Creator of Majordomo mailing list software, used by hundreds of thousands of sites worldwide
Professional Interests
Automated network configuration and management
Enterprise and service provider networking
IT infrastructure design and management
System and network administration
Fast-growth startups
Silicon Valley entrepreneurship
Security and incident response
Professional education and training
Management Skills
Department management, including department creation, reorganization, and expansion
Staffing, including planning, creating job descriptions, recruiting, interviewing, and hiring
Personnel management, including supervision, evaluation, motivation, and counseling
Financial management, including budgeting, forecasting, purchasing, and asset control
Project management, for projects involving tens of people and millions of dollars in funding
Vendor management, including identification, RFP creation & evaluation, selection, negotiation, and relationship management
Facilities management for both offices and data centers, including planning and management of space allocation, HVAC, electrical, voice & data, as well as move planning and management
International management, including familiarity with various international business cultures and a sensitivity to cross-cultural issues
Incident management, for critical and complex multi-party security and serviceability incidents
Consulting, including proposal creation and RFP response, project design and management, meeting facilitation and leadership, and customer relations
Training, including course design, creation, presentation, and evaluation; course developer and instructor recruiting, management, and evaluation
Technical Skills
For large, complex, international networks of 100,000+ nodes:
Infrastructure architecture, analysis, evaluation, design, and implementation for fast-growth scalability, cost effectiveness, reliability, and ease of operation & maintenance
Network architecture, analysis, evaluation, design, implementation, operation, and management
Security architecture, analysis, evaluation, design, implementation, operation, and management
System and network administration of multi-site, multi-OS networks of 1,000+ hosts
Technical Knowledge
Network routers and switches including Juniper, Cisco, Extreme, Ascend, Redback
Network security systems including firewalls (Cisco PIX, NetScreen, etc.), IDS (Snort, etc.)
Network analysis & management tools including packet sniffers, event/usage monitoring systems
Network appliances including load balancers, VPN concentrators, storage
Networking equipment including concentrators, modems, CSU/DSUs, terminal servers
Operating systems including UNIX (especially Linux, SunOS, Irix, and *BSD), Mac OS, Windows
Computing and file servers including Intel-based, Sun, DEC, MIPS
Phone systems including PBXs, PABXs, 3com NBX, NorTel, telco services & networks
Languages including Perl, C, UNIX "little languages" (such as csh, sh, awk, sed, and make), HTML, PostScript, troff, TeX, dot, SQL, assembly language, Pascal
Databases including MySQL, Sybase, Oracle, INGRES, FileMaker Pro
Awards, Publications, Tutorials, and Software Releases
2004 SAGE Outstanding Achievement Award recipient "For outstanding sustained contributions to the community of system administrators"; previous recipients include Larry Wall, Paul Vixie, etc.
Zero to LISA in a Year, invited talk at USENIX Large Installation System Administration Conference (LISA '98), Boston, MA, 6-11 December 1998
Majordomo: How I Manage 17 Mailing Lists Without Answering "-request" Mail paper, USENIX System Administration Conference (LISA VI), Long Beach, CA, 19-23 October 1992
Network (In)Security Through Packet Filtering paper, Third UNIX Security Symposium, sponsored by USENIX Association, Baltimore, MD, 14-16 September 1992
Preparing for Disaster half-day tutorial presented at the USENIX Technical Conference, San Antonio, 9 June 1992 and the USENIX Large Installation System Administration Conference (LISA V), San Diego, 30 September-3 October 1991
RAPID: Remote Automated Patch Installation Database paper, with Russell Brand, USENIX Software Management Workshop, New Orleans, pp. 77-84, USENIX Association, 3-4 April 1989
Numerous articles and interviews in trade publications, and talks at industry meetings & events
Professional Activities
USENIX member, and frequent participant and speaker at USENIX conferences and workshops
Civil Air Patrol volunteer emergency services incident commander (one of only about 30 fully-qualified in state of California), air and ground operations director; awarded CAP Distinguished Service Medal (highest award given for other than valor) in 1997 for work in establishing CAP on the Internet.
