Our Journey

The Dream That Changed — And Gave Us the World

Our story didn’t collapse in one moment — it was a slow burn. Little things at first: schools stopping real education, kids "axing" questions instead of asking them, teenagers teaching others how to steal instead of study. Job offers pulled because of a "country accent." Sounds like bad fiction, but it was real. And when the cracks in society started hurting our family, we had a choice to make. What would you do?

The America we grew up with — the one where hard work meant stability — is gone. Single incomes are a relic. Houses that once cost $200K now scrape past a million. Wages froze while everything else exploded. The "American Dream" wasn’t lost; it was bulldozed. So we did the hardest thing you can do: we left family, left friends, and went searching — for a future worth fighting for, and maybe, just maybe, for a living wage that still meant something.

We’re an old-school family. Hard work, loyalty, honesty — values that feel rarer every year.

Chasing Stability Across States

We hit the road — Florida, Texas, California, Virginia, D.C. — looking for some flicker of balance. But every move hammered home the same truth: the system isn’t broken; it’s rigged. Built for the backslappers and sellouts. Built against families trying to live with dignity.

But quitting isn’t in our blood. Every hard lesson sharpened us. Every setback carved our priorities deeper: family, dignity, grit. Values you don’t trade — not for a paycheck, not for anyone.

We’re not negative. Just honest. Google it. Reddit it. Thousands of threads say the same thing: something’s broken, and it’s not just us seeing it. If the environment is toxic, you don’t stay. You leave. (Ask Chernobyl how staying put worked out.)

Leaping Across the Ocean

After California gave us professional stability but new personal battles — broken court systems, absurd housing costs, watching communities erode — it was time. No more plans. No more "maybe later." Action.

When Amazon offered a leadership role in France, we packed the essentials and got on that plane. No guarantees. No fluent French. Just guts. Leaving wasn’t giving up. It was fighting smarter, not harder.

Building a Life in France

France wasn’t easy. New culture. New systems. New fights to win. But we built a life anyway. I led major infrastructure across 27 remote sites, led teams across language barriers, and built something real for my family — from scratch. We didn’t just survive. We thrived.

France proved that home isn't a flag or a language. It’s what you build with your own two hands.

We loved it there. But when immigration failures threatened to tear our family apart — officials mishandling my son’s legal status — we had no real choice. Staying would’ve meant splitting our family. We chose to walk away, heads high, hearts heavy.

Finding Our Fight in Ireland

Ireland brought a new opportunity — and a new challenge. Professional acceptance is tough here. Many avoid honesty. They mistake directness for being "brash" or "rude," even when it's just honest communication. One ridiculous example: I asked a local where good restaurants were near his hometown — just casual conversation. He replied, "Sir, that was forward, a bit brash. I decline to respond," and walked off. We're not wired to be passive-aggressive. We're wired to be honest. Maybe someday it’ll click. Maybe someday the cultures will mesh. Maybe not. But we aren’t going to fake who we are.

Work-Life Balance & Acceptance

They sound simple. They're not. Finding balance and true acceptance in this world today? It's harder than ever. But that’s still what we’re chasing.

What's Next on the Horizon?

Australia is calling the loudest. France is still in our hearts. New Zealand’s not far behind. We’re not chasing fantasy. We’re chasing something real — a life where the currency is work ethic, heart, and honesty, not polish and pedigree.

If we can't find it, we’ll build it ourselves. Same as always. Same as before.

This isn’t a story about survival. It’s a story about building, fighting, and never backing down from what matters most.

Family, Happiness & Living Life to the Fullest

Here's a picture of my work history!

First I know after you read the first couple tabs you think "Rebel!" but I am again a father first, and will also do my best to continue to strive for perfection, not for money but for professional success because that ensures my family is safe, my kids are safe, and my wife is safe. I am showing here that I push for empathetic ways to connect with coworkers, promote those who deserve it and above all else hit every task with my "Old School" do it right the first time mentality. I am currently looking for a role that will allow me to lead , influence and positively impact those around me, preferrably in #1 Australia, #2 France and #Ireland. I know most ask why not internally transfer, if you read my story, read about me.. then you know why.What would you do?

