About¶

Summary¶

Certified Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft (MS) Azure solutions architect with over 20 years of IT experience in a broad range of roles, most recently as senior cloud engineer (CS-04) in the Information Technology Branch (ITB) at the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).
Demonstrated track record throughout IT professional career, where strategic appreciation combined with a diverse range of technical expertise, strong communication skills and abilities to influence direction for the business of transforming IT have led to unique and challenging opportunities with successively senior responsibilities.
High-achiever with inherent drive for innovation, solutioning, mentoring and supporting workforces, businesses and communities across professional and personal domains.
Since January 2018, as part of the Cloud Centre of Excellence (CCoE) team in ITB at the CRA, provided strategic leadership to technical, business and executive management teams:
- Agency-wide: Led in application, design and transformation efforts where leveraging the strengths of cloud technologies while addressing uncertainties of working with new technologies is key in supporting CRA’s challenging and growing mandate to improve services to Canadians.
- External organizations: Appointed by the CIO to provide technical expertise in support of other government department’s cloud journeys and critical cloud-related issue resolution.
- Government of Canada (GC): Participated in multiple high-profile working groups, pilot projects and pathfinder initiatives, that were established to influence the direction for the governments cloud adoption strategy, cloud service offerings, overall digital priorities and business transformation.
Ten years owner-operated business that provided strategic leadership, guidance and solutions to a broad range of industries for web hosting and technical support.

