Rodney Best

Santa Clarita, California

310.597.1222
rbff7cf8@westpost.net
PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY
IT Program Manager and Senior IT Specialist
* IT Program Manager with experience providing management support for inter-rela
ted technical projects
geared towards enhancing technical support and services. Recent experience incl
udes providing technical
leadership for software releases, including the gathering, analyzing, and prior
itizing of requirements,
and guiding of releases through Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) phases.
I have the interpersonal
skills needed to communicate effectively with clients, IT management and staff,
executive leadership, and
other stakeholders. I have also demonstrated the ability to quickly learn new t
echnologies and applications.
* A proven Senior IT Specialist offering over 10 years of solid performance deli
vering IT services in the
areas of networking, technical support, and knowledge management. Experience in
cludes development,
implementation, management, and support of systems and networks. I offer a reco
rd of measurable high
customer satisfaction, and the ability to establish priorities, execute, and ac
hieve results. Key strengths
include analytical thinking, problem solving, strong customer focus, and abilit
y to meet project commitments.
EDUCATION
Masters of Business Administration (MBA), University of Maryland University Coll
ege 2009-present
Bachelor of Science degree, Computer Science, Hampton University, Hampton, Virgi
nia
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
IBM Corporation
Program Manager, Maintenance and Technical Support - Glendale, California
2006 - 2009
* Created and managed technical support projects in alignment with strategic ini
tiatives. Coached support center
leaders and support agents on making optimal use of knowledge management tools.
* Handled business controls compliance for ServiceLink, a suite of applications
used to deliver mainframe support
offerings like SoftwareXcel. Maintained an audit-ready position which allowed S
erviceLink to remain deployed
within IBM's web infrastructure and thereby enabled a $50-75M annual revenue st
ream.
* Managed the migration of IBM's System z usage support group to IBM's main tool
used to create and maintain
knowledge documents, resulting in more System z content being available via IBM
's support web site and improved
customer success and use of web self-help.
* Served as KCS Technical Lead for IBM Global Technology Services in Americas an
d teamed with peers to research
and pilot Knowledge-Centered Support (KCS) for IBM support organizations. Demon
strated ability to solve service
request incidents faster and optimize use of support resources by using the KCS
methodology.
* Reduced support costs $100K annually by migrating System z clients to a web ba
sed live remote assistance tool
and retiring an expensive remote control tool that required leased line connect
ivity.
* Enhanced service delivery processes by improving checks for customer confident
ial or sensitive data when
creating knowledge documents from service request data. A revised review policy
was implemented to prevent
legally damaging cases of knowledge documents containing inappropriate customer
data and a 98% reduction in
cases was realized within 6 months of the process change.
Software Engineer, Electronic Support and Delivery - Glendale, California
2004 - 2006
* Defined requirements and directed team efforts to deliver major releases of su
pport web applications.
* Devised support plans to improve application availability. Participated in use
r acceptance testing for support
portal web applications; executed test cases, documented defects in problem tra
cking system, reported test status
to management teams, and provided input into readiness of application releases.
* Collaborated with S390 support center and implemented remote control diagnosti
c tool for 350 support agents.
Decreased support costs 20% by reducing the need to transfer large dumps and pr
oviding a way for support agents
to begin diagnostic measures sooner.
* Managed two pilot programs for remote control diagnostic tools aimed at improv
ing time-to-resolution for
incidents handled by IBM support agents; Directed the efforts of software vendo
rs, IBM support teams, application
developers, and hosting environment personnel. Completed pilots and used pilot
data to influence senior management
decisions regarding deployment of remote control tools in support centers.
Senior IT Specialist, Remotely Delivered Support - Gaithersburg, Maryland
2001 - 2004
* Developed and enhanced client-valued support services. Defined and validated b
usiness requirements for technical
support portal application.
* Established and ran pilot programs for a web-based service delivery solution.
Developed support plans for system
environments used for pilots and attained 99.7% system availability during the
pilots.
* As Software Development Manager for Virtual Help Desk (VHD) web application, m
anaged team of eleven application
developers to achieve revenue and profit objectives by delivering over 25 chang
e requests for Virtual Help Desk
in a period of 1 year.
IT Specialist, IBM Global Services - Los Angeles, California
1996 -2001
* Sold and performed IT services contracts. Also facilitated Systems Assurance a
ctivities and managed critical
situations by taking a leadership role in resolving high impact problems.
* Installed and configured various hardware and software products for clients, i
ncluding Open System Adapter (OSA)
cards for direct LAN connections to mainframes, for both TCP/IP and SNA network
protocols.
* Significantly improved performance for clients by tuning network resources and
settings; reduced user response
times from seconds to sub-second values by tuning window sizes, timer settings,
frame sizes, and buffer values.
* Assisted large data center move and consolidation for major medical center. Re
cognized along with other team
members with monetary appreciation award after successful cutover.
* Teamed with ten system programmers to prepare more than 100 software and hardw
are products for Y2K at large
membership organization; Achieved Y2K readiness goal of no incidents and no imp
act to members at year end.
TECHNICAL/COMPUTER SKILLS
Hardware: IBM Communication Controller, IBM System z (mainframe), Open Systems
Adapter (OSA)
Software: z/OS Communications Server, IBM Personal Communications, Lotus Notes,
Microsoft Excel, Microsoft
PowerPoint, Microsoft SNA Server, Microsoft Word, NCP, OSA/SF, Tivoli NetView,
Tivoli Omegamon,
WebSphere Application Server, WebSphere Portal
Operating Systems: z/OS, MVS/ESA, OS/390, Microsoft Windows
Networking: TCP/IP, SNA, APPN
Network routing: RIP, OSPF, IGRP, BGP
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Company Sponsored Training: Knowledge-Centered Support (KCS), IBM WebSphere A
pplication Server Development, Servlet
and JSP Development, XML
AWARDS
* 3 IBM Team Awards, 3 IBM Individual Awards, several IBM Thanks Awards, and mul
tiple recognitions for performance