Amazon

AWS

Dublin, Ireland | Dec 2022 – Present

So what's it all about?This role is an ambiguous mess, wrapped in a chaotic enigma. we are supposed to manage a mininum of 14 Dev Engineers, be SXO or SGO's for AWS Services, head up targeted ownership like monitoring sick days etc.. and more!

achievements

Rewrote Security Playbooks: Designed and deployed a global security solution using Lambda and API Gateway—cut incidents by 90% across EMEA, concerning customer validations.

Operational Overhaul: Coached Sr. Engineers to hit tech-documentation hard, producing over 200 knowledge articles in 2 years which ended saving over €500K annually in man-hours alone.

Kaizen That Stuck: Built a coaching platform adopted by 4 global teams, dropping L3 escalations by a third.

Uplifted the Uplift: Developed and launched "Personal Development Day" for AWS Ireland leaderhip. Result? A pipeline of promotions without fluff.

Engineering Overhaul Promoted or Transferred 17 engineers in a 3 years span, to ensure the AWS Deployment Containers team was successful, as some folks deserved to be promoted, others were out of sync with the role, so I found them better ones.

Amazon Logistics

Montélimar, France | Jul 2021 – Dec 2022

So what's it all about?This role is an ambiguous mess, wrapped in a chaotic enigma. we are supposed to manage a mininum of 6 Engineers & technicians, run global projects, make nice with other orgnaizations to which this orginization supports, promote people through mentorship and more.

achievements

Greenfield Execution: Took DLP4 from blueprint to operational in under 6 months—245 IDFs, 2 MDFs, 15 gensets, no excuses.

Service Recovery Expert: Boosted SLA adherence from 62% to 96% across 27 sites using real-time dashboards and targeted coaching.

Multi-Lingual Leadership: Navigated deployment with limited French fluency—let performance speak louder than language.

Turned an Intern into Superman I successfully mentored a young intern, to engineer, to manager, and also mentored him into running the Amazon Warriors EU Organization, making massive changes for French military professionals. He also got Amazon and the French government to go into contractual agreement that any full time employee with military obligations would recieve paid days off when they were out leave.

Regional Infratructure BuildoutRebuilt and "Improved" the south of France region for OTS Amazon logistics, with the help of a direct team of 5, matrixed team of 300, consisting of 27 small sites and one main facility. This was a massive budget in the millions of euros, as it required new "everything" Cisco stacks, cabling, IDF's, MDF's, building sized generators and so on. This was massive, but it took 8 months and it was successful only with a few glitches but that was mostly due to French political issues.

Service Now: Migrated the entire organization to running Service Now as an internal ticketing system for OTS in Amazon Logistics, along side their older system until all stakeholders could be pulled in.

Playing NiceHired a couple new technicians from an intern pool out of another facility, to ensure we kept sentiment positive about our internal intern "Helper" program, which resulted in a solid technician who was promoted two levels in two years after I hired him.

U.S. Government

California Department of Water Resources

Sacramento, CA | Jul 2019 – Jul 2021

So what's it all about?This role was a mess when I first started, I created the role essentially, the first version was nothing but "Help Desk Style"Support, but then I expanded it and even got the title changed as seen from the following acheivements.

achievements

Digital Government Pioneer: Rebuilt Delta Conveyance data architecture using Azure, SharePoint, and Teams—5,000+ users unified across 15 agencies.

Geo-Smart Integration: Embedded ESRI GIS mapping into real-time telemetry for infrastructure and environmental planning.

