Thomas Weeks's Resume

Thomas W. Weeks
--- ------- --
San Antonio, TX -----
Phone: ---.---.----
Email: tweeks-jobs-at-theweeks.org
Bio: Tom's Bio

Updated March - 2008
Email me for my address/phone information
This document is on line at: http://theweeks.org/toms-stuff/resume/

For Static/Print Versions:

PDF Version of this resume is here

For MS Word, this page can be saved and loaded directly Word, Open Office, etc
For raw TXT version, please contact Thomas directly

Professional Objective:

Obtain a great job in either the Internet/IT, Security, Server/Networking, or Training fields. Seeking a Senior Technical or Technical Manager position that can take advantage of my skill set and experience while allowing me to continue to increase my technical expertise.

Professional Overview:

Experienced Electrical Engineer and Linux/UN*X Administrator with 10+ years of experience in both realms. Accomplished author, lecturer, trainer and technical manager/executive liaison. I possess a love for the technology that I've mastered, a passion for showing others how to properly apply it, and the abilities to harness them all to solve real world problems in new and creative ways.

Published Papers, Lectures & Books:

2008/2007 - Lecture: "The State of the Linux Desktop", for SA Chapter IEEE Computer Society
(the latest version given at the 2008 San Antonio OS-Fest)
2006 - Article: "Production MySQL Backups in the Enterprise", for SysAdmin Magazine. Part-I and Part-II
2006 - Lecture: "Managed Web Hosting with Open Source", for SA Chapter IEEE Computer Society
2005 - Book: "Linux Toys II", contributing author, Wiley Publishing (more info here).
2005 - Lecture: Presenter at the MySQL Users Convention on the topic Ensuring Effective MySQL Backups on Enterprise Production Systems" (more up to date HTML version is here).
2004 - Book: "Linux Troubleshooting Bible", co-author Wiley Publishing
2002 - Paper: Host Security Paper, "Host Hardening and Intrusion Detection - The Open Source Way", written privately for UNIX Review.
2002 - Paper: Web Server Paper, Web Server Migration Overview, written on behalf Rackspace for DatacenterHub.com.
2001 - Paper: Security Paper, "Internet Server Security: The Best Things in Life Are Free, But There's No Silver Bullet", written on behalf of Rackspace for www.datacenterhub.com.

Education:

Texas A&M University

Graduated from Texas A&M w/Electrical Engineering Technology / Telecom BS degree. Telecom portion covers: u-Wave Links, LAN, WAN, TCP/IP, Bridging, Routing, Protocol Programming, Cellular/PCS/GSM Networks, Leased Lines, VSAT, SMDS, ATM, Frame Relay, ISDN, FDDI, Optics, T1, DS3, OC-n, etc.

Thames Valley State Technical College

Graduated in class of 90 with an Associates Degree of EET.

IT Industry Certifications

2008 - Project+ project management by Comptia & Momentum, working toward certification
2007 - Business Writing by Rackspace U & Rice University (cert-less class)
2007 - ITIL Certified after taking "ITIL IT Service Management Essentials" Class by Pink Elephant
2007 - RHCE Certified on RHEL-5, after assisting in training Rackspace for upcoming RHCE exam.
2006 - Took the new RH401/RHCA Class on RH Enterprise Deployment and Systems Management
2005 - RHCE Certified on RHEL-4, after taking the Red Hat RH300 Rapid Track course for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.

Used updated OS knowledge to prepare, train and update 60 Rackspace Linux Sys-Admins on relevant material. Rackspace scored the highest group pass rate ever recorded for the RHCE exam (>92%).

2003 - RHCE Certified on Red Hat 8.0.

Used to train over 60 Sys-Admins at Rackspace in a one week crash course for relevant OS' materials on RH9 & RH-EL3.

2002 - Tripwire Certified Professional via the Tripwire Technical Training 200

for Tripwire for Servers 2.4.2 and Tripwire Manager 2.4.2

2001 - RHCE for Red Hat 7.1 (cert available upon request) Certified Engineer (302) Exam
Exhaustive IT/Training List Here

Experience:

Rackspace: 1999 to Present

Rackspace Positions Held:

Data Center Solutions Group Lead, 2006 - Present

Managed remote team of four DC-Analysts (one DC-Engineer/Analyst in each DC)
Managed development of DC tools and automation systems such as:

mass hard drive wiping & logging system (zero fill & DoD3 wipe).
test & Integration of IP-KVM system for all data centers.
push-script for mass 500 server shutdown for DC power maintenance.

Created & trained a Root Cause Analysis & Problem Solving class for my people.
Managed my personnel's quarterly reviews, corp. travel, training, etc.

Lead Systems Engineer on Systems Innovation Team, 2004 - 2006

Developed mass-automation tools for large scale data center and customer server problems. Examples include:

push-scripting for mass server maintenance.
mass port scanning scripting reports for vulnerable sendmail binaries.
SMART hard drive"health test" script (active r/w test) with mass logging & statistics.

