About the Blogger

A little about myself and my history. You can use the links for the quick version.
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I have over ten years of experience in designing, implementing, analyzing, troubleshooting, and documenting complex data communication networks. My expertise is in routing, switching, and security with main focus on the dominant player in the networking industry, Cisco. Some assumption is made that you know about Cisco, if you have found yourself here at this blog.

I started in data networks when I joined the United States Marine Corps in May of 1998. I worked on many different networks of various sizes, complexity, funding and certainly locations that many have not. We built custom data networking portables, that were self contained networking pods with room for techs and engineers on the inside that could be transported and dropped off anywhere. This was even before the General Dynamics Tactical Data Networks pods were developed.

Upon leaving the USMC, I transitioned to Wam!Net, a subcontractor to EDS on the NMCI (Navy Marine Corps Intranet). It was a natural transition for me, but ultimately proved to be a place I would have to leave to continue my growth as a Network Engineer. They have since become a part of the Harris Corporation with a few other names along the way.

I left Wam!Net to go out on my own. During this period I contracted to individual companies and eventually found myself contracting through Modis IT to Disney working on their networks supporting Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure. It was an interesting experience to work on network equipment in a small closet on the back end of a dinosaur shaped sunglass hut.

I spent some time after this working directly for Riverside County IT in Riverside, CA. The change was welcomed at the time for more steady work away from contracting. This was an interesting position as I worked on DMVPN for the county in some of it's early forms. I also worked with the Riverside County fire department to build an in house alerting and reporting system working over the network.

After RCIT, I spent a couple years at Kaiser Permanente at the data center in Corona, CA. I did a lot of work on data center equipment, mostly 10GB and 1GB ethernet connections for high volume traffic like medical imaging and document retrieval. I designed and built out the network expansion into the LA Data Center, which has now migrated to Irvine. It was during this time that my main study for the CCIE Routing and Switching track kicked into high gear with the help of my study partner, David Vasek CCIE #16333.

My family and I relocated to the area where I grew up in late 2006. I began working for Fiserv EFT in Portland, OR. Our division of Fiserv processes debit and credit transactions. Next time you are at the ATM, you can think of this blog. Anything and everything in networking, we do in some fashion. This is an exciting time of growth after Fiserv's acquisition of CheckFree.

As for current study I am working on CCIE Security track, and putting some effort towards the CCDE blueprint. Check out the profiles for more information, and feel free to add me as a contact.