Mark McDow

proactive
compliance minded
future planner
problem solver
solution provider
detail oriented
documentation driven

IT Consultant, Systems Engineer, and Solution Provider based in Florida

👩🏼‍💻 Engineering Experience

IT Consultant @ Mark McDow Computer Consulting LLC (Jun 2011 - Present)
Managed Service Provider, IT Solutions for business and individuals. Consultant for purchasing, upgrading, maintenance, data recovery, and emergency response for PCs and servers running Microsoft, Unix, or Mac OS.

Cleaning and Tune-Up
Networking
Data Recovery
Emergencies
Maintenance Plans
Teaching
Partnerships: Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider (CSP), Microsoft Partner Network (MPN), Microsoft Reseller, Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP, MCSE, MTA).
Partnerships: Adobe, Avira, Axis, Backblaze, Bitdefender, Brother, Carbonite, CheckPoint, Cloudberry, Code42 CrashPlan, Datto, DreamHost, DropSuite, Esri, Gandi, GoDaddy, Intel, Kaseya, Kaspersky, LastPass, Lenovo, Mozy, OpenDNS, Samsung, Seagate, SkyKick, SolarWinds, SonicWALL, StorageCraft, Tenable, Veeam, Wasabi.

Network Engineer @ Trinity United Methodist Church (Oct 1994 - Oct 2016)
System & Network Administrator, Computer Support, Teaching, Volunteering, Technology Evangelist.

Provide IT support and guide the infrastructure growth from TUMC’s first network, email server, and dial-up Internet connection to VoIP phone system, virtual servers, hosting five websites, and a fiber-optic connection.
Design, implement, and support for web servers, Google Apps, SQL, business applications, and all network services (cloud services, physical & virtual servers with over 50 workstations).
Reduced printing costs with smarter equipment choices and transitioning into digital medium.
Migrated TUMC from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps including users, mailboxes, shared address book contacts, and distribution lists.

Systems Engineer @ LifeSouth Community Blood Center (Apr 2013 - Dec 2014)

Document servers, processes, procedures. Analyze and recommend hardware or software for purchase. Identify areas needing upgrade and recommend solutions. Monitor system performance and capacity. Provide user assistance. Identify cause of errors.
Determine, design, and test improvements while minimizing impact to blood collection and processing.
Moved from an internal Exchange 2010 server to hosted Office 365.
Designed HA/HR solutions including DHCP cluster, SQL cluster, CAS array.
Routinely deployed software updates and programs using SCCM Configuration Manager.
Network installation at customer sites.
Level 3 support

👩🏼‍💻 Contracting Experience

This section only accounts for work done at temporary assignments.

OT Network Anaylst Senior @ Gainesville Regional Utilities (Aug 2022 - Nov 2022)
Regulated Energy Delivery, NERC CIP, CISA, NIST standards compliance.

Led team with security investigation and evidence collection during cyber incident drill. Setup Self Service Password Reset. Tenable vulnerability auditing. McAfee Enterprise redesign to prevent single point of failure and provide compliance and security. Hard Disk Drive destruction and certification compliance. Azure and Microsoft 365 design to meet compliance requirements. SolarWinds administrator. Troubleshoot, identify errors, recovery backups from SAN. Gray Sky trained and performed role during hurricane helping process outages and safety alerts. Auditing delegated Active Directory permissions. Created Script repository and learning on team SharePoint. Network Time Sync deployment. WSUS Database maintenance.

Supported Products: Nakivo, CCure, ChangeGear, SolarWinds, ADManager, Synology NAS, McAfee, Firesight, Nutanix, VMware ESX, Citrix, NetScaler, Splunk, Tenable, SCCM, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams.

Systems Analyst in Special Projects @ [Clay Electric Cooperative Inc] (Dec 2021 - Feb 2022)
Supported Products: Windows Server (incl. Clusters and Hyper-V), Nutanix AHV, Zabbix monitoring/alerting and Grafana, AlienVault SIEM, Dual Shield MFA, Hycu backup, Avamar backup, Dell EMC Data Domain SAN storage, Baramundi Unified Endpoint Management (UEM), Hyena Active Directory (AD) tools, Passwordstate.

