Past IT Projects

I've been doing enterprise IT for a little over twenty years, and a lot of that time has been spent moving thousands of computers from one version of Windows to the next without anybody losing their files. It isn't glamorous work. When it goes well, nobody notices. That's sort of the point.

This page used to be a wall of bullet points from my old portfolio site. I've trimmed it down to what actually matters for each project: when, where, how big, and what my part was.

Years	Project	Where	Scale
2023	Windows 11 migration	—	10,000 devices
2023	Microsoft Defender for Endpoint rollout	—	Enterprise-wide
2023	Azure Machine Learning environments	—	Multi-region
2019 to 2022	Windows 10 version upgrades	CompuCom	Enterprise
2018 to 2019	Windows 7 to Windows 10 migration	CarMax	22,000 endpoints
2019	Dell driver automation	—	Dell fleet
2018	Windows 10 lead project administrator	General Dynamics	Enterprise
2017	KACE implementation	General Dynamics	Enterprise
2012	Exchange and Outlook migration	General Dynamics	Enterprise
Earlier	Server infrastructure refresh	General Dynamics	Server estate
Earlier	Endpoint encryption migration	General Dynamics	Three servers into one

Windows 11 migration (Sep 2023 to Dec 2023)

I was the technical lead on a three-person team moving 10,000 devices to Windows 11. We ran it in two phases, with a proper look at every machine before it moved and a check afterward.

• Wrote PowerShell checks for the Windows 11 hardware bar: TPM 2.0, UEFI and Secure Boot, disk, RAM and CPU.
• Validated drivers across a pretty mixed bag of hardware.
• Built in user data backups and a rollback path for the ones that didn't go cleanly.
• Turned on BitLocker, Windows Hello for Business and the Windows 11 security baseline as part of the move.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint rollout (Sep 2023 to Nov 2023)

An enterprise-wide rollout of Defender for Endpoint, running alongside the Windows 11 work.

• Scripted device onboarding to the Defender portal.
• Pushed protection settings through Group Policy, including attack surface reduction rules aimed at the usual Office-macro and script tricks.
• Set up role-based access with least privilege, plus some hunting queries for the security team.

Azure Machine Learning environments (Feb 2023 to Aug 2023)

Something different: standing up Azure Machine Learning workspaces for data analysis and model training.

• Built out the workspaces with Data Lake storage and Kubernetes-backed compute.
• Kept things private and locked down with Private Link, Key Vault and role-based access.
• Set up deployment pipelines and monitoring so models could ship without hand-holding.

Windows 10 version upgrades (Dec 2019 to Jul 2022, CompuCom)

A long-running push to get machines off aging Windows 10 builds (1607 through 1809) and onto current releases.

• Wrote PowerShell tooling for hardware checks, user data backup and restore, and app compatibility.
• Deployed through KACE and SCCM, with custom WIM images to keep builds consistent.
• Rolled out in phases, with rollback ready if a wave went sideways.

Windows 7 to Windows 10 migration (Nov 2018 to Sep 2019, CarMax)

The biggest one: a nationwide move of 22,000 endpoints, covering desktops, laptops and point-of-sale terminals.

• Built the migration workflow in PowerShell and KACE 1000.
• Packaged drivers and software for specialized hardware, including the POS gear.
• Ran deployments overnight so stores weren't disrupted, with validation and rollback baked in.
• Kept a status report going so everyone could see where things stood.

Dell driver automation (Aug 2019)

A smaller, focused piece of work: a PowerShell tool that detected the right drivers for Dell machines and installed them through KACE, with logging and reporting so failures didn't hide.

Windows 10 lead project administrator (Mar 2018 to Nov 2018, General Dynamics)

Lead admin on a Windows 10 rollout with a heavy security focus.

• Built custom WIM images and handled user migrations with USMT.
• Tied devices into Active Directory and Azure AD (now Entra ID), with Windows Hello for Business.
• Automated deployment through KACE and ran the Hyper-V test environment.

KACE implementation (Apr 2017 to Jun 2017, General Dynamics)

Stood up KACE 1000 and 2000 from scratch.

• Set up patching, software deployment and asset tracking.
• Built the reporting people actually asked for.

Exchange and Outlook migration (Jul 2012 to Nov 2012, General Dynamics)

Led an Exchange and Outlook rollout: wrote the migration plan, configured the servers and Group Policy, and put together training so users weren't left guessing on day one.

Server infrastructure refresh (General Dynamics)

A modernization pass on the server estate.

• Moved physical servers onto virtual hosts (P2V), plus a few bare-metal restores onto new hardware.
• Retired old servers properly, with multi-pass disk wipes before anything left the building.

Endpoint encryption migration (General Dynamics)

Moved the company off GuardianEdge and onto Symantec Endpoint Encryption, folding three encryption servers into one management console.

• Handled the migration and key management so nobody got locked out of their own laptop.
• Wrote the user training.

Note

Looking back, the projects blur together a bit, and that's not a complaint. Check the hardware before you touch it, automate anything you'll do more than twice, and never start a migration you can't back out of. Those habits carried from 2012 straight through to Windows 11.

For the full work history, see the resume. For the longer story of how I got here, there's my background.