Richard A. Wermske

11351 Corola Trail Drive ● Houston, TX 77066

 

Information Technology Manager

 

Senior-level IT Manager with more than 10 years of comprehensive experience in IT operations, specializing in strategic planning, execution, disaster recovery, and the fast delivery of services in banking, healthcare, government, oil and gas, chip design, and transportation environments.

       Service Strategy and Uplift: Serving as a technical / functional bridge; I illuminate suboptimal behaviors that are hidden in plain sight or buried in cross-functional relationships.

       Service Operations: Harmonizing delivery with business objectives; I believe that service level agreements are key success measures. They should be truly meaningful to all stakeholders and measureable.

       Portfolio Appraisal and Staff Analysis: Gifted at appraisal and planning; I have a natural talent for seeing trends, emerging patterns, or outliers in random data; providing 80/20 estimates; or over-the-horizon forecasting for prioritization.

       Management Pedigree with Digital Security Background: Multi-flavor Unix/Linux mastery; State Scan/Pen Security Clearance. Optimization, contingency, hardening, compliance and architecture.

 

 

LyondellBasell, Houston, TX ● 2010

Management Consultant

 

Adjunct to Executive Management. Prepared baseline process maps, organizational/services matrix, knowledge management analysis, and frontline management skills assessments. Evangelized ITIL efforts for organizational uplift and to prepare for a paradigm shift in organizational behavior. Identified cost opportunities in Software Provisioning and approval behavior resulting in actionable savings. Facilitated emergence from bankruptcy by enhancing intelligence on rogue initiatives buried in operations.
    ► Identified dozens of costly approver and cross-functional hand-off gaps in software provisioning
    ► Championed Knowledge Management and aligned the document repository with SOX and QM efforts.
    ► With an amazing team, we initiated ITIL aligned services mapping for Portfolio, Catalogue, Measurement initiatives.
    ► Creator of TEMPO – a branded stack of high-level communication and cross-functional awareness.
    ► Advocate and coach in process modeling and standardization.

 

MerrillLynch|Bank of America, Houston, TX ● 2009

Assistant Vice President – Platform Technologies

 

Manage associates and responsible for hiring, termination, and performance. Exercise judgment within generally defined practices and policies in selecting methods and tools for obtaining solutions. Budget responsibility and empowered to direct the activities of others.
    ► Introduced SharePoint and supporting tools as an alternative to ad-hoc tools. Benefits projected to save hundreds of man hours per month in duplicated efforts and inefficient workflows.
    ► Nurtured documentation initiatives to level-set team knowledge and eliminate high risk, resource silos.
    ► Member of Business Contingency Response Team

 

LyondellBasell, Houston, TX ● 2008

Management Consultant

 

Adjunct to Senior Management.  Primary liaison between Information Technology and the Project Management Office.  Responsible for leading consulting services and developing business cases.  Identify and validate scope and requirement definitions.  Focused on division portfolio related to integration, merger/acquisition, and divestures.
    ► Developed total cost of ownership and return on investment models and templates for project casting.
    ► Saved $500,000 by enhancing the TCO/ROI outlook and enhancing transparency into the portfolio.
    ► Staged Identity Management interviews, architectural briefs, and management workshops for organizational uplift.

 

BP, Houston, TX ● 2002 - 2008

Standards Coordinator, Enterprise Architect

 

Aligned efforts between service line management and emerging technology.  Serve as Technical Liaison between the top streams of business and operations providing coordinated roadmaps for change and global strategies.  Practiced ITIL and Prince2 methods.
    Implemented VMWare Solutions that reduced costs by $2,800 per end-user and eliminated redundant desktops.
    Developed Linux Standards to empower globalized command and control of configuration management, procurement, compliance, and reporting.

 

Applied Agile Development Methods from Extreme and SCRUM methods pragmatically to mitigate spend risk.
Reduced Provisioning Life-Cycle from 18 months to 18 days and improved high-performance efficiency by 350%.