Mountain View Office of Emergency Services volunteer instructor; named Volunteer of the Year in 2004 for helping teach community disaster preparedness classes.
Information Technology Infrastructure Consultant
Internet Security Consultant and Educator
UNIX and Networking Consultant
Business Manager and Technical Lead
Please note that major consulting engagements are listed separately,
below.
Provide various consulting and training services to dozens of clients
worldwide. All jobs involve a high degree of interaction with client representatives,
with an emphasis on helping them understand the issues involved and the
work being done so that they can later maintain it.
Manage all aspects of a thriving small business, including employees,
accounting, taxes, publicity, sales, collections, and operations.
Supervise and support other Great Circle Associates employees, including
those working as consultants for our clients.
Provide Internet security firewall training and consulting, to help
customers understand the issues involved with designing, building, operating,
and maintaining firewall security systems.
Schedule, publicize, coordinate, and present public and semi-public
offerings of the Building
Internet Firewalls tutorial.
Provide local and wide area network consulting and training, and perform
second-line network administration to support various sites' own first-line
network administrators, on topics such as routing, packet filtering, and
network security.
Provide system administration consulting and training, and perform
second-line system administration tasks to support various sites' own first-line
system administrators, on topics such as large installation system administration,
heterogeneous system administration, filesystem organization, filesystem
backups, and security.
Install and configure Internet connections, including service selection
and configuration of firewall security systems.
Analyze existing networks, then recommend and implement improvements
and upgrades, including 10BaseT conversions and bridged to routed subnet
topology conversions.
Plan and execute major operating system upgrades.
Install and configure Domain Name System (DNS).
Create and install custom Sendmail configurations.
Integrate Macintosh and PC systems into UNIX networks for email, file
sharing, and printing.
Install and configure UUCP, including configuration of a variety of
modems.
Install and configure netnews, including B-News, C-News, and NNTP.
Help clients recruit and interview candidates for permanent network
and system administration positions.
Evaluate, recommend, install, and configure UNIX and network hardware
and software.
Design, implement, and maintain custom programs for a variety of purposes.
Key technical manager for a profitable pre-IPO Silicon Valley startup which develops and operates automated systems to process over 1 billion phone calls per year for Fortune 500 customers as the company grew from 180 to 270 employees.
Managed the Networking Team, which is responsible for architecture, design, deployment, and maintenance of Tellme's production network, which consists of approximately 2,000 UNIX servers spread across 6 sites, with connections to 5 ISPs, multiple data and voice carriers, and dozens of Fortune 500 customers. Networking Team manages all routers, switches, VPN concentrators, load balancers, and other assorted networking equipment, as well as corporate LAN at HQ.
Helped build Networking Team from 5 to 15 people in first year. Developed staffing plan and job descriptions. Identified, interviewed, recruited, and hired team members and contractors.
Transformed Networking Team, from being demoralized and perceived by rest of company as a bottleneck, into a motivated and respected contributor to the company's success. Transformed 2 marginal performers into productive members of the team; managed 1 marginal performer through an attempted performance improvement plan and then out of the company.
Managed Networking Team through various management chain changes including arrival of a new Vice President and new Senior Director; worked to maintain morale and focus within the team, and to bring new management up to speed on the team's activities and issues.
Managed Networking Team smoothly through split into separate Network Architecture and Network Engineering teams; continued to manage Network Architecture team after split, and worked closely with Network Engineering team manager and new director to manage overall Networking group.
Developed network architecture framework; both supervised and worked directly on major network architecture and deployment initiatives including several new datacenters, new WAN between all datacenters, and new customer connectivity mechanisms.
Drove top-to-bottom decomposition and redesign of Tellme network architecture to address anticipated growth; improve reliability, efficiency, and security; and enable new services.
Key participant in planning and carrying out the company's transition from a POTS-based telco infrastructure handling thousands of simultaneous calls to a VoIP-based telco infrastructure capable of scaling to hundreds of thousands of simultaneous calls.
