HORACE “ROB†PENNINGTON

5864 PEBBLE BEACH PLACE, WESTERVILLE, OHIO 43082

614.571.8421
HORACEPENNINGTON@YAHOO.COM

IT MANAGEMENT PROFESSIONAL
Information Technology Infrastructure ~ Strategic Planning ~ Productivity Improv
ement

PROFILE OVERVIEW
Intuitive IT professional with results-based management experience and broad tec
hnical knowledge in revitalizing IT capabilities in support of streamlining mult
i-million dollar business operations. Highly successful in developing cost-effic
ient technology solutions that dramatically reduced operating expenses and saved
millions of dollars. “Out of the box†planner and a reliable leader; equipped with expe
rtise in facilitating improvement in customer support and in bridging the gap be
tween technical and non-technical teams. Excel in leading and motivating teams t
oward increase in productivity and consistent compliance. Experienced leader res
ponsible for managing budgets in excess of $16M and in maintaining vendor relati
onships, agreements, and contracts.
- SNIA Certified Storage Architect
- Chartered Insurance Operations Professional
- ITIL IT Service Management Essentials Certified
- ITIL Service Level Management Practitioner Certified

AREAS EXPERTISE
- Project & Program Management
- National IT Delivery
- Budgeting & Cost Control
- Organization & Staff Development
- Staff Management & Team Building
- Strategic Analysis & Internal Consulting
- Technology Architecture & Integration
- Cost Reduction

TECHNICAL EXPERTISE
Operating Systems Windows 2003, Windows 2000, WINNT 4.0, Windows 95/98/200
0
Servers Compaq/HP Servers
Storage Devices EMC DMX, EMC Symmetrix, Hitachi, IBM ESS 800 (Shark), Cl
ariion, Centera, Network Appliance, and IBM FastT
Network Devices Cisco Smart Switch, Cisco Application Control Engine, F5
Load Balancer, Cisco Global Site Selector Appliances, Cisco Firewall Service Mo
dules, PIX firewalls, Symantec SGS Firewall, McAfee Sidewinders
Productivity Tools Lotus Notes R4-R8 (Lotus Script, Function Formulas, Serv
er Administration), Sametime, Quick place, iNotes, Connections, Blackberry, LEI,
DECS, Legato, Assentor, MS Outlook, and EMC Control Center
Other Intranet implementation, DNS, DHCP, TCP/IP, LDAP, SMTP,
HTTP, Citrix Terminal Services, VPN, SRDF, Time Finder, PPRC, Symm Optimizer, Di
skeeper, and SQL
Cisco Service Manager (CSM), Athena FirePac, and Axway
Secure File Transfer

