Overall Summary: Mr. Kozak has ** years of experience in leading large national IT Enterprise projects, specializing in diverse security, technical leadership, program delivery, and data center operations. Within these 12 years, four years was involved with telecom. Mr. Kozak is proficient in ServiceNow and in Remedy. Mr. Kozak understands the key ITIL processes established in a data center and the programs that emanate from those processes. Mr. Kozak is thoroughly skilled in Federal data centers. Mr. Kozak is successful in leading, contributing, collaborating, communicating, documenting and delivering results.

Summary of Qualifications

Designed Project Management Professional - PMP #1198923 – expires 7/21/21

Experience with diverse security protection, including Endpoint protection, Firewall, Cloud, Digital and hardening procedures to prevent hacking. Also include active work with Department of Défense (Classified) Cybersecurity initiatives

Led and project manged a 480-person team that provided leadership and operational support for the United States Department of Education. Project Managed subcontracts such as IBM, Akamai, Accenture and General Dynamics Information Technology. Datacenter supported >50,000 users per hour, 24x7x365. This data center is one of the US Government’s largest data centers.

Very heavy experience in waterfall PM at State and Federal Government. Used waterfall techniques for 90% of FAFSA. Also heavily used waterfall techniques for States of Texas, and Oklahoma.

RMA experience at IBM and other companies. Set up depots for RMAs for returns of product and/or repair of product around the world.

Managed delivery teams with network infrastructure and cloud hosting for websites and application system services, including network, datacenter, storage and virtualization.

Lead, project managed and implemented significant data center changes for Bank of America, utilizing Remedy 9 and Remedy 10

Skilled with Configuration Management Data Bases (CMDBs), ITIL processes, ticketing, service desk operations, and SLA delivery to customers

Maintained and built a third-party data library for the use of the United States Government. This library is a key part of US Department of Education.

Implemented, drove and project managed certain aspects of the Service Now Transition from Fujitsu to HCL. This was a very significant piece leading to a successful ServiceNow implementation

Technical Skills

Avaya/Lucent/Cisco VoIP Telephony (2 years)

Cisco Unified Communication (2 years)

Server Upgrades (2 years)

CRM familiarity

Middleware (Wyle) Migrations and Changes (5 years)

ITIL Process Implementation (1 year)

ServiceNow Implementation (1 year)

Cybersecurity Initiatives, including anti-virus, end-point protection, Malware. Also cloud security including hardening rules (5 years)

REMEDY Implementation (3 years)

Mainframe (MIPS) quote understanding (4 years)

Data Migration (3 years)

Significant Excel Usage including VLOOKUP and Pivot tables

Data Center Moves (5 years)

Certifications

PMP #1198923 – expires 7/21/21

ITIL Foundations -- 2012

Education

Bachelor of Science, Engineering, United States Naval Academy

Masters Certificate in Project Management, George Washington University

MBA, Nichols College

Relevant Professional Experience

Blue Cross Blue Shield of NC 1/2018 – 8/2018

Senior IT Program Manager

Work as a Program Manager delivering operational support and technical support for Service Transition from Fujitsu to HCL. Worked in a team driving this transition to immediate change to ServiceNow ITIL Transition.

Transitioned key batch ticketing processes from Fujitsu to ServiceNow for bring up in as short a time as possible. It was important to keep batch processes automated and not be worked manually by the Service Desk

Helped design new services and drove change from Vendor #1 (Fujitsu) to vendor #2 HCL. Drove key ITIL processes like Release Management, Change Management, Hardware asset Management and more be agreed upon and signed off by both HCL and BCBS. Once a process is signed off, it becomes permanent for SLAs.

Managed automated processes, batch processes, and delivered results of each

Implemented eBonding for completion of automated tickets

Automated as many manual processes as possible for immediate presentation to the Service Desk

Utilized bonding initiatives to automate formerly tickets that requires manual manipulation. Examples are Password Reset and new activation of a Service.

Managed all companies’ daily meetings to ensure agreed upon progress was being made to MS Project schedule

Presented Progress of implementation to management on a regular basis and drove new processes like Change, Release, and many more

Implemented data center self-repair tools throughout all BCBS. Name of the tool is iAutomate

Drove completion of a new password reset program for all employees, vendors, and contractors, at BCBS

Negotiated and made changes at 0300 window for implementation of Facets password changes, and for other changes as necessary

Provided support for management throughout all these evolutions, while management was working on other tasks

Served as a ServiceNow Evangelist.