Experience¶

IT Senior Specialist (CS-04) - Senior Cloud Engineer¶

When:
- 2018-01 to Present
Where:
- Government of Canada Canada Revenue Agency Information Technology Branch Cloud Centre of Excellence
Experience:
- Responsible for executing CRA’s Cloud Adoption Strategy including planning and leading the complex enterprise transformation from on-premises data centres hosted by Shared Services Canada (SSC) to a hybrid IT architecture with two Cloud Service Providers (MS Azure and AWS). Work with executives from across the Information Technology Branch (ITB) to expand CRA’s Cloud Centre of Excellence (CCoE) and execute on its mandate to be a catalyst for modernization in the organization.
- Establishing the direction and determining the organization’s priorities on adoption approach and delivery of core foundational capabilities to support business demands, e.g.: Secure Cloud 2 Ground (SC2G), Distributed Credential and Account Management (DCAM), and Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) workloads). In this capacity, providing:
  - Technical leadership and guiding the architecture, engineering, and implementation of CRA’s Cloud Product Roadmap that defines the evolution of the Agency’s cloud platform, service offerings and security posture as well as the strategic alignment and prioritization for workload onboarding. CRA’s cloud platforms support CRA’s ITB (>3500 IT resources) and will host CRA workloads for both internal (56,000 employees) and external consumption (Canadian taxpayers and benefit recipients).
  - Cloud adoption advice and guidance to ITB (>3500 IT resources) on technical designs, migration patterns, vendor engagement, right cloud selection, and financial management.
  - Cloud adoption advice and guidance to Business (13 Business branches) on cloud concepts, fit for cloud, business transformation, upskilling and a range of other topics to drive a successful cloud journey.
  - Architectural specifications and strategies for the CCoE and CRA’s IT community to construct, integrate, implement, maintain and support IT solutions moving to cloud. This included Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Cloud Identity and Access Management, Cloud Administration and Operation models, and the Red Hat OpenShift container platform.
  - Options analysis and recommendations; presentations to executive management teams for endorsement along with supporting action plans and leadership across multiple teams for successful implementation.
  - Architecture leadership, advice and guidance to CRA projects, executives and other stakeholders to achieve the best possible balance between cloud on-boarder projects, architecture goals, return on investment and strategic directions.
- Collaborating with senior security resources to provide technical leadership in the ongoing work efforts for Agile Security Assessment and Authorization (SAA) methodologies that will provide a standard, and streamlined approach to accelerate cloud adoption.
- Influencing, guiding and collaborating with multiple teams, including business, technical and senior executive levels both within the CRA and the GC as a whole. Adoption topics include Finance, Procurement, IT Service Management (ITSM), Database Infrastructure, Testing and Production Assurance, and Security and Risk Management.
- Documenting and creating presentation material for technical, business, working-level and executive audiences in support of learning/awareness, risk/issue management and executive decision making.
- Led the Operations and Landing Zone work streams of CRA’s Migration Readiness and Planning (MRP) initiative. Designed and implemented CRA’s Cloud Concept of Operations (ConOps). This included the desired IT Service Management state and support model, operational practices (tools, people, processes), business continuity planning, account level controls, establishing best practices, and monitoring all account activities. Provided Engineering leadership in the execution of 5 cloud migration Proofs of Concept (PoCs) which are representative of the various architecture patterns across CRA’s large and diverse application portfolio (over 600).
- Led in product evaluations and PoCs to support innovation, options analysis, architecture/design validations and recommendations for the Business of IT Transformation, including the following:
  - Conducted PoCs that represented diverse cross-section of applications and capabilities from CRA’s IT portfolio. Collectively the PoCs enabled testing and validation of fundamental application patterns to inform CRA’s application modernization, cloud operations and cloud migration strategies. The results were leveraged to define how the Agency selects and prioritizes applications for cloud migrations.
  - Established CRA’s flagship Protected B (PB) environment in Azure for an SAP PoC. The environment required an Authority to Operate (ATO) to host large amounts of sensitive data. Collaborated with senior IT engineers and Security resources to establish and execute on CRA’s first cloud platform assessment. Architected a solution to migrate over 12 terabytes of data from SSCs on-premises data centre to Azure cloud. Activities included requirements gathering, technology research, options analysis, architecture, collaboration with SSC and CRA security and final recommendation to move forward with the Azure Databox service.
  - Led the rapid delivery of CRA’s first Chatbot service to address public enquiries to support the new Climate Action Incentive Payment (CAIP) benefit.
- Planned and executed rapid delivery of multiple Contact Centres using the Amazon Connect Software as a Service (SaaS) to handle the unprecedented and unplanned volume of calls following the release of the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and Canadian Housing Benefit (CHB). The CERB Contact Centre was implemented within 2 weeks and handled over 6.7 million calls from Canadians. The cloud infrastructure for the new CHB Contact Centre was implemented within a week, and will handle an estimated 1.7 million calls of long duration when it launches on December 1^st, 2022.
