Sr, Manager, PMP

James L. Thompson

*** *. **** **.

Mount Prospect, IL 60056

Cell Phone: 847-***-****

Email: *.********@***.***

Summary:

Senior manager effective in establishing technology direction, implementation of cost effective solutions, and incorporating newer technologies to reduce costs. Can position the organization for a competitive edge through both technical improvements and process-driven change. Experience across a broad spectrum of industries, including research, government, cellular, financial, health care, non-profit, higher education, and on-line media. Leverages years of hands-on experience to knowledgeably manage professional systems staff. Stays abreast of new technology through active participation in professional organizations. MS in computer science, PMP.

Seeking a new position at this time due to recent bankruptcy filing of current employer (Chicago Sun Times) and pending outsourcing.

Objective:

Senior management responsibility over IT services, encompassing hardware infrastructure, software development and development practices.

Most recent applicable experience:

Director of Technology and Infrastructure, American Bar Association, supporting over 1200 employees and 410,000 members, with services that included e-commerce site, member services, and 24x7 availability.

EXPERIENCE

Chicago Sun-Times New Media May, 2008 – Current

Responsible for hiring of all new systems staff for the Interactive Media division of the Chicago Sun-Times. Inherited a mixed, primarily open-source environment suffering from frequent outages and significant downtime. Stabilized the environment, and established inter-departmental interfaces and procedures. The operating environment has significantly matured in the past year, enabling current plans for outsourcing of all infrastructure support. Also served as internal consultant to architect a new million-dollar infrastructure for an integrated classified advertising system serving over 70 publications. Researched most cost-effective solution, designed infrastructure, engaged vendors and negotiated contracts.

IBS – Consultant to startup, Accretive Health, Chicago 2008

Researched and documented state-by-state requirements for protection of personal health information to comply with HIPAA requirements. Recommended and tested encryption solution to meet requirements for all states served by this fast-growing hospital billing service provider.

University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana 2007-2008

Served one-year academic appointment at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, managing a staff of 23 responsible for research and academic infrastructure, including the University's 800-node Turing cluster, staff and student email, and campus Active Directory. Initiatives included virtualization and manageability. Gained acceptance of VMWare standards, and facilitated inter-departmental relationships leading to cooperation on storage and performance

American Bar Association – Director, Technology and Infrastructure 2004 - 2007

The ABA is the world’s largest professional association, with approximately 420,000 members depending on the ABA for their professional web site, email address, e-commerce and continuing education programs. Provide the technical direction for the Association’s infrastructure, currently 200 servers (Windows, VMWare and Solaris), SAN storage, network, security, compliance, disaster recovery and business continuity. Formalized the RFP process for vendor and technology evaluation. Incorporated ITIL and COBIT guidelines in data center procedures, security, configuration management and change control. Reduced server administration effort while simplifying the environment and reducing the operating budget. Server count reduced 33%; SAN storage systems reduced from three to one; Exchange email sites reduced from 3 to 1 by co-locating all email from satellite offices at the Chicago data center; initiated data replication from the primary data center in Chicago to the ABA’s DC office for business continuity. The resulting environment is ideally positioned for outsourcing, currently under contract negotiation. Effectively integrated new technologies, including VMWare ESX 3, and IBM SVC storage virtualization. Recognized, mentored, advanced and hired talented staff.

SunGard Investment Systems – Infrastructure and Platforms Project Manager 2003-2004

Responsible for management of infrastructure and software migration projects, staffing and schedules; architecture of new platforms and infrastructure for business-critical applications with international visibility; identification and remediation of system performance issues; specification and pricing of ISP and end-customer systems, identifying cost-effective price/performance configurations. Prepared and presented customer proposals for new equipment and major upgrades. Prepared and managed project schedules for multi-million dollar upgrades. Identified system installation errors going back several years that contributed to performance degradation and software failures. Coded web-enabled analysis tool that automatically graphs hourly performance data on internal web site (html. Perl cgi script). Extended to system benchmarking to provide graphical and numerical statistics on-demand. Environment included Solaris, IBM 360 connectivity and MTP (mainframe transaction processing system for Solaris and AIX), AS400 and AiX.

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Independent Consultant 2002 – 2003

Worked with client companies to establish web presence, enable remote access and administration for executive and technical staff, provide business continuity and disaster recovery capability, and enhance office workflows by integrating Windows 2000 Server, Microsoft Office Suite applications, QuickBooks, document management systems, backup software, and operational documentation.

MOTOROLA, INC., Arlington Heights, IL 1989 – 2002

Project Manager, Development Manager

• Management of Project Management staff for CDMA base site development teams

• Direct project management for switching, base station and GSM trial releases.

• Management of multiple campus data centers, including facilities, platforms, vendors and staffing.