Training isn't for the faint of heart Trained the entirety of the DCO (Delta Convenyance Office) on the new cloud system and how to admin their given platoform area's Water, Drilling, etc.. there were a few. We also had more than a dozen contracted teams that needed their own space, password structure and storage functionality. Not to mention I trained all "Help Desk"agents associated with general support and the DCO on SharePoint & SharePoint admin.

Just Call me the "Recycler"! Decommissioned 17 palletes of "Aged" technology that was not viable for the agency any longer. We are talking older than AppleIIE products. I had to follow government protocal, wiping to "000's installing a functional linux system, so they products could go to auction.

Policy Development Please: Each state in the U.S. has their own security requirements and document retention requirements based on law. I had to build into SharePoint document retention policies and FIPS policies for passwords.

City of Daytona Beach

Florida, USA | Apr 2018 – Jul 2019

So what's it all about?This role was meant to be a lan/teleco role at first but then moved into a sort of "Catch-all"style, so I tackled all big problems related to I.T., as seen in acheivements, rebuilding an enitre culture is a big deal, but I did it!.

achievements

Learned the "Hard Way" dont mess with the Secretary and her notepad So first starting out in this agency, they were still using tube monitors and using pen & paper. I attempted to upgrade the city manager's secretary to an Ipad and it went over poorly, initially. I did however smooth things over, and provided significant 1:1 training, to which she successfully migrated to a digital form of communication, "Ipad", in a months time.

Cloud-First Modernizer: Migrated entire city infrastructure to AWS and Microsoft 365—zero service interruptions.

SharePointOn the backbone that I built, we established sites/subsites for all city agencies and offices. We also trained them all to admin and maintain them to ensure sustainable usage.

Help Desk can help now! I removed the 8 Bit Help Desk system and upgraded the city to Service Now, which also meant negotiating government contracts & training more individuals on general usage.

Change Agent: Reduced support resolution time by 40% while training over 200 city employees in new systems.

Policy Development Please: Each state in the U.S. has their own security requirements and document retention requirements based on law. I had to build into SharePoint document retention policies and FIPS policies for passwords. Daytona was 5 years, and passwords had their own state mandated compilation like character type & count.

Older Jobs

GEICO

Maryland, USA | May 2014 – Apr 2018

So what's it all about?Initially I started out as a Claims adjuster, in a Call center, quickly realized technology was still my chosen proffession, so I moved to D.C. to the Remote Office Support Team "R.O.S."Where we set up and deployed all of the remote Geico offices around the world. I then realized I wanted more technology, virtual servers and security, so I moved over to the Network Operations Team "N.O.C>". Where did everything related to networks, ranging from Red and Blue Events to virtual infrastructure deployments then everything else that goes with it as well.

achievements

Network Overhaul Architect: Replaced 350+ Cisco ISR routers, modernized DR capabilities, and stabilized nationwide operations.

SLA Responder: Maintained under-2hr recovery time during 13 critical outages—100% SLA compliance.

Audit Perfection: Passed ISO audit with zero findings—team, finance, and InfoSec in full sync.

My Leadership Philosophy

If you’re not building people while building systems, you're doing it wrong. I lead with empathy, data, and resolve—and I never ask a team to go where I won’t lead first. I make teams better, processes tighter, and outcomes louder. Let’s make some noise.

