Bob Watkins - PMI PMP, IT Project + Certified 12721 Valley View Avenue Cresaptown, MD 21505 Office Phone: (203) 381-2985 Evening Phone: (203) 783-3915 ConsultantPM@gmail.com Project Deliverables Summary SENIOR IT PROJECT MANAGER (consultant since 1997) with extensive experience in project planning and implementation with 9 yrs. of Fortune 500 experience. Past & present project deliverables include: * Datacenter Network Provider Transition * Disaster Recovery projects: DR for DMZ, DR TWS process design, DR RFP for Americas * Oracle Database Consolidation & Migration * Multi-regional DR Requirements Gathering & Continuity Process Design * Datacenter Tape Backup Solution Design, RFP and Implementation * Global Service Request & Fulfillment Process Development * Unix and Windows server builds * Offshore Scripting Resource Training & Mentoring * IBM Legacy Server Decommissioning Initiative * Datacenter-wide AIX Version upgrades Initiative * Tivoli Infrastructure Design & Implementation (TPC, Tivoli & TWS) * North American Email Infrastructure Installation * North American Email User Migration * The Americas Disaster Recovery for MS Exchange/Blackberry * Gentran EDI Windows NT to AIX Transition * North American Desktop Applications Scripting & Deployments * ISP Division Sale & Acquisition (Mindspring) * Corporate User Demographics Data Warehouse Design * ISP Hosting Migration * Co-Authoring Cisco and Microsoft Certification for Syngress Media * Sun Identity Manager Design & Deployment * Mid-Atlantic Manufacturing Plant and Office Y2K Remediation * Video Conference Deployment Experience UNILEVER, Inc. - Trumbull, CT since 1/ 2001 Senior Project Manager 8/2004 - Present * The DR Solution for Exchange and Blackberry project for the Americas scope includes researching several possible solutions and implementing a disaster recovery design appropriate for 20,000+ clients across Latin and North America. Latin America has a distributed server environment with inter-country network limitations. North America has a centralized server solution. Both are to be covered by an integrated solution that provides a quick RTO for the dial tone service and variable levels of user historical data recovery RTOs. * DR for DMZ will design and implement an appropriate DMZ structure to support key and critical Business web sites and Internet enabled applications. Many of the Unilever brands use web sites extensively to communicate and provide customer interfaces for feedback and promotions. Additionally, there are several product reporting and logistical management applications hosted in DMZ spaces that require DR support infrastructure at a site other than the primary site as contingencies. This project supports those objectives. * DR TWS (Maestro) project designed, tested and implement an object/job/schedule recreation process and procedure, in the current DR environment, to support Project Vital and existing infrastructure in a more efficient recovery in the event of a disaster. This will enhance Unilever's disaster response speed & capability. * The DR RFP & subsequent DR Implementation projects for the Americas will unite the disaster recovery processes, policies and command & control response teams and develop the requirements necessary to create a joint RFP. This RFP will solicit a Disaster Infrastructure Site service contract for the Americas for the next 5 yrs. In Parallel with this effort, Architecture group will develop a technology roadmap that accommodates both N.A. and L.A. Once a Disaster Recovery site vendor has been selected, a "DR Implementation Project will implement the infrastructure technologies between North America and all of the Latin America sub-regions will be deployed to suit the plan. This is all part of a larger Business Continuity requirements gathering & process planning program that has a global scope. * Legacy SLA Realignment project defined the current status of the 1900+ physical servers in the datacenter assess their Hardware, OS, Database and application vendor support lifecycles and educate the business community pertaining to the reduced SLA capabilities for support based on End of Life for some of these attributes. Once clarity is achieved throughout the business leadership hierarchy an appropriate roadmap leading from legacy hardware and software infrastructure will be negotiated to a fully supportable SOA model. * Tape Consolidation Project replaces the core legacy backup tape silos and server hardware with a consolidated Virtual Tape disk array and secondary LTO3 tape architecture. This new solution is intended to reduce or possibly eliminate the timing conflicts in the TWS (Maestro) scheduling environment and bring new features and functionality to our business customers. Our approach has been a full RFP/RFQ process to four vendors (IBM, HP, Sun and EMC). Rigorous internal requirements gathering and incorporation of responses into SOW and SLA documentation to ensure vendor adherence to the same and outline thoroughly the expectations. All Trumbull facility backup clients will be migrated to the consolidated environment once in place. Integrating an ILM Tiering model will facilitate SAP Archiving and other best practices to the business. A full renegotiation of the RPO/Retention periods for tape off-site SLAs will be a deliverable as well. Integration into the new SAN architecture, which is being deployed in parallel, will be challenging. Both of these initiatives are intended to support a