Evangelized automated network management as a strategy for increasing network reliability and capability by making network more consistent, speeding configuration changes, and reducing human error. Drove company to adopt a network automation strategy, developed network automation roadmap, hired and managed in-house network automation software developer, identified and developed relationship with key automation software platform vendor.
Worked closely with NOC, project management, service architecture, datacenter operations, UNIX server, and other teams throughout rest of Network Operations department to ensure both highly reliable operation of existing systems and efficient deployments of new systems.
Worked closely with Product Management group to define and deploy new products and features.
Identified, evaluated, prioritized, planned, budgeted, promoted, defended, and managed multiple projects covering millions of dollars in capital spending.
Managed relationships with key hardware, software, ISP, and carrier vendors.
Responsible for network security design, deployment, management, and incident response.
Evangelized and drove use of TWiki for internal documentation, leading to a major increase in amount and currency of documentation.
Actively participated in company-wide forums including architecture review and senior staff.
Acting Director of Information Technology
Network Architecture Consultant
Establish Information Technology department for a fast-growing
Silicon Valley startup, as it grew from 20 to 50 employees in 2 offices
over a 5-month period.
Determine company's short-term and long-term needs for IT infrastructure,
establish plans to fill those needs, and execute those plans.
Establish a functional, scalable, and cost-effective IT infrastructure,
including services such as local and wide area networking, Internet access,
Internet and LAN security, backup inter-office networking, email, printing,
file sharing, calendaring, centralized authentication, VPN, video conferencing,
trouble ticketing, and asset management.
Research, evaluate, select, implement, and deploy a 3com NBX network-based
phone system company-wide.
Develop staffing plan and job descriptions for IT department.
Identify, recruit, and manage consultants and contractors to fill
immediate staffing needs while permanent hires were recruited.
Interview, recruit, and recommend permanent staff for the IT department,
including two system administrators and a Director of Information Technology.
Manage the growing department while the permanent Director of Information
Technology was identified, recruited, and hired.
Gracefully and efficiently transition the department to the permanent
Director of Information Technology.
Work with CFO and landlords to design and implement creative, functional,
cost-effective solutions to various facilities issues.
Work with Engineering and Product Management to help define, design,
and refine the company's innovative content delivery service.
Provide expertise regarding broadband network characteristics and
deployment, based on my experience at Covad.
Identify and analyze various options for delivering the company's service,
including considering in-house versus out-sourced solutions.
Identify, contact, evaluate, and recommend vendors for various equipment,
software, and services, including UNIX/Linux servers, networking equipment,
networking services, database software, collocation, and hosting.
Director of Technical Marketing
Acting Director of IT Infrastructure
Director of Network Architecture
Key technical manager, in various capacities, as the company grew in little over two years from a 40-person pre-IPO startup to a 2000-person public company with a $7 billion market capitalization.
As Director of Technical Marketing (October 1998 through February 2000), evangelize Covad's tremendous technical capabilities to both internal and external audiences, and help continue to develop and extend those capabilities.
Position Covad as a technical leader in both DSL and overall broadband spaces.
Develop compelling demonstrations that hilight Covad's unique technical capabilities.
Be a preferred technical authority for industry analysts and press.
Help Covad's partners and customers understand Covad's technical capabilities and how to use them.
Help Covad understand the technical needs and capabilities of its partners and customers.
Help set and communicate Covad's future directions.
Evangelize Covad's tremendous technical capabilities and opportunities throughout and beyond the organization.
Design and implement programs to support and develop Covad's System Engineers.
Participate in sales and partner development activities, to help drive deals and sales.
Participate in product and service definition and refinement.
Provide technical input on and support for all Marketing, Sales, and Business Development activities.
Design and implement programs to evangelize Covad's technical capabilities and vision.
Help build Covad's world-class marketing team.