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Nationwide Insurance, Columbus, OH
Division Manager, Firewall / Network Load Balancing / Secure File Transfer
Sep 2009-Present
Oversee and provide strategic direction to 13 people responsible for the Firewal
l Infrastructure, over 330 Network Load Balancing devices and the corporate Secu
re File Transport system.
- Redesigned Incident Management processes that have resulted in a 300% de
crease in breach resolution
- Completed a software currency audit for all firewalls and load balancing
equipment. This resulted in the decommissioning 14 CSS’s and 31 firewalls, 16 F5 Lo
ad Balancers, (including 4 raptors) and the software upgrade of 186 ACE modules,
5 GSS devices and 12 firewalls.
- Developed a Activity Cost Basis methodology that utilizes a website and
a Widget for data capture; this methodology creates a vehicle to determine the u
nit cost of work tasks and ensures that process improvement initiatives are syst
ematic
- Key person in the overall creation of a balanced scorecard outlining per
formance, capacity, and resource / demand management data
- Completed the first phase of a firewall risk analysis
Division Manager, Collaboration Services Mar 2009-Sept 2009
Division Manager, Windows Production Engineering Jul 2007-Sept 2009
Directed a staff of eight systems engineers tasked to streamline corporate E-mai
l, instant messaging, social networking software, 3,000 Domino applicants, and b
lackberry services to support more than 68,000 users and running more than 130 s
ervers with 150 TB of SAN Storage. Oversaw and ensured performance efficiency of
a team comprised of six engineers responsible for process design, automation, p
roblem management, incident management, and development of Centers of Excellence
for the Windows server infrastructure.
- Co-managed the modification of backup retention cycles and the implement
ation of a transaction log based back up resulting to $1.7M savings
- Generated $40K in savings through successful migration of eight servers
to virtual instance
- Strategized a compression procedure resulting in storage savings of $1.3
M
- Instituted a structured problem management program that reduced server o
utages by 66.3%
- Significantly reduced database corruption by 95.7% by developing automat
ed database maintenance procedures
- Facilitated a center or excellence program for VMWare and clustering tec
hnologies
Division Manager, Server Provisioning Feb 2005-Jul 2007
Division Manager, Distributed Backup Mar 2007-Jul 2007
Managed a staff of 15 and streamlined functions of a server refresh program for
more than 3,000 Windows, UNIX, and AIX servers as well as the provisioning of al
l new servers. Administered an annual budget of more than $10M and managed vendo
r relations, agreements, and contracts.
- Piloted a cross-training regimen that resulted to 8.15% decrease in 2006
average Windows Server Provisioning; 205% increase in Windows server refreshes;
300% reduction in 2006 average UNIX Server Provisioning; and 192% augmentation
in UNIX Server refreshes
- Successfully outsourced physical server installations without additional
cost while reducing FTE counts by four
- Enhanced server forecasting accuracy resulting to more than $2.8M saving
s
- Strategized a capacity plan and a 30-month roadmap (Strategic, Tactical,
Architecture, and Research)
- Ensured the steadfast upgrade of all Netbackup clients and media servers
to version 6.0 MP4
- Generated $400K savings through the completion of the conversion of SQL
Backtrack to the NBU Oracle Agent for all Oracle clients
Division Manager, Storage Engineering and Provisioning Nov 2003-Feb 2005
Managed and led maintenance of an infrastructure that consists of EMC DMX, Symme
trix, Hitachi, ESS800, Clariion, Centera, and Network Appliance storage frames t
hat host over 900 TB of storage for over 400 servers. Defined and established st
rategic long-term goals, policies, and procedures for Open Systems Storage. Main
tained efficiency in multiple lines of communication from various internal custo
mers, management personnel, and across multiple lines of business for technical
and project support. Administered an annual budget of more than $16M while culti
vating vendor relations, agreements, and contracts.
- Significantly lowered operating expenses by $1M by consolidating 17 EMC
frames into 6
- Developed, realigned, and implemented the migration of 102 Brocade switc
hes to 20 Cisco directors
- Expedited provisioning delivery from 42 days to 5 days
- Promoted ITIL best practices for incident, change, and problem managemen
t
- Determined and implemented a strategic solution to correct SAN / Storage
deficiencies resulting in 99.999% availability
Division Manager, Electronic Communications Infrastructure Apr 2002-Nov 200
3
Directed and ensured performance efficiency of 15 staff responsible for infrastr
ucture of 53 servers that hosts 87 instances of Domino and 10 Sendmail servers f
or 50,000 customers. Maintained superior level IT support by establishing relati
ons with information technology and other internal staff.
- Lowered server outage minutes by 52.9% for the entire Lotus Notes infras
tructure
- Efficiently integrated all external storage devices to a SAN-connected s
torage frame
- Migrated all data from an EMC Clariion frame to an IBM ESS Shark
- Facilitated server consolidation efforts, which resulted in net reductio
n of 26% of the infrastructure servers
Lead Lotus Notes Administrator Jul 2000-Apr 2002
Managed and streamlined all aspects of server performance, stability, and reliab
ility as the designated 50,000 users and 103 Lotus Notes instances across four d
omains.
- Monitored consistent compliance with all established change control poli
cies, service level agreements, and security standards
- Managed and resolved all third level technical issues with vendors
- Ensured preparedness and reliability of Lotus Notes infrastructure by cr
eating and maintaining a Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity Plan
- Formulated an application that verified unused accounts and resulted in
the termination of over 7000 unused accounts
- Cut server outages by more than 70% and successfully spearheaded the mig
ration of 17,000 Windows-based Lotus Notes users to a Citrix environment

PRIOR EXPERIENCE
NCS HEALTHCARE, Dublin, OH
Lead Security Administrator (1999-2000)
Lead Domino Administrator / Windows NT Administrator (1998-2000)
SARCOM, Columbus, OH
Lotus Notes Administrator (1997-1998)
U.S. MARINE CORPS
Lotus Notes / Windows NT / Personnel Administrator (1993-1997)

AWARDS AND HONORS

2004 Storage Networking World’s “Industry Regulation and Compliance and Corporate Govern
ance Awardâ€
Networking World’s “Systems Implementation†Runner-up Award for the SAN Consolidation P
t