 

Managed the Development Team for the Global Application Deployment and rationalized the global portfolio.
    Designed contingency development and offsite collaborative code development archive.
    Fostered a Software Control and Management Process (SCMP) to enhance portfolio transparency.

 

Developed the "Evergreen Model for Infrastructure Refresh" to achieve the extraordinary return on investment demanded, Appraised historic lifecycles of various infrastructure component stacks. Analyzed provisioning processes and created roadmap to optimize roles, tools, and processes.
    Introduced metrics and reporting to aid and enhance decision making, forecasting, and load balancing.
    Pioneered Identity Management Solutions including role-based definitions and optimizations for stakeholders.

 

 

Duke Energy, Houston, TX ● 2001 - 2002

Lead Management Consultant

Served as technical coordinator for 9 systems engineers, analysts, and architects, as well as the lead UNIX engineer.

 
    ► Developed the field trial of Linux systems and demonstrated open source proof-of-concepts.
    ► Performed security profiling, penetration analysis, identified gaps and delivered a remediation strategy.
    ► Designed disaster recovery and business contingency plans.
    ► Prototyped LDAP and Kerberos solutions for Windows and UNIX interoperability.

 

 

UT Health Science Center, Houston, TX ● 2000 - 2001

Technical Manager

Directed 14 members of the operations staff and managed multiple simultaneous project based teams from 4-10 people.

Built a security team from the ground up. Implemented security remediation and cluster integrity solutions arising from previous assessments and system compromises.

 
    ► Delivered Payroll and HR process upgrades from IBM S390 to RS6000's (AIX).
    ► Designed and implemented the training program to migrate mainframe centric staff to UNIX.
    ► Developed and tested business contingency and disaster recovery plans for Human Resources and Payroll systems.

 

 

Sprint E|Solutions, Houston, TX ● 1999 - 2000

Management Consultant (Service Delivery Manager - 100% Travel)

Established best practice solutions for daily operations. Managed 24 reports across STMicroelectronics' 5 Silicon Valley EDA/Engineering design centers. Managed $10.5M budget.

 
    ► Implemented an enterprise NIS/DNS strategy to stabilize system management in support of multiple mergers and acquisitions.
    ► Spearheaded Houston UNIX Tiger Team that performed security analysis (scan and penetration testing) on more than 250 governmental agencies and more that 1M potential target assets as part of the DIR Project for the State of Texas.

 

 

Continental Airlines, Houston, TX ● 1995 - 1999

UNIX / Network Systems Manager

Managed the distributed systems support for Crew Resources, System Operations, Dispatch and Maintenance divisions. Directed the Systems Operations Control Center response team. Systems under management included servers locally and in remote locations including Newark, Cleveland, and Guam. Primary triage and point of contact for all night shift system disaster recovery, user support, and WAN escalation decisions. Oversaw Tier 3 support for 2,500 mission critical (HA) systems. Progressively became responsible for people and systems over four years.

 

Career Note: Details of prior positions are available on request, and include independent Systems Analyst consulting, Junior EDA Design Engineer, and Software Manager with Soft Warehouse/CompUSA. Served in the U.S. Air Force as a Radar Technician (Honorably Discharged as E-4).

 

 

JP Morgan Chase, Houston, TX ● 2005

International Program Manager

 

Managed the Enterprise Server Secure Access Remediation (ESSAR) program -- an emergency $2.5M global program focused on standardizing and providing a secure UNIX server console environment. Extensive engineering work was frontloaded into the program to satisfy strict quality control, risk management, and security objectives. Advance planning included collaboration with international partners in EMEA and Latin America.

 
    ► Led project managers; cataloged 220 "datacenters" and rationalized the inventory of 21,000 servers. Mission objectives were 100% satisfied. Full lifecycle roadmap delivered prior to contract expiration.