As Acting Director of IT Infrastructure, managed an 8-person IT team (UNIX system administrators, NT system administrators, network administrator, and telecom department)
Stabilized Covad's IT environment and staffing.
Improved IT staff morale and effectiveness.
Improved reliability, performance, and scalability of key corporate computer systems.
Brought several new regional offices online.
Recruited permanent director for IT Infrastructure group.
Drove design and implementation of outage tracking, notification and reporting for all production systems (UNIX and NT servers, corporate networks, and corporate telecom).
As Director of Network Architecture (November 1997 through October 1998), was responsible for initial design of Covad's regional ATM networks to service DSL subscribers.
Identified and evaluated hardware and service vendors.
Created tools and procedures for regional network design.
Drove initial implementation of Covad's first non-local service network.
Drove a key scalability and cost-cutting initiative to transition from a monolithic single-switch network design to a distributed multi-switch network design.
Participated in product definition and design.
Participated in customer installation process redesign.
Designed, implemented, and managed much of Covad's early IT infrastructure, including corporate LAN and WAN, Internet connection and firewall, public web server, mail server, dialup server, intranet web server, file servers, print server, monitoring systems, trouble ticketing systems, etc.
Managed all IT activities for Covad's move into its current headquarters, including planning move to minimize both risk and disruption; design and implementation of new LANs, WANs, phone system, and data center; vendor and contractor management; and execution of move. Move was accomplished very successfully within a single weekend, with no disruption to business; everyone was up and running in their new offices upon arrival at work on Monday morning.
Helped define, recruit, and build Covad's Network Engineering and Information Technology (IT) teams.
Cray Merger Team Member
Interim Internet Architect
Corporate Network Architecture Team Member
Key member of the team which designed, coordinated, and implemented
the worldwide networking aspects of the merger of Silicon
Graphics (SGI) and Cray Research.
Worked with dozens of people at sites worldwide (including trips to
Cray and SGI facilities throughout the USA and in the United Kingdom and
Australia) to develop, coordinate, and implement the network merger plan,
which affected tens of thousands of employees and thousands of networks
at hundreds of sites all over the world.
Developed innovative mechanisms to effectively and safely link the
Silicon Graphics and Cray networks, despite their drastically different
operational and security models.
Created numerous documents and made frequent presentations to communicate
the network merger plan to individuals at all levels (staff, management,
and executive) and across all functions (sales, customer service, engineering,
corporate services, etc.) throughout both organizations, and to ensure
that their needs were met.
Covered for SGI's Internet architect during his 12-week sabbatical.
Worked as a key corporate resource for issues related to Internet connectivity,
firewalls, electronic mail, domain name service, and so forth.
Worked within the framework of the Internet architect's existing policies
and projects, to continue those during his absence.
Member of SGI's Corporate Network Architecture Team
Helped develop a plan to handle the growth of SGI's network over the
next 3-5 years, including developing project outlines, personnel requirements,
budgets, timelines, and project dependency graphs for the 55 projects that
make up the plan.
Took part in both regular and special discussions of wide area network
architecture issues at SGI.
Member of the team which designed, built, and managed the ShowNet exhibition
network for the Interop '91 networking conference. The Interop '91 ShowNet
consisted of almost 300 exhibitors, over 400 networks, several thousand
hosts, and a very diverse collection of networking hardware and software.
Responsible for all aspects of the installation, configuration, and
operation of the Domain Name System used on the Interop '91 ShowNet, including
registration of exhibitor hosts and networks, as well as coordination with
external DNS authorities at the Internet Network Information Center.
Analyzed, reconfigured, and expanded Telebit's pre-existing but poorly-configured
internal TCP/IP network.
Installed, configured, and maintained Telebit's internal NetBlazer
routers.
Installed or reconfigured a variety of network services, including
Sendmail, NNTP, BIND, YP (NIS), NFS, and automated filesystem backups.
Planned and implemented a variety of hardware and software upgrades
and installations.