Documented, recorded and presented findings in an easy to follow format used by HCL and BCBS.

Documented, recorded and reported on incident/problem/change management along with the standardization of processes that did use tools like Hardware Asset Management and did use CMDB manipulation as part of the process

Maintained a schedule for all system updates in Dev/Prod. Received change approval weeks in advance

Communicated throughout BCBS to provide video, data sheets, and up to the minute information on changes

Credit Suisse, 12/2016 – 12/2017

Senior IT Program Manager

Primarily responsible for the administration, life-cycle management, and completion of Comprehensive Capital and Analysis Review (9q & 14Q Reports). CCAR is made up of many critical reports and is considered so important to the Federal Government that the CCAR report serves as a “Health of the Bank “report to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Data is gathered from around the world and is compiled and then sent to NYC for final review and submission.

Drove worldwide teams on United States Regulatory (Dodd Frank) 14Q and 9Q runs for the United States Government. Daily, worked with Singapore, India, Switzerland, London and New York to prepare reports

Developed new processes to stop time local equality issues. Switzerland for a time was the only center that could make key changes. That could necessitate an all night North American hold. After process, all teams on an equal footing

Worked with teams to manage to US Government Cybersecurity rules and initiatives driven by the US Security and Exchanges Commission. Important to be sure that banks were emulating SEC required standards. ensuring that proper financial disclosures were being made in an appropriate 14Q CCAR reporting environment

Led teams and reported 9Q and 14Q performance on a twice daily call to New York leadership

Implemented procedures that required use of analysts, programmers, engineers, stakeholders, and more

Leading teams and managing key players (analyst, programmers, customers, engineers, stakeholders, and management).

Qualified pre and post production data to ensure accuracy before final delivery prior to US Government

Drove solutions to Tier 1, Tier2, and Tier 3 tickets. Worked with Service Desk to ensure that all tickets were satisfied per SLA

Complexity of the worldwide runs often required significant weekend and overnight work to ensure run was ready in the morning

Managed very large international teams to ensure accuracy and availability of runs

Responsible for standardizing change management for all regulatory runs. Worked and provided precise coordination between US, Poland, UK, India and Singapore teams

Utilized Agile and Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) to focus on project deliverables

TierPoint, Raleigh NC 06/2016 – 12/2016

Senior IT Program Manager

Provided support to upgrade TierPoint servers and data centers to the TierPoint Cloud. Started Fiber transition at selected data centers for new customers.

Provided data center support for required transitions including fiber, firewall upgrades, and /or build out of totally new spaces for customers

Moved and/or migrated equipment/customers into new spaces within data centers or migrated to brand new data centers

Key responsibility at executive level for program accuracy, P&L, and moves of key equipment

Managed key third party vendors in co-location, install, removal, and data center transformation.

Responsible for data center moves, Data Center migrations and new data efforts at Datacenters across the United States

Worked with project teams to design new data centers in St. Louis and in Seattle

Responsible for daily communication for issues logs, action items, risks logs, and status reports to stakeholders and team members

Liaised cross-functional, international and multi-disciplinary teams to meet project scope on time and within budget

Drove all changes and change management at Senior levels

Manage large internal teams and drive completely new data centers

Worked on Disaster Recovery services for all 34 data centers

Helped design and move new data centers in Dallas and in Seattle

Interfaced with key executives to enhance existing data centers with enhanced backup solutions in HW and in SW

Cisco- Bank of America and State on NC

Raleigh, NC 05/2014 – 06/2016

Senior IT Program Manager

Program Manager responsible for Configuration Management Data Base and for all changes emanating from CMDB. Managed all performance testing for Bank and Cisco and presented results on a weekly basis to very senior Cisco and Bank of America Management. Led several teams throughout these projects.

Implemented unified communications solutions for Cisco and some bank employees as part to the overall Bank of America Contract

Drove delivery teams to deliver “lift and shift” delivery support on Bank of American network in transition from HPE.