Worked in Prism to respond to alerts, add, modify AHV virtual machines in Nutanix clusters. Migrated Hyper-V and physical serves to Nutanix. Setup hycu backup of Nutanix virtual machines. Sized hycu backup and licensing for the Nutanix production and disaster recovery clusters. Migrated the hycu backup server from testing in the DR to the production Nutanix cluster. Migrating/draining Hyper-V cluster nodes using PowerShell script for safely patching and restarting cluster.
Identify servers with expiring or expired hardware/software support. Cost savings by reclaiming 365 credits for outages. Cost savings by using Microsoft Office licenses with 365. Audited and documented Microsoft licenses and reclaimed license keys. Automatated Windows product activation of virtual machines.
Parse fields with awk to collate data for reporting. Analyzed WINS server logs for clients and usage, identified them and moved them and retired wins servers. Migrated clients and identified users of static DNS servers. Check Exchange SMTP Logs to get unique sender IP addresses, finding and identifying clients using relays such as anonymous. Created or updated documentation of all services using SMPT. Standardized DNS client search order and updated all networked devices. Parsed IP addresses in csv, excel to sort and count network address ranges usage. Setup DMZ DNS. Identified which entries needed publishing to a DMZ DNS server.
Server administration as needed for Zabbix on Linux. Setup Zabbix templates for Dell OpenManage, Nutanix. Zabbix SMS alerts with Twilio. Zabbix monitoring. Connected Zabbix to MS teams to post alerts to channels. Syslog monitoring to SIEM. Deployed and configured syslog.

Network/Systems Engineer IV @ Bank of America (May 2018 - Oct 2019)
Responsible to oversee and perform remediation of Tier 1-3 for computers, virtual desktops and BOA banking client machines. Managing, deploying, upgrading and patching and remediation of 325K+ client side computers for compliance audit.

Technical professional with operations & troubleshooting experience, perform technical analysis, drive for results, take ownership, be self-motivated, and think outside the box.
Locate and patch security vulnerabilities across Bank of America Workstations.
Silently patching and updating PCs without disturbing users through the use of Command Line.
Advanced OS and application troubleshooting knowledge required. Experience with Enterprise Vulnerability Management tools. Experience with desktop security practices and tools.
Responsible for silent installation and updates of McAfee.
Create command line installation scripts.
Troubleshooting of network related issues involving IP and DNS issues for Desktops, Virtual appliances and bank center machines.
Review logs from IBM Bigfix, Windows Event View to determine and resolve client issues.
Report generation and creating work assignments.
Training of new team members.

Previously worked as a Windows System Administrator from Oct 2016 - Dec 2016

Contracted through Insight Global to remotely migrate the server operating system for 600 branch offices - 1200 servers installed as high availability clustered pairs.
Contract successfully completed ahead of schedule.

📌 Volunteering

President and Vice-President @ CompTIA Association of IT Professionals, NCFL Chapter (2015 - 2018)
In support of its educational mission, the local chapter of AITP hosted monthly in-person presentations where discussions were led by local information technology speakers. The chapter also arranged member tours of local IT-related sites.

Presenter PC Malware History, Current Threats, and Removal
Introduced speakers and faciliated Q&A sessions

👩🏼‍🎓 Education

MCSE Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer
Microsoft -

MTA: Security Fundamentals Microsoft Technology Associate
Microsoft -

MTA: Database Administrator Microsoft Technology Associate
Microsoft -

MTA: Cloud Fundamentals Microsoft Technology Associate
Microsoft -

MCSE Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert
Microsoft -

MCSA Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate
Microsoft -

Amateur Radio License, General Class KN4POZ
FCC - (2018 - 2028)

Associate of Science in Computer Information Systems Analysis
Santa Fe College - Gainesville, Florida, USA (1996)

Lean Six Sigma White Belt Certification
CSSC - The Coucil for Six Sigma Certification