Network Administrator

Helpdesk & Network Admin

I started my professional IT career working at a small family-owned MSP in Charlotte, NC. Primarily, this role consisted of answering helpdesk calls for several clients, including a large multi-state advertising firm and the franchise owner for a multi-state restaurant. In addition to answering calls and tickets through email, I was also the primary contact/administrator for a regional real estate firm that employed several hundred employees.

This role wasn’t just helpdesk activities though, as part of the responsibilies also including managing a centralized datacenter that many clients used as their remote infrastructure, connecting in with various thin-clients and RDP sessions through VPN connections. The network consisted mainly of SonicWALL devices with VPN connections back to STM’s datacenter, and in some cases, between the offices of a few clients. I was also responsible for managing multiple Exchange and Active Directory deployments and traveling to various client sites as needed for either trouble tickets or routine maintenance, including onboarding clients in multiple states.

With this being my first exposure to a professional IT position, it taught me a lot about not only systems and network administration, but also helped reinforce additional customer service and other soft skills that I had started building up in previous retail positions. The few years I spent in this role helped set the stage for the rest of my IT/cybersecurity career.