multi-year SAP project beginning in 2006. * I managed the Oracle Server Consolidation Project which seeks to create an Oracle infrastructure based on current generation hardware, retiring and decommissioning existing non-scalable or legacy components. There are 140+ databases with various levels of Business Criticality and complexity. The project will gather information about each dB, the server it currently resides on and the Oracle version it is utilizing. With this information a new series of Oracle environments will be deployed to suit and individual negotiations with the Application/dB owners will commence to ascertain when and how to migrate the dB from its current status to the new environment. The final business case being the decommissioning and cost avoidance on HACMP licensing and support as well as decommissioning of 20+ Oracle servers and increasing scalability for future growth. This project involves change control, Unix, TWS (Maestro), Legato, SAN storage, Oracle dB, IT & business application owners totaling a potential roster of 100+ participants/resources to be directly managed or indirectly coordinated via the functional groups in the Unilever resource matrix. * I managed the North American Baseline Project. The project deliverable is the upgrade and hardening of various UNIX servers to AIX 5.2. The overall goal is to bring all levels of the current North American datacenter to a standard patch level and build status so as to reduce complexity and support FTEs as well as increase vendor supportability of the environment. Assessments were been completed prior to my acquisition of this project and a plan is in place. Management of that plan and ongoing issue resolution is my primary focus in this project. * Globally, I coordinated North American, Asian, African/Arabian, European and Latin American End User Support (Help Desk) design, develop and implement the Sun Identity Manager tool and Service Request Automation Fulfillment process re-engineering. There are 90+ stakeholders/contacts/resources involved in requirement gathering and consensus negotiations to support this project. Unilever plans to replace the thousands of non - ITIL compliant processes in 90 different countries into a single common multi-regional set of workflows. Project Manager 6/2003 - 8/2004 * PM the Design of a User Demographics Data Warehouse for the support of End User Services, Customer Management, Service Development and Service Delivery. This data warehouse will dynamically extract the SMS 2.0, User Support dB, Active Directory and LDAP server domain user listings, application deployment data, HR data from PeopleSoft using ACTA into an Oracle based normalized structure available for Business Objects, Crystal Reports and ODBC reporting based on key stakeholders needs. * Central & Consolidated Messaging Migration are initiatives to migrate 15,000+ North American email users to a global messaging cluster. This was a regional project driven by global objectives and planned in parallel across Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. I was challenged to design, test and implement user delivery and support of daily migration processes and then share these designs with the global community. The final plan delivered 1200+ user migrations per four day cycle. I designed a master user demographic database to schedule, track and report this rapid migration pace. Resources managed consisted of an indirect team of 4 Indian engineers and 2 direct Customer Care Center analysts as well as global infrastructure engineers tasked to the project. Other Simultaneous Projects: Lotus Notes POC, NA Digital Broadband, GIO NA UPlan Rollout of NIKU software, Aelita Security Utilities, ATT NA, ATT Canada, ATT Global and the British Telecom network operational support outsourcing project. Project Manager (CEM) 3/2003 - 6/2003 * This contract was to CRM & PM the design approval, hardware budget draft and acquisition, installation and integration of PlumTree Portal, LiveLink (OpenText) and My Unilever Web/Extranet. The subsequent legacy applications that would be integrated as modules into this new extranet environment also needed project planning. * In addition to these projects, I owned the project planning and execution for Project Phoenix, integrating three Puerto Rico manufacturing facilities into the standard "Shared Services" support model. Other Simultaneous Projects: Aztec 2.0 Canadian Application Deployment (Business units included were Unilever Canada Retail, Unilever Best Foods Canada, Good Humor Breyers Canada and UCI Canada) and Niku Methods Development. Project Manager (CES) 6/2002 - 3/2003 * North American Videoconferencing is an initiative in response to September 11th and the need to reduce travel and the costs associated with it. The project required negotiations with Wire One, a Videoconferencing vendor who supplied equipment as well as connection services to the sales offices targeted to explore this new cost saving technology. * Gentran for NT replacement entailed detailed design, testing and transitioning of the current NT platform EDI solution called "Gentran" to a single clustered technology on a UNIX platform shared by both Best Foods and Home and Personal Care Business Units. This system transfers the daily cash and order transactions for Wal-Mart as well as other key retail partners for Unilever and is a critical system. * Manufacturing for the Millennium and Order to Cash Projects integrated the Logistics