- Provided senior technical leadership and decision support for the removal of barriers to operating in the sudden remote-work situation, e.g.: insufficient laptops, mobile phones, and Virtual Private Network (VPN) capacity) at the outset of the pandemic.
  - Established the direction to rapidly implement Microsoft Teams for CRA. This enabled communication and collaboration between CRA employees in a de facto, hybrid Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) environment. Used an innovative and iterative approach, creating over 56,000 cloud native accounts and using personal devices for a successful unclassified rollout in under 2 weeks. This provided business continuity for the agency by providing CRA employees the tools needed to continue to serve Canadians remotely. It alleviated the immediate pressure, giving the agency time to further develop the foundational components required to meet the more stringent Protected B, Medium Integrity, Medium Availability (PBMM) security requirements and subsequently deliver a more secure Microsoft Teams service.
  - Provided authoritative technical design and guidance to architect and implement the deployment of secure laptops, mobile phones, VPN and bandwidth capacity by: gathering situational awareness and presenting an Agency-wide common operating picture, coordinating employee accountability requirements, facilitating inter-agency and intra-agency coordination, and providing financial and administrative guidance and analysis.
- Led in the creation of CRA’s cloud sandbox service to enable Agency innovation. This enabled IT and business across CRA to explore and test new ideas within Microsoft Azure and AWS clouds in time-limited, non-production cloud environments.
- Led in the creation of a strategic and innovative Cloud FinOps strategy using Serverless Computing to enable the entire Agency to manage total cost of ownership across Cloud Service Providers. FinOps, short for financial operations, is a management practice that promotes shared responsibility for an organization’s cloud computing infrastructure and costs. The FinOps strategy provided the means for different areas within CRA to see similar patterns and their respective financial costs so that cost optimization and improvements could prevail. It enabled CRA’s cloud procurement team to be alerted when approaching purchase order ceiling thresholds, etc.
- Provided technical leadership in the establishment of a consolidated identity service for CRA’s cloud platforms and SaaS. As part of CRA’s cloud transformation, levered CRA’s existing Identity and access management (IAM) investments, extended our on-premises identities to Azure Active Directory (AD) using SSC’s DCAM and established Active Directory domain controllers in Cloud Service Providers to enable authentication to IaaS workloads and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) for legacy applications unable to migrate to modern authentication services, such as OAUTH ("Open Authorization"), OIDC ("OpenID Connect") and SAML ("Security Assertion Markup Language"). Recommended strategic architecture patterns for other government departments to share knowledge, expedite their implementations and reduce IAM sprawl across the GC.
- Led in the establishment of cloud connection readiness prior to an interconnection between a departmental cloud environment and GC data centers. Led cloud Readiness Activities including: PBMM cloud account via Cloud Brokering Portal, Cloud Infrastructure ATO, Completed Connection Readiness Package, Business Requirements Document (BRD) and Prioritization Criteria including: alignment with WLM (Workload Migration), GC IT priority (TBS Clarity Score), clarification of requirement, receipt of Cloud Readiness Package, Cloud Pathfinder, and GC EARB endorsement.
- As a Cloud pathfinder for the GC:
  - Collaborating with the GC Cloud community and Cloud Technical Working Group:
  - Sharing design patterns (e.g.: interim cloud to ground connectivity), lessons learned, advice and guidance to further drive successful cloud adoption across the GC.
  - Conducting options analysis and providing recommendations; presentations to executive management teams for endorsement along with supporting action plans and leadership across multiple teams for successful implementation.
- Provided technical leadership, advice and guidance to matrixed teams of senior IT, business and executive stakeholders that crossed CRA and GC organizational boundaries, and industry leaders, often taking a SWAT approach in crisis situations. Examples include:
  - IRCC requested assistance from departments to address issues with the Global Case Management System (GCMS) that were inhibiting immigration and passport applications following their move from on-premises data centres to cloud. The CIO appointed me to lead and bring resolution to IRCC’s current incident. Responsibilities included:
    - Conducted a current state assessment, created architectural specifications for missing components, created a strategy to test system changes, determined the root cause of IRCC’s issue (misconfigurations with network load balancers, inefficient authentication, etc.) and recommended action plan for expedient resolution.
    - Presented lessons learned, as a result of IRCC’s incident, to CRA management regarding the importance of documenting current state architecture and design.
  - Appointed by CIO as member of SWAT team to address GC Key and CRA’s credential stuffing attack in summer 2020. SWAT’s mandate was to stop the attack, prevent it from occurring again, identify ways to improve CRA cyber security, such as: implementing Multi Factor Authentication), collaborate with TBS/GC Key stakeholders, and recommend unique ways to identify other users who may be impacted, e.g.: using cloud-based Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) fraud detection services.
- Collaborated and influenced CRA, TBS and SSC procurement organizations to establish a new contracting model, for obtaining access to Fortigate Firewalls via Pay as You Go through the Cloud Marketplace for both AWS and Azure. Faced with unsuccessful avenues to procure Fortigate licenses, influenced and advocated with TBS for their endorsement of a new FinOps model which enabled the CRA and other departments to implement critical cloud-based firewall services.