Planned a complete replacement of network infrastructure, including
a total conversion to 10BaseT and various network topology changes, then
executed the replacement over a 3-day weekend with minimal impact on users
and very favorable results.
Responsible for UNIX system support and system administration duties
while Telebit searched for a new UNIX system administrator.
Responsible for the search and interview process for a new permanent
UNIX system administrator, and selection and supervision of contract personnel
to perform system administration duties while the search was in progress.
Responsible for the training and supervision of Telebit's UNIX operations
staff, as well as initial supervision of Telebit's newly-hired UNIX system
administrator.
Managed all computer operations for a system engineering software development
company.
Responsible for all phases of the evaluation, selection, installation,
operation, maintenance, and upgrade of an eighty-machine, multi-site, mixed
vendor computing facility used to develop and support the company's software
products and to manage and support all of the company's activities.
Responsible for budgeting and purchase planning of all computer-related
hardware, software, and supplies for the company.
Responsible for in-house technical support, and for purchase and support
contracts and contacts with hardware and software suppliers.
Responsible for the management and supervision of the Computer Operations
group.
Responsible for configuration, maintenance, and operation of the company's
telephone system.
Planned and implemented software and procedures to address short-,
medium-, and long-term problems for the 250+ Sun workstations, servers,
associated networks, and other equipment at one of the nation's leading
industrial research facilities.
Took part in a major ongoing PARC-wide computing infrastructure steering
committee, as well as a number of problem- or area-specific subcommittees.
Planned and executed a major operating system upgrade program, including
mechanisms and procedures to ensure post-upgrade maintenance and to greatly
ease future upgrades.
Chaired an infrastructure subcommittee charged with producing a plan
to upgrade and improve the services provided by Arisia.Xerox.COM, the machine
that was the Internet access point for PARC and all of Xerox. Examined a
variety of issues including services currently provided, services which
should be provided, administrative policies and mechanisms, upgrade and
ongoing costs, and upgrade and ongoing personnel requirements.
Took part in an infrastructure subcommittee charged with improving
the performance and maintainability of PARC's internal networks. Helped
analyze PARC's current network configuration, helped collect data to characterize
the current situation, helped make projections of future situations, helped
design a strategy for PARC's future network activities, and helped deal
with urgent network problems, failures, and security incidents as they
occurred.
Provided on-call SunOS and network trouble-shooting assistance to PARC
research, support, and administrative personnel.
Helped select and supervise consultants to assist in improving PARC's
computing infrastructure.
Conducted UNIX and SunOS training seminars for PARC's Sun support staff.
Managed all computer operations for an advanced financial services
company.
Responsible (directly to the President) for all phases of the evaluation,
selection, installation, operation, maintenance, and upgrade of a one-half
million dollar computing facility, used to manage client foreign exchange
positions of hundreds of millions of dollars, consisting primarily of Sun
workstations and operating system, Sybase database software, and proprietary
financial software.
Responsible for in-house technical support, and for all CMT contracts
and contacts with hardware and software suppliers, including for purchase
and support.
Responsible for selection and supervision of consultants and contract
programmers.
Responsible for design, implementation, and maintenance of:
Programs to automate system administration tasks, including examination
of system logs and performance of security audits.
Additions and modifications to Sun RPC to add "callback"
functionality.
Server to activate pocket pagers of system and trading staff on request
from any of a number of client programs.
Program to interface UNIX electronic mail to TELEX services.
Program to monitor an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) and initiate
an automatic orderly shutdown on main power failure.
Libraries to generate PostScript for custom graphs and reports.
Programs to generate reports and statements for clients.
Programs to automate and manage daily UNIX and hourly database backups.
Many other crucial pieces of CMT's operational and trading support
software.
Jointly responsible for design, implementation, and operation of CMT's
extensive database system.
Taught CMT staff how to make effective use of the systems available
to them.
Responsible for the design, implementation, and maintenance of software
systems for advanced financial engineering, evaluation and selection of
microcomputer hardware, software, and supplies, and operational control
and administration of CMT's microcomputers.