from the Order intake into a Central SAP module to the Manufacturing facility then on to the Transportation Logistics planning and finally to retail delivery. These Projects Utilized a Matrixes IT Group, IS Group and GIO resources to complete the final deliverable. These systems are mission critical. Other Simultaneous Projects: NA Sales Targeter, Bridge the Gap initiative, CCRS Integration, Saddle brook Office Expansion, Business Objects Enhancement, Aztec 2.0 deployment for Clinton, CT Customer Service Facility, E-Catalog, Enterprise Forecasting - Manugisitics. Technical Project Manager Scripting Lab 1/2001 - 1/2002 * This Unilever Project entailed the gathering of business requirements for applications, planning the Wise scripting process and managing 8, freshly imported, Off-shore (Digital India) resources that were to be trained in Wise package development to create the Application deployment scripts. Upon arrival of the Indian resources I drafted training materials and delivered the same educating these resources relating to the packaging process sanctioned by Unilever. I mentored them in analyzing the User Acceptance Testing and QA processes, planning the infrastructure required to support all these phases and implementing it. These components were to be delivered in overlapping stages to 8 Business Units and locations in North America within one year. Communication and Coordination with all software Vendors and Business Unit Stakeholders were Critical to this projects success. I still manage and coordinate many of the Off-shore resources I trained in 2001 on the various PM assignments at Unilever up to and including the present Central Messaging Migration Project above (2003). Others have returned to India to staff a truly remote Scripting facility in support of Global Unilever Initiatives. * In parallel to this effort, the desktop OS deployment team of Digital India resources required my team's input relating to the Wise package technology to ensure a complete un-attended installation of OS and Applications to suit the particular user profile intended. * Aztec 2.0 Application Scripting and Deployments (Overlapping Business Unit Deployments): HPC Sales, Unilever Best Foods Retail Sales, Military Sales, Franklin Park Facility, Lyle Logistics Group, Somerset Research Facility as well as other Aztec. MARATHON OIL - Findlay, OH 1/2001 - 1/2002 Project QA Manager - Scripting Lab * This project required the Wise scripting of approximately 1700 applications for automated deployment, most of which were in-house or non-COTS (Commercial off the Shelf) or legacy software. There were 20+ scripters 4 of which were my direct reports in the QA team and tasked with the UAT and Quality control relative to these scripts. This project was to facilitate the migration of the 10,000+ seat corp. offices to Windows 2000 Professional and desktop application suites via SMS and Peregrine Asset Manager to complete asset monitoring and licensing monitoring and automation. My Project Management responsibilities were analysis, planning and implementation of a QA process that met time requirements. Managing the QA team to meet the Quality level required by the stakeholders was a key deliverable. Communicating with the vendors' developers and script developers to determine error resolution plans was of prime importance to success on this project. SYNGRESS MEDIA 9/2000 - 10/2001 Syngress Media -Technical Writer * Syngress approached me to be a contributing author for the below listed IT related study guides. The work entailed using a basic guide for the Chapters, obtained from Syngress, and creating content to aide certification candidates in learning the in-depth info required to pass their CCNA and MCSE 2000 exams. These Book projects were started and completed during my spare time at Marathon Oil Contract. Deliverables: * "MCSE Migrating from Windows NT to Windows 2000 Study Guide" (Exam 70-222) * "CCNA Test Yourself Practice Exams", 2nd Edition (Exam 640-507) NOVACARE REHABILITATION- Pittsburg, PA 3/1999 - 9/1999 Project Manager/Engineer-Y2K Remediation * The Pittsburgh Office was the billing and reimbursement central office for NovaCare. As such they maintained the Accounts Payable Databases (records for 25Mil + in accounts receivable). Upon arrival, there was no Y2K remediation completed, no Disaster recovery plan in place, no backups being performed, and 56 offices had no links to sync the database info to the home office in Philadelphia, PA. * The first project included analyzing the Y2K status of all 56 offices and remediation as required. Hardware as well as software remediation was necessary. * Next steps included diagnosing and resolving network and server performance issues, implementing a backup, off-site tape rotation/disaster plan and stabilization of the office environment. * Once this was accomplished, several remote offices had duplicate databases on non-y2k compliant hardware/OS's. These were consolidated into the primary database from the Baltimore and Chicago regions and all the office workers as well were installed into the Pittsburgh Office space. As a background responsibility, all local help desk and vendor coordination for this project was mine to manage. * NovaCare acquired additional competitors in the Chicago area and I was called to lead the project to link (Dialup and Cisco WAN) their systems into the Pittsburgh Office infrastructure. Other Simultaneous Projects: Raintree DB Project installation