Lead a team of two developers for creation of automation tools and reports:

scripted mass DNS/BIND daemon re-config and restarts.
server daemon scripts & system for mass batch automation system.

Product Engineer for Rackspace Product team, 2003 - 2004

Did initial research/feasibility recommendations for:

H.A. MS-Exchange clusters offering.
Low cost, PCI card based firewall (embedded Linux) product.
Created a server reset/power mux controller called "Rapid Reboot" (more further down).

Corp. Technical Trainer (lone) 2001 - 2003

Started the Rackspace Training Department.
Wrote & delivered Linux/Windows sys-admin training classes & exams for all of Support.
Created our own RHCE Training Boot Camp & mock 6hr exam.
Trained MTAs(email), DNS, FTP, Hardware/OS t-shooting.
Trained for tape backups, restores, and emergency data recovery techniques.
Maintained OS images for Windows, Linux and FreeBSD training loads.

Sys-Admin for Rackspace Customer Support 1999 - 2000

I was the third customer Support Sys-Admin at Rackspace (employee #11).
Built customer servers, loaded OS (Win/Lin), and did Sys-Admin/networking work.
Supported a DC environment with a 200:1 server to technician ratio.
Functioned as a de facto, in-house R&D / T&I (Test & Integration) engineer for various projects.

Rackspace Inventions, Special Projects and Skills:

Created automated hard drive "health check" PXE script 2004

SMART statistics are known to be inherently unreliable, so I...
Created an active-test SMART script using little known SMART r/w tests built into drives.
Tested and logged health of every drive going into the DC from 2004-2006.
Collected much data on drive death statistics (age, make, model, SCSI vs ATA, etc).

Created "Rapid Reboot" hardware reset/power mux controller 2003

My reset/ATX-power mux controller can control the reset or power on thousands of servers.
I designed, constructed, and prototyped RR, and then outsourced for mass implementation.
RR allowed the creation of a fully automated, "in rack" data center for Server Beach
Additional custom back end system controls the VLAN, PXE, loads the OS, & reboots.
Currently cross licensed to Server Beach as heart of their automated system.

Created automated disk-to-disk bare metal backup system 2000

Called "Bounce-Backup", it was composed of a special boot floppy and cron-automated system
Worked on both Windows and Linux servers sort of like a intelligent, intermittent, off-line, "RAID-1 backup system".
It was an off-line backup system, but backup drive could be booted from & run on

Other skills attained while at Rackspace:

Hardware:	RAID-10 & RAID-50, Burn In Testing & Fault Replication, Firewall Scripting, Dual-Homing/NAT Routing, Hybrid Disk-to-Disk Backup Solutions, Hardware Root Cause Analysis
Networking/Security:	Port scan Detection & Blocking, Intrusion Detection, Packet Level Attacks, Security Audits, IP-Chains/Tables Cracker-Forensics & Post-Crack Lock downs,
Technology:	SSL/X509, ssh/scp, SMTP-Auth, Linux/UNX Command & Control (c-line, kernel tweaks, process, networking, etc), UNX Daemon Control (nice, resource throttling, task prioritizing), Highly Customized cron jobs, Windows/Linux Interoperability (LPR, SMB/SAMBA, etc.), Automating OS-Installs
Professional:	Personnel Management, Time Management, Project Management, R&D/Cost Analysis, Staffing Issues, Communication Skills, Employee Effort Recognition/Motivation, and Root Cause Analysis & Problem Solving Theory

Brooks-AFB IT Contractor: 1996 - 1999
(for CSC, GTE, & General Dynamics)

Brooks Air Force Base IT Contractor Positions Held:

Senior Software Engineer (GTE+GD Contract), 1997-1999

Ran a lab team of two engineers in the base Testing and Integration Center lab (TIC/PIT)
Responsible for SMS/WinNT/WINS/MS-Exchange Admin/R&D work
Responsible for steering base technology-centric decisions--through research and implementation strategies.

Communications Engineer (GTE Contract), 1996-1997

With degree, promoted to base Solaris/UN*X System Administrator for 27 Sun Solaris UN*X servers (NIS+, MS-DCs & DNS).
Functional admin for all base UN*X systems, RAID storage systems, backups (Legato), print queues, etc
Promoted seven months later to Systems Engineer into the TIC (above)

Computer Tech (CSC Contract), 1996 (3mo)

Started off as on-site computer tech until I completed a freshman class to complete my EET/Telecom BS degree for promotion to target UN*X Sys-Admin position
Did traveling PC tech work around base for desktop and laptop systems (Win95 mostly)
PC repairs, data migrations, anti-virus/client configs, etc.