• Management for internal tools development, including status presentations and project priority negotiation at VP level meetings.

• Project management for multi-site projects spanning 6-24 months with staff in 6 countries including Israel, Poland, Russia, China, India and the US.

• Managed staff supporting Sun network for 24x7 global customer service center that supported Motorola cellular customers world wide, including phone support center and “war room” solution center.

• Reorganized systems support staff into customer-centric teams to better serve the needs of various business organizations.

• Increased department’s engineering staff retention from <75% to 93% through cross training and delegation of vital responsibilities including customer satisfaction, software defect reduction methods.

Systems Management

• Architected and implemented production Sun environment serving 6000 Sun engineering users and 24x7 development and system testing environment, utilizing Auspex and Sun server equipment, routers, microwave and T1 links to corporate network.

• Architected and coordinated network and server improvements for a 10X increase in throughput for the Motorola Software Distribution Services group which produces software media for Motorola customers, without incurring capital expenditures for the project. Planned and conducted all testing and calculations to determine requirements, and presented to director-level management. Utilized SAN and fiber channel scsi technology, connectivity to Windows 2000 Rimage CD duplication equipment.

• Provided capacity planning for engineering and business system users. Performed testing to determine appropriate hardware for special applications.

• Designed and conducted product software build testing to determine effective network configuration for new software build methodology. Implemented for 5X improvement in build times.

• Applied unix system patches, performed kernel modifications and file system tuning.

• Provided backup and business continuity planning for engineering Sun server environment, meeting all contractual requirements for software reproducibility.

Technical Staff:

• Improved performance of the Motorola Digital Message Service product software application by two orders of magnitude through improved error checking and user authentication algorithm.

• Determined cause of chronic system crashes under load. Reduced customer’s downtime by over 90%.

• Conceived and developed automated statistical license-usage reporting system to analyze third-party license utilization and calculate recommended license quantities required to achieve 6-sigma license availability, while reducing individual license costs by up to 80%.

• Investigated and resolved software and system interface problems on site at key customer locations, domestic and international.

• Designed, implemented and taught internal software quality program utilizing ODC (Orthogonal Defect Classification), reducing customer-found defects by 70%.

• Designed and taught product course for field engineering and customer support personnel.

Dean Witter Financial Services, Riverwoods, IL 1986 – 1989

Unix Systems Manager:

• Managed ATT Unix server environment serving Mortgage database and trading floor.

• Planned and executed computer room relocation to new corporate headquarters facility, including all connectivity (T1) to remote locations, mainframe interface, trading floor, development and data entry environments over a weekend, with all facilities operational by Monday morning start of business.

• Saved over $200,000 in development costs by certifying legacy applications on new multi-processor hardware at ATT laboratory, vs. vendor-recommended interim hardware solution.

• Designed and coded user interface for mortgage database and credit card servicing.

• Automated rje-initiated mainframe download of mortgage database transactions for nightly updates to unix system, including EBCDIC-ASCII conversion, eliminating need for operator intervention and courier to transport 9-track tapes.

Gould Research, Gould Ocean Systems, Gould Intelligent Systems, Rolling Meadows, Baltimore and Fairfax

Systems Manager: 1984 – 1986

Responsible for all aspects of systems management for Unix and VMS software and hardware engineering systems, including Gould Powernode (departmental mainframe class) systems running proprietary implementation of Berkeley Unix, Sun Workstations and VAX 11/780 and 8650. Built custom kernels from system source for proprietary unix systems. Trained in kernel and file system debuggers.

Technical Skills Summary: UNIX, Linux, Sun Solaris; Systems management, architecture, capacity planning and performance; C, Perl; SH/KSH/CSH Shell scripting languages; HTML; SQL; Windows 2000/server, XP; LAN and Networking. RUP, Agile Methods, Use Case Analysis, Software Quality Engineering methods, technical writing, customer interaction and presentation skills. Project Management tools and methods. PMP certified.

EDUCATION

MS, Computer Science, DePaul University, Chicago IL

BA, Natural Sciences, minor in Physics and Mathematics, Carthage College, Kenosha, WI

RECENT TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

Solaris Advanced Administration – Sun Microsystems

Advanced Web Design – Harper College, Palatine IL

Perl, Advanced Perl – ACM/Sun

Project Management – ACM/Sun

Professional Organizations

Chair, Association for Computing Machinery, Chicago Chapter 2002-2003

Vice Chair and Program Committee Chair, ACM Chicago Chapter 2001-2002

ACM is the world’s oldest and largest educational and scientific computing society, established in 1947

Member, IEEE and IEEE Computer Society

Member, Chicago Software Process Improvement Network

Member, IT Service Management Forum - itSMF (ITIL)

PMP and Member, Project Management Institute

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