project in Indiana, Illinois and Baltimore offices and Desktop Support Duties. AKI CORP - Las Vegas, NV 12/1998 - 1/2002 Corporate Business Manager * AKI Corp. is the corporate entity through which I performed my contracting during the stated time period. As such the duties of sales and marketing, negotiations, accounting and Tax filings were mine. I also own several web sites, which required management and that I maintain to broadcast and market my availability and skills as a consultant so that I could maintain full employment. KRAFT FOODS - Winchester, VA 2/1997 - 3/1999 Project Engineer-Y2K Remediation * Kraft Foods had several subsidiary sites that needed to be remediated to Y2K compliancy. My team was the first, to have the Y2K project completed on time. * The Oscar Myer plant was still operating on a serial network and required upgrading or replacing all of the PCs, Allen Bradley PLC Chips and network infrastructure to reach compliance. * The Stonebreakers packaging plant needed Server and workstation remediation to bring it into compliance. * Breyer's ice cream and yogurt plants needed PLC updates. * Finally, the Capri Sun and Kool-Aid plant were going through a major build-out and addition of the Lunchables lines, Fiber installation on top of the Y2K remediation. These assignments were through MI Corp., an integration service provider, as I was an employee there at the time. MI CORPORATION - Frostburg, MD 2/1997 - 3/1999 Project Engineer * MI Corp needed a hands-on manager relative to the ISP division including helpdesk, web mastering and vendor coordination of troubleshooting WAN connections and e-mail issues. At that time the web-farm had no backup plan and was poorly located. Therefore, analysis, planning and implementation were done to correct these situations. * The ATT Transition Project assessed the current Internet backbone vendor costs and was to plan a transition from the current UUNet backbone to a qualified alternative. Through my research and vendor solicitation AT&T was selected for this service and their ISP division engaged. Once negotiations were complete, the transition project was implemented which included setting up parallel WAN networks during the transition period, duplicating mail and hosting accounts and preparing the helpdesk staff to supply info to users. * Shortly after this transition, it was determined that the ISP division would be divested to Mindspring. I coordinated the technical migration and marketing of this transition to our current 4,300 dial-up customers. Upon completion of this project an approximate 400,000.00 infusion was attained. * Internal assignments included Allstate 5250 help desk support as well as off-site integration projects with clients such as Kraft foods. FREELANCE COMPUTER CONSULTANT - Cumberland, MD 5/1995 3/1999 Internet/PC Consultant * Freelancing, I supported local consumers who wanted to use the internet for personal and business purposes. Tasks included setting up ISP accounts, mail accounts, designing web pages for local small businesses and setting up new computers and installing software. Education Remedy ITIL Change Management 1/05 Unilever is implementing ITIL processes throughout the corporation. The training was a combination of online self-study and classroom based educator led activity. Cheetah Learning PMP Exam 4/25/05 -4/29/05 I attended the weeklong Project Management Professional (PMP) Exam Preparation course at Cheetah Learning Centers in Hartford-Windsor, CT April 24th through the 28th 2005. On that Friday April 29th, I took the PMI PMP Exam and passed. MS Project 2003: 1/05 This course was presented as part of a corporate transition to a PMO standard MS Project 2003. The training included the basics of the MS Project Interface and general usage as it related to Unilever integration with the Niku and Clarity tool set. Niku & Clarity: 1/05 This course was provided to Unilever Project Managers to assist them in using these tools to manage their resources within a corporate PMIS. Adding tasks and requesting/assigning resources in the Matrix environment was the focus. Bachelor of Science in BA (In Progress) Started 4/04 I am currently progressing through my junior year toward my Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree. Microsoft Technical Training Course 12/00 I Attended "Pre-installing and Deploying Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" Training course # MS 1567 and "Installing and Configuring Microsoft Windows 2000 File, Print, and Web Server" Training course # MS 1594. ICTS NT 4.0 Boot camp 3/98 - 4/98 I Studied the Windows NT 4.0 MCSE Track under Dr. Margaret Smith. I graduated second in my class. June 29th - July 3rd, 1998 took all 6 of the MSCE NT 4.0 test and passed all on the first attempt. Ricks College, NAU and FSU 9/84-6/95 Continuing education courses in Philosophy, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, and other Chiropractic pre-med requirements. US Navy 10/89 -9/91 I attended and graduated with honors as a Hospital Corpsman. Because of my ranking in my studies, I was rewarded with advancement and enrollment in the Naval School of Health Sciences as an Advanced Medical Laboratory Technician. I also graduated with honors from this school. I was the class Educational Petty Officer (Class Tutor/Mentor) for 23 naval medical students. Other Skills Medical Laboratory Technician 1989 - 1991 Missionary in Sapporo, Japan (Japanese Language and Culture skills) 1982 -1984