Experience and Credentials

Contact Information

About Me

I am currently serving as a Technical Solutions Architect / Solutions Engineer at Cisco in the Americas Partner Organization (APO/channels). Prior to this role, I was part of Cisco’s Customer Experience (CX) Organization, where I collaborated with a global financial institution to engineer the upgrade of their network to an SD-WAN solution.

My professional development has been significantly influenced by Ivan Pepelnjak’s article On I-Shaped and T-Shaped Skills, which has shaped my approach to career growth. While I have a strong passion for classical routing and switching, which led me to pursue expert-level proficiency through two attempts at the CCIE lab exam. I have continuously expanded my skill set into other areas, including service provider technologies, network automation and programmability, wireless, cloud computing, and datacenter technologies. Additionally, I hold an MBA from Western Governors University (WGU), further enhancing my business acumen.

Before joining Cisco, I was recognized as a Cisco Champion in 2019 and participated in GestaltIT’s Networking Field Day 19, where I had the opportunity to share insights and collaborate with thought leaders in the industry.

Experience

  • In my current role as a Technical Solutions Architect at Cisco, I apply my experience as a network engineer to offer insights and solutions from a customer-centric perspective. I approach vendor sales with the same mindset I had as a former customer —- emphasizing technical depth and addressing critical product features and specifications beyond traditional marketing content. To support my colleagues and customers, I developed and distributed a monthly newsletter with curated technical resources and updates, including documentation that aids in making more informed technical decisions.

  • I have also worked on large-scale enterprise network projects, including designing and deploying a VeloCloud-based SD-WAN environment to replace a complex 400-site MPLS L3VPN WAN. This migration involved the integration of two separate MPLS clouds and two separate SD-WAN environments, two datacenters, and 400 remote sites. I employed BGP for optimal connectivity and utilized advanced filtering and policy techniques to ensure seamless network performance across the entire infrastructure.

  • In addition, I contributed to the design and execution of the network portion of an enterprise disaster recovery plan, implementing technologies such as VRFs and BGP filtering to segregate production and disaster recovery (DR) traffic.

  • I played a key role in the migration of an in-house datacenter to a colocation facility, addressing connectivity challenges and ensuring smooth operations during the transition. This project involved working with Cisco’s Nexus series switches running NX-OS to maintain operational continuity.

  • Throughout my career, I have consistently sought to improve operational efficiency. For example, while working with a global enterprise network, I developed automation scripts in Python to streamline data manipulation across APIs, SQL databases, and spreadsheets, resulting in significant time savings (over 90%) and reducing the potential for human error.

  • My technical expertise is complemented by my commitment to professional development. I passed the Cisco CCIE Routing & Switching written exam and have undertaken multiple attempts at the lab exam, acquiring advanced skills in areas such as multicast, QoS, and MPLS (for both enterprise and service provider environments). As part of my study efforts, I shared my personal study resources with the community, including an extensive mind map, a collection of curated documentation links, and nearly 3,500 flashcards.

  • I was honored to be selected for the Cisco Champions 2019 program and was also a finalist for the Cisco 2018 IT Blog Awards.

Credentials

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