My Leadership Skills

• Technology Leadership & Strategic Operations - Driving organizational transformation through innovative technology solutions. Aligning technology strategies with long-term business goals. Leading cross-functional teams to deliver impactful IT initiatives. Managing budgets exceeding €100M and fostering team morale.
• Cloud Transformation & Digital Innovation - Overseeing AWS and Azure cloud projects. Transitioning infrastructure to AWS and Office 365. Deploying real-time data platforms and modernizing workflows with SharePoint and Azure technologies. Implementing ITIL frameworks to enhance service delivery and team collaboration.
• Business Strategy Alignment - Bridging technical expertise with executive decision-making. Aligning technology investments with business strategies. Providing strategic advice to senior leadership to support organizational goals. Achieving substantial cost savings by aligning technology with operational efficiency.
• Project & Budget Management - Managing large-scale budgets and complex IT projects, with an emphasis on cost reduction and efficiency. Ensuring on-time, on-budget project completion. Improving operational efficiency through targeted process improvements.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration - Collaborating with stakeholders and senior leadership to align IT and business strategies. Building high-performing teams through leadership methodologies. Increasing team morale and engagement to improve productivity.
• Change Management & Policy Strategy - Leveraging Ph.D.-level research to influence digital transformation. Managing change effectively across public and private sectors. Utilizing Lean Six Sigma methodologies for continuous improvement.
• Operational Efficiency & Process Improvement - Streamlining workflows to double operational efficiency. Improving service delivery by enhancing incident resolution times. Achieving significant SLA compliance and customer satisfaction improvements.
• Leadership & Team Development - Leading diverse, high-performing teams of engineers. Implementing training programs to ensure seamless adoption of new technologies. Enhancing team engagement, morale, and productivity.

Here's my Tech-Stack and General I.T. Skills

My Formal Education

• Ph.D. Candidacy in Public Administration, Liberty University, Virginia
• MBA in Business Administration, Liberty University, Virginia
• B.S. in Interdisciplinary Studies focused on Business and Information Systems, Liberty University, Virginia
• A.S. in General Studies, Mid-Michigan Community College, Mount Pleasant, Michigan

My Educational Transcripts for Validation

Click here for my transcripts

My Professional Certifications

• Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt
• Splunk Power User (Expired)
• Certified Social and Behavioral Researcher (CITI Group)

My Professional Development and Learning Interests

• Udemy: French Class
• Udemy: Spanish Class
• Udemy: AWS CSA Cert Class
• Udemy: PMP Cert Class
• Udemy: CISSM Cert Class
• Udemy: Splunk Refresher Class
• Udemy: Lean Six Sigma Refresher Class and Green Belt Study Guide

My Faith and how it influences my leadership style

Faith isn't just some checkbox in my life—it's the damn foundation of everything I do. It's not a "separate" thing that gets pushed aside when the workday starts or ends. It's embedded in every decision, every challenge, every win, and every failure. My faith drives me, and it doesn't wait for a moment of quiet contemplation—it's the fuel that keeps me going when things get tough, when the stakes are high, and when the world's spinning too fast. It's about doing the right thing even when it's hard. It's about understanding that success isn't just measured by profit margins or KPIs but by the impact you leave behind, the way you lead with integrity, and the legacy you build through your actions. I'm not just clocking in; I'm building something that matters.

I'm a father of five, and the only single income this family has seen since the beginning of this journey. I've been grinding not just for me, but for them—every step of the way. This isn't just about "getting by" or pushing through for a paycheck; this is about creating opportunities for my kids and building a life they can look up to. I don't have the luxury of clocking out at 5 PM and leaving it all behind. Every decision I make, every risk I take, every victory, and every setback, has a ripple effect on those little lives I'm responsible for. I lead my family like I lead my teams—with strength, with discipline, and with unwavering commitment. And the truth? I wouldn't have it any other way. If you can't balance faith, family, and work, then what are you really building? You need all three to create something real.

And let's be clear: leadership isn't about power or control. It's about influence. It's about making things better for everyone around you, whether you're leading a team of engineers or guiding your kids through the ups and downs of life. My belief in faith drives my leadership, and it keeps me grounded in something that's bigger than any bottom line. I don't just talk about values; I live them every damn day. I lead with them. And I expect the same from everyone I work with. You can't just throw a bunch of words on a mission statement and call it leadership. If your faith and your values aren't showing up in your decisions, in your leadership, and in the way you treat others, then what's the point? It's not enough to just "show up." I'm here to make an impact—one that lasts. I lead with my faith, and that's what drives everything I do.

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