Project Manager Engineer

THOMAS POTEMPA

***** *. *********** **** - ****** Park, IL 60467

708-***-**** (Home) - 847-***-**** (Cell) - ********@*******.***

Director of Technology

Infrastructure & Telecommunications Management - IT Strategic Planning

Multi-Site Operations Management - Merger & Acquisitions Integration -

Vendor Management

Project Management - Budget Management - Organizational Staff Planning

Director of Technology professional with 20 years experience in

design and delivery of high performance technology, cost effective

solutions and proactive support methodologies. Accomplished Manager in all

areas of IT; including Data Center Management, Service Desk Management,

execution of strategic ideas and creation of cost reducing solutions to

meet budget reduction initiatives. Experienced with skills to integrate

multiple organization personnel and infrastructure equipment into existing

environment, as well as implement domestic and international day-to-day

management and support structure.

Key Core Competencies:

. Leadership - Direct and lead Network Infrastructure,

Telecommunications, and Service Desk and Data Center Operation teams

in day-to-day 24/7 service and support, proactive management while

meeting service level agreements.

. Team Building - Build team unity with creating career development

path, offering formal and in-house training and providing "team"

atmosphere creating efficient staff and increasing overall team

performance.

. Technical Experience - Lead by example management philosophy given

extensive technical and management expertise and knowledge. Currently

manage but also support day-to-day activities of voice and data

infrastructure for 55 locations globally.

. Budget Management - Drove and negotiated a number of initiatives that

provided costs savings on infrastructure and telecommunications

contracts/solutions each providing overall cost reductions in the

range of 15%-20% annually.

. Business and Customer Relations - Understand business requirements

and ability to set reasonable service level expectations. Experience

improving and streamlining processes by creating IT Service catalog

and introducing ITIL incident management solutions to improve

customer service levels.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

A.M. Castle & Co., Franklin Park, IL 2000 to Present

A.M. Castle & Co. is a provider of metal specialty products, services and

supply chain solutions operating in more than 55 locations throughout North

America, Europe and Asia with sales averaging $1.5 billion annually.

Director of Technology (2007 to Present)

Direct IT infrastructure, Telecommunications, Service Desk and Data Center

Operations resource planning, budgeting and operational initiatives for

centrally located corporate shared services IT Department. Currently

providing day-to-day incident management support for 1500 employees,

domestically and internationally. At this time, managing 17 local and 4

remote IT professionals. Directly manage the staff and processes required

to provide an effective technology development, implementation,

enhancements and support for mission critical infrastructure.

THOMAS POTEMPA

. Coordinate infrastructure assessment for Oracle ERP replacement

project, identifying multiple hosting providers and performing

review of costs, solutions and services provided in addition to

conducting client survey evaluations. Once complete, present ERP

Steering Committee with suggested hosting provider comparison with

selection recommendation.

. Own relationship and supervision for managed and hosted Oracle ERP

infrastructure environment at multiple remote third party

facilities. This includes disaster recovery solution providing

geographical redundancy and replication.

. Manage IT Infrastructure and Communications budget of over

$2,000,000 for the entire organization while actively reviewing

and providing costs savings initiatives and reducing overall

spending.

. Administer integration and migration of business systems and

infrastructure of 8 facility organization attained through

acquisition. This includes all voice, data infrastructure,

applications and personnel (Data Center consolidation, over 40

servers, migration of iSeries and Cisco equipment integration and

conversion from one provider MPLS network environment into our

existing environment).

. Overhauled the corporate server and PC solutions with creating

hardware standards and replacing these corporate wide increasing

overall response time and performance in local and remote

facilities

. Lead Infrastructure, Data Center Operations, Service Desk and

Telecommunications projects and day-to-day services and support

for entire organization 55 locations, domestically and

internationally.

. Participate in developing new IT strategy to meet new business

requirements and provide plan to align with new Corporate shared

services philosophy and changing business objectives.

. Negotiated telecommunications contract renewal providing cost

reduction of over 21% costs savings and providing over $200k

annual savings. Instituted consolidation and contract renewal for

corporate fleet of multifunction devices providing costs savings

of over $4k per month in services and supplies.

. Re-negotiated third party contract providing 11% costs savings per

month on outsourced services and $55k annual cost savings.

. Created IT scorecard for business view into monthly status of IT

budget and financial spending, support level metrics and system

infrastructure performance metrics.

Network/Telecom Manager (2003 to 2007)

Oversee Infrastructure, Telecommunications, and Service Desk and Data

Center teams and projects. Manage 13 IT professionals and outsourced

resources.

. Designed, Project Managed and Implemented Cisco Call Manager VOIP

and Unity voicemail installation project for 30 locations, in

addition to replacing legacy point to point WAN network and legacy

PBX voice system. Migrated 28 facilities from Token Ring to

Ethernet providing voice and data redundancy while entire voice

and data upgrade project provided business an overall costs

savings of $5 million dollars over the course of 5 years.

. Executed business initiative of Sarbanes Oxley compliance,

identifying and creating IT general controls to meet full

compliance with external auditors. In addition, created and

instituted corporate security policy in compliance with internal

and external auditors.

. Consolidated Network and Telecommunications Departments into one

cohesive team providing cross-training, improved services levels

and growth and development path for staff creating unified and

healthy working environment.

THOMAS POTEMPA

Sr. Network Engineer/Network Supervisor (2000 to 2003)

Lead IT infrastructure improvements by implementing new technologies and

tools to improve overall management and administration of Network

environment.

. Managed, administered and supported Novell server environment.

. Implemented Microsoft Windows domain and application servers.

. Project managed and instituted corporate wide Internet solution

using AT&T Managed Internet services, including T1 circuits,

content filtering and management solutions and firewall solutions.

Provided cost savings of 24% annually and stability in Internet

accessibility and management for organization.

. Replaced outsourced wide area network management and

telecommunications support with in-house support staff and tools

reducing costs and improving system stability, service resolutions

and performance of the WAN and LAN infrastructure.

. Implemented HP Open View Network Node Manager, streamlining the

day-to-day management of LAN/WAN devices and improving service

response levels by over 50%.

TriCor Technologies Inc., Oak Forest, Illinois 1998 to 1999

Started up consulting firm providing LAN/WAN network services and support

for several business organizations in Chicagoland area. Shared

responsibility for day- to- day activities to conduct business including,

pre and post sales, responding to client RFP's and/or RFQ's for customer

infrastructure and application projects. Provided services and support to

businesses allowing them to focus on their business while we managed

infrastructure and applications.

Principal Owner - Project Manager - Sr. Network Engineer

One of three principal owners of consulting firm providing infrastructure

and applications services, support and project specific implementations

. Installed, designed, supported and planned network LAN/WAN

infrastructure for over 15 different customers.

. Answered and created initial proposal and scope of work, providing

design, costs for labor, services and infrastructure equipment.

. Marketed Pre- and Post-Sales Engineering.

. Project managed implementation and support projects for several

customers.

. Deployed/implemented best practices and experiences with clients.

Other positions held:

Project Manager/Senior Network Engineer, Convergence Technologies,

Oakbrook, Illinois

Senior Network Engineer, Interstate Insurance, Chicago, Illinois

Senior Network Engineer, United Insurance/Unitrin Inc., Chicago, Illinois

EDUCATION

Bachelor of Science in Technical Management, DeVry University (Tinley Park,

Illinois) - 2008

Fundamentals of ITIL Certification, Help Desk Institute (Chicago, Illinois)

- 2007

Associate of Applied Science in Electronics, DeVry Institute of Technology

(Chicago, Illinois) - 1989

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