receiving of emails, problems involving function

and features

Blackberry Enterprise Server: support for problem

resolution,

installation, upgrades, and general usage

Blackberry Enterprise Server: interfacing with

Microsoft's

Exchange Server and Active Directory

Recalled by Sykes: Order entry management / team

coordinator to ensure orders are

processed correctly to provide a smooth transition from

one provider of telephone(VOIP)

and internet service to another. Hired to assist with

the reduction of a large back log of

incomplete and/or incorrect work orders. This is a

short term project, with a

very high visibility rating. The project involved the

reduction of over 2ooo orders in

excess of 200 days old through cancellation or

completion. Upon completing this project,

the contract was extended to allow us to drive another

two thousand orders to completion.

Phillips Staffing 9/2008 - 2/2009

Greenville, South Carolina

Customer Service Representative

Phillips Staffing provides temporary personnel to assist corporations in

time of need.

> Work with other CSR's to update, track production and delivery of

essential orders

> Communicate finding to CSR's and sales via Excel Spreadsheets,

Email and/or telephone

> Working SAP systems to verify, and analysis information

> Assists in database cleanup, review past records and close work

request where possible.

Suddenlink Communications 4/2007 - 3/2008

Tyler, Texas

Technical Support II - CSR

Suddenlink is a provider of Cable TV, High Speed Internet Access and

Telephone Services using Voice over IP protocol.

> Respond and resolve technical issues involving cable, telephone and

internet access

> Handle billing issues on occasion

> Provide customer support and satisfaction

> Assisted other CSR's with problem resolution

> Provided technical support to customer's with connectivity issues

involving MS Windows and Mac operating systems.

> Assisted users with setup of routers, email and general

understanding of Windows applications

> Backup support for commercial accounts after normal business hours

Super Suppers Franchise 5/2004 - 3/2007

Longview, Texas

Owner / Operator

Super Suppers was created to meet the demanding needs of busy parents who

want to provide their families with healthful, delicious meals at home. Our

mission was to get the family back to the dinner table - one meal at a

time. We handled the shopping, chopping and mopping for you. When you

visited us you prepared 1 to 12 delicious, chef-designed entrees to take

home, freeze and cook when desired.

> Product preparation

> Provide introduction and assistance to customers

> Setup, breakdown and clean equipment and store

> Maintain inventory

> Conduct introductory meetings, host private parties

> Marketing and advertisement

> Customer Service

> Work with vendors and outside contractors

BEA Systems 12/1997 - 3/2004

Lewisville, Texas

Sr. Systems Engineer - Presales / Consultant

BEA Systems offered the following products: TUXEDO, MessageQ, Liquid Data

and the WebLogic family (server, integration, portal and platform).

Providing infrastructure for building applications, integrating third party

applications or legacy systems and using portals to display environment to

clients. Systems were designed using JAVA (J2EE compliant) with WebLogic or

Procedural (C, C+ or COBOL) using TUXEDO. Primary duties were to provide

customer service and technical support for clients and sales.

> Provide technical support for inside and / or outside sales teams

by conducting presentations, training and demonstrations of all

products

> Product specialist for installation and presenting BEA mainframe

integration products, interfacing with both CICS and IMS

Was instrumental in finalizing acceptance of our product with the

client's mainframe group, by presenting a detailed presentation on

the

integration methods used and there effect on CICS. This contract

was worth over one million dollars in licensing fees.

> Participate in formalization of responses to clients request for

information (RFI) or purchase (RFP).

> Technical account manager, acting as liaison between BEA and client

> Assisted clients with problem resolution, training and support

escalation

> Data analyst for integration of systems

> Work with other vendors / partners to coordinate software

resolutions and meet project requirements

> Worked with Microsoft applications such as Word, Excel and Power

Point

> Installed WebLogic on multiple platforms UNIX, Windows and

Mainframe

> Installed TUXEDO on UNIX platforms

MCI Systemshouse LTD. 1/1995 - 11/1997

Dallas, Texas

Team Manager CICS Systems Programmers

Systemshouse provided outsourcing of data center resources. My position was

to manage the team of CICS Systems Programmers: we installed, updated,

tuned and maintained several hundred CICS regions. Regions covering

releases of 1.7 to 4.1, located in two data centers (Dallas and LA) each

running multiple applications and software packages.