Key technological experience attained while in TIC position(Brooks-AFB):

^I=Implemented ^T=Tested ^R=Researched

Networking	Admin/Servers	Integration
Net-Media 10/100Bx^I, DS0/DS1/T1^I, FDDI^T, TTY/RS-232^I	Operating Systems^all I Sun-OS, Solaris, Linux, HP-UX, WinNT4	Migrations^all I UNIX/Win95->NT, NT-Domain->NT-Domain, NFS->CIFS
LAN Based Protocols TCP/IP^I, UDP^I, RIP^I, ATM^I, DNS^I, NIS+^T, WINS^I, NetBIOS/BEUI^I, IPX-Bridge^T	Storage^all I NAS Backup/Restores, Soft/Hard RAID 0,1,5	SMS Server->Winn9x Pushes^{all I} Net-Centric NortonAV, MS-Office, Outlook98, Y2K Patches, IP Stack Patches
Security DOS Attk^T, Port Scanning^T, System Fingerprinting^T, CRACK/SATAN/SAINT^T/R/R, Back-Dooring^T, Host Hardening^I, Physical Security^T, Securing Hardware^I, TCP Wrappers^I, Tripwire^R	Server Apps^all I Exchange, SMS/SQL, NortonAV Enterprise, Net/Web-XRay	Projects^all I Web-Email, DMS, 96 Line Modem Bank, MAN-Wide AV Solution, Software Auditing, User Tracking,...
Net/Info-Sec Protocols Kerberos^R, PGP^R, SSL^I, VPN/PPTP^I, SSH^I, SHA/MD5/DES/3DES/RSA^I(ssl), etc.	File Systems^all I FAT16/32, NTFS, EXT2/Linux, misc-UN*X, Romeo/Joliet/ISO9660, FFS, TAR, etc.	Scripting^all I Shell Scripting (SH/csh/Korn, cron, batch, NT-Login), HTML, client batch utils
Perimeter Firewalls^T, Proxying^T, Proto-Bridging^I, Filter-Lists^T, Intrusion Detection/Forensics^T	NAS/Net FS'^all I NFS, SBM/CIFS, Net-App(vendor)	---

More Technical Experience from 1987-1996
(available from http://theweeks.org/toms-stuff/resume/resume_87-96.html)

Community Involvement:

1998-2006: Started the Gateway Church Mobile Soup Kitchen. Twice/month I cook food for 60-80 people, meet other volunteers at our local church, and coordinate our ministry under a downtown bridge to feed the homeless and minister to spiritual needs.
1997-Present: President of the local computer user group XCSSA (X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio). We explore OS' ranging from Linux and Solaris, to BeOS and AmigaOS. We meet once/month for a high-tech show-n-tell, have lectures on subjects ranging from Home LAN DNS and firewalling/routing to RAID and crypto-filesystems. Simply put, XCSSA is just a bunch of super-geeks who enjoy hanging out, sharing fun technical information, and eating pizza.
1997-Present: Associated with the San Antonio High Powered Rocketry and Hill Country Rocketeers groups. Now hold my Tripoli High Powered Rocket membership (#11056) and am currently working toward my L1 HPR certification.

Thomas W. Weeks
--- ------- --
San Antonio, TX -----
Phone: ---.---.----
Email: tweeks-jobs-at-theweeks.org
Bio: Tom's Bio

Professional Objective:

Professional Overview:

Published Papers, Lectures & Books:

Education:

Texas A&M University

Thames Valley State Technical College

IT Industry Certifications

Experience:

Rackspace: 1999 to Present

Brooks-AFB IT Contractor: 1996 - 1999
(for CSC, GTE, & General Dynamics)

More Technical Experience from 1987-1996
(available from http://theweeks.org/toms-stuff/resume/resume_87-96.html)

Community Involvement:

Email Thomas Weeks: tweeks-jobs@theweeks.org

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Thomas W. Weeks --- ------- -- San Antonio, TX ----- Phone: ---.---.---- Email: tweeks-jobs-at-theweeks.org Bio: Tom's Bio

Professional Objective:

Professional Overview:

Published Papers, Lectures & Books:

Education:

Texas A&M University

Thames Valley State Technical College

IT Industry Certifications

Experience:

Rackspace: 1999 to Present

Brooks-AFB IT Contractor: 1996 - 1999 (for CSC, GTE, & General Dynamics)

More Technical Experience from 1987-1996 (available from http://theweeks.org/toms-stuff/resume/resume_87-96.html)

Community Involvement:

Email Thomas Weeks: tweeks-jobs@theweeks.org

Powered By

Thomas W. Weeks
--- ------- --
San Antonio, TX -----
Phone: ---.---.----
Email: tweeks-jobs-at-theweeks.org
Bio: Tom's Bio

Brooks-AFB IT Contractor: 1996 - 1999
(for CSC, GTE, & General Dynamics)

More Technical Experience from 1987-1996
(available from http://theweeks.org/toms-stuff/resume/resume_87-96.html)