IT Senior Specialist (CS-04) - Senior Solutions Architect¶

When:
- 2013-11 – 2018-01 : IT Senior Specialist (CS-04) – Senior Solutions Architect
- 2013-01 – 2013-11 : IT Specialist (CS-03) – Solutions Architect
Where:
- Government of Canada Canada Revenue Agency Information Technology Branch Distributed Computing Environment Strategic Planning
Experience:
- Conducted research and engaged with business leaders, industry, OGDs and Agency stakeholders to assess digital workplace emerging technologies and trends, provided recommendations and created proposals for new IT products and services to meet current and future computing needs of the Agency.
- Developed the overarching strategic roadmaps for the Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) and Centralized Technology Platform with a focus on modernizing toolsets and enabling CRA’s digital transformation agenda.
- Oversaw the DCE Technology Roadmap to ensure plans for up-versioning and incremental platform enhancements align with industry direction and leverage modern technology tools and services.
- Developed a Modern Device Management strategic plan to ensure the right tools and capabilities are in place to keep CRA’s device fleet current, secure and updated with minimal end user disruption.
- Oversaw the Client Computing Technology Management (CCTM) research continuum process to ensure CRA technology investments (time/resources/financial) are effective and value-added, to ensure alignment with the ITB Emerging Technology Framework and consistent usage of the standardized practices and processes.
- Provided technical leadership in the development and implementation of recommended digital workplace solutions and products ensuring alignment of GoC, CRA and ITB IT Best Practices, standards and regulations.
- Assisted in identifying training opportunities to upskill CRA employees for future technology/infrastructure adoption.
- Collaborated with other senior technical resources across the branch to map out a cohesive strategic plan to support the workplace of the future.
- Identified, researched, evaluated, and recommended the acquisition of new services and technologies.
- Developed strategies, business cases and long-term plans, cost/benefit analyses, risk analyses, feasibility studies, technical specifications and documentation.
- Developed investment strategies for the introduction of emerging technologies into the computing environment to meet projected client requirements. This included identifying risk factors and contingencies to mitigate the selection of failed or unsupported technologies.
- Analyzed existing and emerging IT technologies and trends to recommend and implement the most appropriate solution to meet client requirements and improve the IT environment.
- Provided technical advice, recommendations, demonstrations and presentations to colleagues, clients and management. Coached colleagues and reviewed their deliverables.
- Represented the Agency in government and international forums.
- Analyzed and assessed proposals of IT solutions from private industry and other Departments, Agencies or groups to recommend the best options.
- Demonstrated in-depth knowledge of problem-solving techniques and tools, such as root cause analysis, diagnostic procedures, decision-making processes, decomposition, and brainstorming required to resolve complex technical issues / business requirements.
- Prepared presentations to promote new and emerging technologies and strategies on various IT products and services to stakeholders, e.g.: colleagues, clients and senior management.
- Demonstrated in-depth knowledge of the Agency’s computing environment and IT strategies in order to represent the interests of the Agency in government and international IT organizations.
- Leveraged knowledge of the public/private sector IT community, to obtain current information on new technologies and trends to plan future implementations, conversions, and strategies, e.g.: hardware, software, and data communications.
- Assessed trends and developments in the field of IT to identify opportunities for enhancing Agency operations and service delivery, and to establish operational, tactical, and strategic planning initiatives regarding the selection and direction of technology. Linked these opportunities to existing operations and made proposals for change in a rapidly emerging technological environment. Key responsibilities included:
  - Strategic engineering and planning of the Windows 10 rollout to 56,000 users, ensuring the automatic migration of user data, applications, and settings with zero IT intervention vastly reducing IT support costs, overtime, and user frustration.
  - Leading in Agency wide presentations to regional senior management, Board of Management, and 13 Business branches on topics such as core renewal, Hybrid IT strategy, evolution of the DCE, and service improvements to 56,000 users.
  - Providing decisions, direction, and engineering to move away from major 5-year project to refresh the operating system on our 56,000+ devices, towards an automated and streamed lined yearly release. Leveraging automated toolsets such as IBM BigFix, Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT), and PowerShell scripts, the backup, upgrade, and restoration of user applications and settings were fully automated without IT or user intervention. This enabled our users and IT to have access to the latest of what Microsoft had to offer.
  - Implementing strategic hardware such as Windows to Go to enable any personal computer to be turned into a highly secure GC furnished device. This enabled highly efficient Business Continuity Plans (connect from anywhere), and reduced the requirement for purchasing IT equipment for contractors, board of management, etc.
  - Delivering digital collaboration tools for CRA’s internal wiki such as GC Tools, Confluence, JIRA, Web Conferencing, etc. Established GC Tools ambassadors from across the CRA to encourage their use.