> Installed, maintained and provided problem resolution on several

hundred CICS regions

> Team leader responsible for projects and personnel management

> Project leader (CICS) doing due diligence and data center

relocations

Participated with the team that worked on incorporating the second

datacenter into our environment; after inclusion of the new center,

I worked with my CICS team member, located in LA, to develop and re-

train two IDMS Systems Programmers in CICS. This saved us having to

hire new personnel to accommodate the greater workload, with an

estimated cost savings of eighty thousand dollars by not having to

hire additional Senior CICS Systems Programmers.

> Ensured all systems met or exceeded client service level agreements

(SLA's)

> Online Systems performance, tuning and analysis

> Provided training fro new products and applications for both staff

and end users

> Selected, installed, maintained and utilized third party software

and tools using standard JCL or SMPE installation procedures

> Online systems JAD team representative for development of project

standards, design and objectives

> Interviewed and worked with software vendors to ensure project

requirements are satisfied

> Managed VSAM dataset allocation, backup and recovery

> Maintained JCL and Proc's for on-line and batch systems

> Interfaced with DB2, IMS and IDMS database teams

> Data analyst for integration of data to our systems

> Disaster Recovery Team member

> Level 4 Help Desk support for applications, systems and users

Aviall, Inc. 6/1984 - 1/1995

Dallas, Texas

Sr. CICS & VTAM Systems Programmer

Aviall is a leader in the aviation industry providing terminal services,

part distribution and aircraft maintenance facilities. The data center

provided all services for both business and manufacturing segments of the

corporation.

> Upgraded shop from a batch and TOTAL database environment to

CICS and DB2 environment

> Provided problem resolution to both system and application type

failures

> Part of disaster recovery team, in both planning and implementation

phases

Following Hurricane Andrew; I was part of the a recovery team sent

to Ryder's (parent company) recovery site; using only their

documentation and procedures to setup and operate the temporary

datacenter, until the Miami location could come back on-line. We

were ready to take over operations within forty eight hours of

having been requested to do so; this recovery was accomplished

through documentation that we had never view before.

> Provided training for new products and in-house developed software

to both systems and end users

> Ensured access for worldwide users by maintaining a 99%

availability on all regions and network

> Online Systems (CICS & VTAM) performance, tuning and analysis

> Online systems JAD team representative for development of project

standards, design and objectives

> Provided Level 4 support for end users, applications and systems

> Upgraded and instituted new procedures for efficient work

environment

> Assistant Project manager developing and / or modifying on-line

applications and systems

> Vendor (3rd party software) interface to verify that the new

software will meet our requirements

> Installed, tested, maintained and conducted training on 3rd party

software using standard JCL or SMPE installation procedures

> Responsible for final test and approval of all new or modified

application programs prior to production implementation

> Backup support for MVS Systems

> Maintained and assisted applications group with JCL and Proc's for

online and batch systems

> Defined and maintained VSAM datasets used in batch and online

systems

Region Ten Educational Service Center 5/1981 - 6/1984

Richardson, Texas

CICS Systems Programmer

Region Ten provided a complete line of special services to several North

Texas Independent School Districts. Included in these services were the

data center to process applications such as payroll, student records,

general accounting and other services related to school administrative

systems.

> Installed and maintained test and production CICS Regions

> Administered system table updates

> Installed and maintained third party products and provided on-call

systems support

> Worked with applications, vendors and end-users on new project

standards and objectives

> Worked with applications department to test and debug new and

modified applications

> Coded and debugged applications and system exits in both COBOL and

Assembler

> Worked with text editors TSO and Roscoe

Education

Grumman Institute of Technology 9/1977 - 6/1979

Syosset, New York

> Computer programming and operation technology

Collin County Community College (Continuing education)

Plano, Texas

> Introduction to JAVA Programming

> Project Management Certificate Series

References Provided Upon Establishment of Mutual Interest

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