Linux/Unix systems administrator with extensive production experience, including
globally distributed ESPN/Disney web infrastructure and a high-volume transactional
platform running 200+ VMs in colocation. On-call in every role, using monitoring and
automated recovery to make after-hours pages rare.
Skills
Linux & Unix: Ubuntu, Debian, RHEL/CentOS, Rocky Linux, SUSE, FreeBSD, systemd, SSH, Bash, log and performance analysis, troubleshooting
Patching & Software Management: apt/dpkg, yum/rpm, package and software lifecycle, OS major-version upgrades, PXE/kickstart provisioning, server rebuilds and re-imaging
Contract Systems Engineer (project-based) — Private Client
2023 – Present · Remote
Administer a private client's Proxmox VE environment remotely: rebuilt the host on Proxmox VE 8, built its Debian and Windows guest VMs, and handle ongoing patching, troubleshooting, and changes.
Performed major-version upgrades of the host (Proxmox VE 8 to 9) and Debian guest VM (12 to 13), along with Fail2ban host hardening and a GRUB/EFI boot repair.
Guided on-site hardware changes remotely, including a dual-port PCIe NIC, NVMe relocation, BIOS configuration, and a JetKVM remote console, and brought the environment back into service after the client's relocation.
Independent Infrastructure Projects
2022 – Present · Ormond Beach, FL
Troubleshoot Linux, network, storage, virtualization, and service failures using logs, packet capture, and system tools; document failure modes, verification steps, and recovery procedures.
Maintain Ansible playbooks configuring all six hosts in the environment (k3s, PostgreSQL, Icinga2, and a cloud-hosted Nginx reverse proxy) from a single Git-managed repository (homelab-automation).
Built a hot-standby Kea DHCPv4 HA pair (Kea 3.0, Rocky Linux 9, PostgreSQL) across two Proxmox hosts, with configs in Git, a drift check, and a scripted failover test measuring ~58 s failover and verifying lease sync.
Built off-site restic backups from TrueNAS to Oracle Cloud over a WireGuard overlay, with tiered daily/weekly/monthly retention and scheduled full-data integrity checks (restic check --read-data).
Migrated approximately 30 TB of storage from mdadm RAID5 to TrueNAS SCALE with a ZFS RAIDZ1 pool using PCIe SATA passthrough under Proxmox; redesigned cross-host storage access around NFS.
Run a Flask/PostgreSQL application publicly at tasks.greenbean.org through a self-managed Nginx/Let's Encrypt reverse proxy on Oracle Cloud, tunneled over WireGuard, with custom Icinga2 health checks.
Contract Systems Engineer (project-based) — Sendwell, Inc.
2015 – 2022 · Bloomfield Hills, MI / Remote
Rebuilt a production virtualization host remotely over IPMI (MegaRAID arrays, Proxmox, pfSense firewall with segmented networks), and recovered a crashed host whose mdadm array failed to assemble at boot, restoring VM services the same night.
Built and supported LAMP and Python/WSGI application servers for developers, including Apache vhosts, MySQL/PostgreSQL, account and privilege management, database recovery, and data migration.
Senior Systems Engineer — Sendwell, Inc.
2013 – 2015 · Bloomfield Hills, MI / Hybrid (remote ~3 days/week)
Owned production on-call and cut pages from a few a month to a few a year; built Nagios event handlers that restarted a crash-prone delivery service over SSH, retried once, and escalated only if the restart failed, so the pipeline recovered without manual intervention.
Operated and troubleshot high-volume transactional infrastructure in colocation on Ubuntu/Debian and CentOS, VMware ESXi, and Proxmox, resolving issues spanning operating system, network, storage, and application layers.
Co-led a staged production migration from VMware ESXi to Proxmox to eliminate VMware licensing: resolved driver, NIC-naming, and SCSI-to-virtio issues in a dev environment using production images, then converted one of four clustered hosts at a time in after-hours windows with a scripted import and post-cutover validation.
Built custom Nagios and Cacti monitoring covering 200+ VMs and automated backup pipelines using rsync, shell scripting, and ghettoVCB; deployed Logstash agents to centralize Apache/Nginx logs in ELK.
Managed OpenLDAP, including centralized Linux host authentication via NSS/pam_ldap, plus DHCP and BIND DNS; maintained SaltStack configuration management, defined the fleet hostname standard, and kept documentation and ticketing in MediaWiki and RequestTracker.
Served as sole IT support for an office of fewer than 20 staff alongside production duties, supporting staff MacBooks and Windows laptops, Wi-Fi, and VPN access.
Senior Systems Engineer (contract) — ND Industries, Inc.
2012 · Troy, MI
Led a mixed Linux/Windows Epicor ERP buildout: built the Windows Server environment and its Active Directory domain (accounts, passwords, domain joins), implemented Nagios monitoring, and documented system procedures.
Senior Systems Engineer — ESPN, The Walt Disney Company
2011 · Seattle, WA
Supported globally distributed, high-traffic ESPN.com and ESPN3.com infrastructure on Red Hat clusters and F5 BIG-IP, automating fleet configuration with CFEngine3; provisioned hosts and configurations for a live data center migration.
Troubleshot production services under peak national traffic and administered clustered Sun GlassFish application servers, including capacity planning with SolarWinds.
Senior Systems Administrator — Entertainment Publications
2009 – 2011 · Troy, MI
Maintained physical and virtual CentOS, SUSE Linux, and VMware ESXi infrastructure in colocation, supporting high-traffic web and application platforms across dev/UAT/production.
Partnered with developers on hundreds of production deployments under formal change control, promoting releases through dev/UAT/production.
Provisioned CentOS servers over PXE network boot using kickstart automated installs, and integrated Linux hosts with centralized LDAP authentication using NSS and pam_ldap.
Mentored junior sysadmins and developers on Linux infrastructure and on JBoss configuration and performance tuning.
Built Nagios event handlers to automatically restart failing services, and supported MySQL and Oracle on RHEL, including Oracle installer kernel tuning.
Network / Systems Administrator — ND Industries, Inc.
2005 – 2009 · Troy, MI
Ran core Linux and BSD infrastructure on Ubuntu, Debian, and FreeBSD (BIND DNS, Apache, Samba, MySQL, mail, Linux RAID, NIC bonding), with company-wide Nagios monitoring and documentation in MediaWiki.
Performed hands-on server deployment, OS installation, hardware troubleshooting, disk replacement, and RAID configuration on Dell PowerEdge servers in the company's on-site data center.
Supported an AT&T MPLS WAN with OSPF across multiple offices, troubleshot routing on Cisco IOS, and built OpenVPN remote access authenticated through RADIUS and LDAP.
Built and administered OpenLDAP central authentication (VPN, email, Samba); installed and administered Jira for IT ticketing.
Earlier career: Systems Administrator and Systems Analyst roles with
Cardina Internet Group (ISP), Ford Motor Company (NTT/Ciber contracts), Excite@Home (ISP),
ClickAction, and Advanced Data Systems (ISP), spanning Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, FreeBSD, OpenBSD,
and Linux.