 

 

Independent Volunteer, Houston, TX ● 1991-Present

Programmer / Developer

 

Volunteer technical support and development for non-profit initiatives. Coordinate the staff and hosting assets for multiple collaborative environments.
    ► Implemented an enterprise NIS/DNS strategy to stabilize system management in support of multiple mergers and acquisitions.
    ► Intimately responsible for over 300,000 lines of code (C, LPC, Perl and shell scripts).
    ► Developed 3D vector-based special navigation system utilizing collision detection and physics.
    ► Developed stock market and fractionalized banking simulations.
    ► Wrote middleware API interfaces to lower math and database functions.
    ► Designed text-based user interfaces for interactive development environments.
    ► Manage website portals for development and production projects.
    ► Oversee system administration practice and functions including documentation and collaboration methods.
    ► Manage the migration of all code development resources where necessary (e.g. from SCO, Solaris, IRIX, AIX to Linux/Windows).

 

 

Active in University education and research. Frequent participant in various technical mail lists and forums and coordinate/ moderate several communities. Listed in the Who's Who in Fuzzy, for people recognized in Fuzzy Logic, Theoretical Sciences, and Game Theory. Retired maintainer of the Gaming Theory FAQ and special interest archive.

 

 

 

 

Bachelors of Business Administration, University of Houston ● 2006
    ► Management Information Systems ● International Business Management

 

Certifications

ITIL v3

Linux+

Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE)

 

Favorite Books:

 

Seeing Systems - Barry Oshry	Linchpin - Seth Godin
Made to Stick & Switch - Chip Heath / Dan Heath	Strengths Based Leadership - Barry Oshry
Orbiting the Giant Hairball - Gordon Mackenzie	How Did That Happen - Roger Connors / Tom Smith
Influencers - Kerry Patterson	The Three Laws of Performance - Steve Zaffron

 

 

 

 

 

 

Technical Languages
    ► C/C++, Perl, Korn/C/Borne/Bash Shell, Make, FLEX, LPC, Cobol/CICS, Lua

 

Security Tools & Techniques

ISS, CyberCop, Cain/Able, nMap, Legion, Nessus, Satan/Saint/Sara, Sophos, Network Associates, Symantec, Inflex/AmaVis, Firewalking, Packet Resequencing, SNMP and DNS profiling, Buffer Overflow, Easter Eggs, Racing Conditions, Escalation of Privilege, Social Engineering, Rules of Engagement, TCP Wrappers, IDS, SSH, MAC Filtering, Forensics, SUDO, SE Linux

 

Operating Systems
    ► LINUX: RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake, Slackware, Knoppix, Rocks
    ► UNIX: Solaris, HPUX, AIX, BSD, IRIX, AT&T
    ► License Control: Flexlm in single and triple redundant configurations
    ► Microsoft: Windows: 95/98/NT/2K/XP/2003
    ► Cross-platform: Hummingbird, Chameleon, VMWare, CrossOver Office, Citrix
    ► Clustering: ROCKS, Sun Grid Engine (SGE), Load Sharing Facility (LSF)
    ► Provisioning: Kickstart, Autostart, Faststart, YaST, System Imager, DHCP/PXE
    ► Monitoring: Nagios, Ganglia, What's Up, MRTG

 

Hardware Background
    ► Sun: Sparc, Ultra, Blade, E Series 4000, 4500, 6500, SunFire 6800, E10K (light)
    ► IBM: RS6000 M80 & SP Series
    ► HP: DL36x/58x, 9000 7xx/B/C/K/T/V Series WS and Servers
    ► DEC: Alpha 1000/2000/4000/ES40
    ► SGI: O2 O200, O2000 Deploy and Light Administration
    ► Network Appliance: 4x0-8x0 series
    ► EMC: Clarion and Symetrix
    ► Cisco: Catalyst 5500 and 6500
    ► 3Com: Corebuilder 3500/6000 FDDI