Implemented Unified Communications on a project to support the North Carolina Superior Court System

Conducted risk assessments for cybersecurity initiatives within the Bank’s CMBD

Uploaded project phase gate review required documentation in the Project documentation or signed off exceptions from Line of Business to SharePoint sites

Managed CMDB and Remedy Changes from Cisco to Bank and from Bank to Cisco

Drove tools and reported on tools for Bank of America. Tools were performance related tools to monitor performance against SLAa

Responsible for all CMDB activities at the executive level

Used Waterfall techniques to ensure that CMDB and NNMI were completely finished prior to moving to next iteration. Waterfall is in ideal technique for CMDB.

Completely responsible for tools, firewalls, and CMDB

Uploaded project phase gate review required documentation in the Project documentation or signed off exceptions from Line of Business to SharePoint sites

Managed cross platform support services teams for Software Packaging, Image and Patch Management, and antivirus and malware support.

Drove all changes using ticketing and processes using BMC Remedy

Managed Key Accounts like State of North Carolina IT, Administration of the Courts and more to be drive major Cisco proposals for new datacenter designs

Facilitate and formulate the project scope objectives. Implement Cisco IP telephony solutions and project plans thru implementation of Cisco Unified Communication applications including Cisco Call Manager, Unity Voice Mail

Helped organize Splunk standardized tool kits.

Worked with BofA to design Splunk Coordinated dashboard and to agree on Splunk data retention policies.

Worked heavily on firewall changes and advanced firewalls with BofA senior leadership. Also implemented BMC CMDB Cyber Security initiatives including BMC AR System Security and Mid-Tier Security including XSS and another encryption security

Fujitsu, Inc. 12/2013 – 05/2014

Senior Program Manager

Durham, NC

Lead Project manager responsible for moving and migrating Blue Cross Blue Shield data centers in Chapel Hill NC, and in Winston-Salem, NC. Moved two datacenters with zero deficiencies. Also, managed application migrations including Oracle 10.

Moved two very large datacenters from Chapel Hill/Winston-Salem, NC to Dallas Texas. Move and bring up were completely on time

Manage software and infrastructure for Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina (Senior Market)

Develop data center and DR (disaster recovery) moves in support of BCBS

Managed significant deliverables including client interface and proposal development

Lead large cross-functional teams of Fujitsu, BCBS and third-party vendors like BMC, Oracle, Red Hat and others

Used Clarity within the organization to highlight key projects

Iron Data 07/2013 – 11/2013

Senior Program Manager

Managed portal development for three state governments. Worked with states to determine requirements and to begin to deliver initial competencies. Contracts were not obtained by Iron Data. Iron Data is now defunct.

Managed SDLC and Agile software development for states of Rhode Island, Oklahoma, and Colorado

Ensured technical team understanding of documentation and expectations

Developed, Presented, And Defended Program Budget & Schedule as Defined & Tracked

Developed Portal solutions for DMV and Real Estate licensing applications

Managed significant deliverables including client interface and proposal development

Dell Federal Systems 09/2010 – 07/2013

Senior Operations Program Manager (FAFSA)

Senior Program Manager responsible for one of US Government’s largest websites. Program managed and drove change management, cyber security, mainframe upgrades, software library, and a great deal more. Given the size of the project Mr. Kozak daily worked with key managers at Dell and at the United States Government.

Drove process, quality and deploy extremely large Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)program on schedule with no defects through the practice of PMI methodologies; use Microsoft Project and Office as tools, with a strong knowledge of SharePoint, Citrix and mainframe applications.

Managed a total of 400 people on this program. Initiated rollout of new enterprise software solution for sales reporting and software licensing.

The entire project was managed using strict Waterfall techniques to arrive at annual solution for FAFSA. Using waterfall allowed for strict state gate reviews to absolutely prevent the project moving forward until the prior step is completed.

Responsible for all data management services including CMDB installation of CMDB, and data management services for the United States Department of Education.

Managed significant data center deliverables including Mainframe and Server operations and network compliance

Oversaw risk remediation activities for multiple servers in several locations

Developed process documents to ensure policy, standards, and procedures were memorialized in a new enterprise environment.