IT Specialist (CS-03) - Various Positions¶

When:
- 2012 – 2013 : IT Specialist (CS-03) – Server Infrastructure and Directory Services – Digital Identity Engineer
- 2009 – 2012 : IT Specialist (CS-03) – Infrastructure Engineering – DCE Solutions Engineer
- 2006 – 2009 : IT Specialist (CS-03) – CTP Engineering – Citrix Engineer
- 2003 – 2006 : IT Analyst (CS-02) – Enterprise Solutions Management – National Tivoli Administrator
Where:
- Government of Canada Canada Revenue Agency Information Technology Branch
- Government of Canada Shared Services Canada
Experience:
- Planned, developed, implemented, and supported a variety of IT infrastructure including: System Centre Configuration Manager (SCCM), IBM BigFix/Tivoli, Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, Active Directory Domain Services, Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT), Windows Client/Server, Group Policy Management Console (GPMC).
- Provided technical expertise, advice, and recommendations to improve the Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) including: end-user experience monitoring, login optimizations, account lockouts, and emerging trends from IT Service Management.
- Established a PowerShell Scripting Centre of Excellence to reduce duplication of IT management scripts and encourage sharing across the Agency.
- Drafted and presented DCE hardware, software, and mobile roadmaps to the ITB (>3500 IT resources) for endorsement and approval.
- Led and participated in Technical Working groups with local, regional, and national IT.
- Engineered a migration strategy and scripts to migrate >56,000 users, >100,000 groups, and >70,000 computers from a legacy Active Directory domain to a new one.
- Provided 4^th level technical expertise and support for infrastructure and platform components.
- Developed a variety of custom applications using a variety of programming languages to meet Agency requirements including: exchange migration tools, user profile updater, internet kiosk for public internet access, and CRA’s common user desktop to integrate Citrix and non-Citrix users.
- Responsible for numerous large migration projects to over >56,000 users including: Windows 7, 8.1, 10, Windows Server 2008.

Vriends Hosting Ltd. – Director/Owner¶

When:
- 2006-2016
Experience:
- Established a business plan and Federal Corporation offering Web Hosting and Web Design services.
- Established fully managed web hosting services in highly redundant data centres.
- Established fully automated workflows for signups, delivery of services, and support.
- Established fraud detection, prevention, and security services to mitigate business risk.
- Oversaw platforms to meet the needs of PCI (“Payment Card Industry”) compliance standards.
- Established a sales and design team for business development and service delivery.
- Sold successful company in 2016 to a web design firm.

Skills Profile¶

Amazon Web Services Solutions Architect
Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect
Cloud networking, firewall, and interconnectivity engineer
Senior cross-platform troubleshooting specialist
Organization-wide cloud skilling champion
Technical presenter adapting language and content for business and technical audiences, including DPI Professional Development Week, GC Cloud Technical Working Group, Microsoft Database User Group
Skilled negotiator, conflict manager, mediator between technical teams and management
Strategic partnership builder with vendors, e.g.: RedHat, Microsoft, AWS, etc.
Container based application development and hosting experience with OpenShift, AKS, EKS, Kubernetes
Agile Scrum and DevOps practitioner
Technical leader, coach, and mentor
Emerging technology enthusiast, constantly learning new skills and technologies

Other Experience & Hobbies¶

Advocate for IT student education: Mentored the Computer Programming class at Algonquin College to provide students with real world experiences through the development of an Enterprise IT application Provided student teams with project ideas and direction for a real-world IT project, and acted as a Product Owner providing requirements, stories, sprints, and timelines Guided the teams with architecture design, selection of web development frameworks, testing and quality assurance, and deploying into multiple states
Community leader/technology-based enabler: Established an Ottawa group of 3D printer enthusiasts and coordinated supplies/logistics to print face shields to protect health care workers at the beginning of the pandemic
Connect Women Shelters and Churches to discounted software/services (e.g.: Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, Adobe Acrobat, Intuit, etc.) and hardware from leading vendors (e.g.: Lenovo), and provide:
- Technology support such as migrations to Azure/Microsoft 365;
- Business continuity planning;
- Virtual CIO services including: setting strategic priorities, key initiatives, and identify ROI;
- Methods and processes to drive change, and monthly Lunch and Learn sessions for employees, e.g.: security awareness.
Keto Enthusiast: Authored a self-published book called Low Carb Coach: Have Your Bacon and Eat It Too
Flight Enthusiast and YouTube content creator: Create X-Plane and Microsoft Flight Simulator tutorials that are easy to understand. Some of my videos have >800,000 views
Python Enthusiast: Develop and share open-source web applications using frameworks such as FastAPI, Django, etc.

Certifications¶

2020: Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert
2019: AWS Solutions Architect Associate, Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals
2001: Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSA)
- Microsoft Certified Professional
- Cisco Certified Network Associate Routing and Switching (CCNA)
2000: CompTIA A+ Certification, Certified Novell Administrator

Education¶

2001: Network Manager (Eastern Business Computer Institute, College of Applied Art and Technology)
2000: Certified Computer Network Technician (Eastern Business Computer Institute, College of Applied Art and Technology)

Last update: June 10, 2023
Created: May 6, 2023