Led major teams in UNIX/Linux/Virtualization/Network Individuals

Managed major firewall initiatives (proxy and others), endpoint protection, and threat elimination. Implemented Department of Defense (TS) Harden rules to deflect and defeat hacking and malware attempts

Defined project requirements by identifying project milestones, phases, and elements; forming project team establishing project budget

Drove communications between Senior Individuals at US Dept. of Education and executives at Partner companies IBM, Accenture, and General Dynamics

Responsible for 3400 servers, 2 mainframes, and thousands of desktops/laptops

Spearheaded cross-functional initiative to achieve significant growth in OS, including UNIX/Linux, Oracle, Sybase, Red Hat and more. Used Agile techniques to move quickly and decisively into new areas of software development

Drove cross-functional initiative to achieve crisp application development on all platforms

Worked directly with United States Department of Education and IBM, Accenture, General Dynamics to achieve data migration and ultimate success of FAFSA

IBM – Research Triangle, NC State of Texas and Oklahoma 02/2010 - 09/2010

Senior Project Manager

Senior Project Manger responsible for various projects at State of Texas Department of Public Safety. Along with implementing telecommunications, Mr. Kozak implemented numerous IT projects for the Department of Public Safety – Bureau of Prisons.

Managed oversight of the implementation of IT for the State of Texas Department of Public Safety

Worked with Avaya with State of Texas implementing Avaya products

Lead large cross-functional international teams of IBM employees, contractors and subcontractors that operate with 27 State Agencies for licensing applications

Developed, enhanced and promoted internal project management processes, tools, templates, performance metrics and best practices

Implemented sound processes for: facilities construction, physical & virtual servers, Cisco /Avaya telephony, primary and backup data centers, terminal servers, help desk, backup/recovery, disaster recovery, midrange, resources, and processes

Provided regular program and projects status to clients on projects progress, budget, variance and KPI in appropriate formats

FCI Corporation – Falls Church, VA 01/2009 - 01/2010

Senior Program Manager

Program managed classified IT projects for United States Army. These IT projects emanated from the Pentagon and were for front line junior officers in Afghanistan. Mr. Kozak led a cross functional team made up of intra service, and intelligence personnel to deliver projects on time.

Developed, maintained and executed classified programs for the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) that was delivered to combat areas throughout the world.

With focus on Iraq and Afghanistan, provided guidance to Managers in Washington, Baghdad, and Kandahar, among other locations. Some classified work on substations.

Coordinated the development, approval and maintenance of the programs' work breakdown structure and contracting processes for gathering and analysis of earned value and other performance data.

Created functional and technical specification documents and templates and manage the project SharePoint site

Managed vendor relations, budgeting, and resource allocations

Led a cross-functional, international team made up of US Government employees, contractors, and subcontractors and drove these projects to successful completion.

Identified, quantified, and managed all project risks to maintain delivery dates within budgets.

Provided quarterly budget estimate and consolidate project data for program level reporting.

Worked to deliver outstanding forward combat data center performance under Federal regulations.

Managed application development. Applications include Outlook, Exchange, SharePoint and more.

Initiated rollout of new enterprise software solution for US Army and classified resources

IBM Lenovo – Research Triangle, NC 1/2004- 4/2009

Project Manager, Worldwide

Served as a Product Development Team lead (PDT). Responsible for driving a team from initial “back of an envelope idea” for a laptop to completion. Worked with and led cross functional team through gate reviews, financial reviews and more. Traveled and presented in Japan regularly. My x-Series laptop was the cover of Business Week magazine – 2/14/2009.

Responsible for development and introduction of x-Series laptop. X-Series is the highest end performance laptop in the IBM/Lenovo product suite

Managed international team in Japan/US/Scotland/China

Helped set up repair depots in Europe/Asia for RMAs for different types of products. Products include laptops, monitors, etc.

Travel of Israel on 4 occasions for various projects. One project is classified, the other projects were to set up server infrastructure at major Israeli companies. Travel within Israel to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and to Haifa.

Supported major customers and customer locations, becoming the entry-level low-cost leader in the marketplace

Managed projects inter-dependencies, resources, risks, budget to ensure meeting the defined metrics

Identified and selected staff; oversaw shipping function and product groups

Led a cross-functional, international team made up of employees, contractors, and subcontractors

Documented and managed key worldwide stakeholders. Provided worldwide support for key managers. Managed documents and communications worldwide

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