Tom Wilk

• Lead and develop high-performing IT operations teams in a critical, large-scale enterprise environment.   • Spearhead technical upskilling and management development initiatives to foster internal growth and succession planning.   • Focus on cultivating a high-trust culture that balances technical uptime with individual professional development.

• Providing premium 1:1 coaching and advisory services for managers transitioning from technical roles to people leadership.   • Curating educational content via the Leadership Helpdesk ecosystem to demystify performance management, conflict resolution, and leadership strategy.   • Developing frameworks for leaders to master delegation, psychological safety, and team transformation.

I am a contributor to the HDI Support World community where I write professional articles on leadership, performance management, and self development.

I lead the PC Engineering team for the School of Computer Science that includes Desktop Support, Systems Administrators, Academic Technical Support, and equipment management staff. We provide desktop support including hardware and software support, back end support including SCCM (Windows) and JAMF (Mac), project and research server support, and undergraduate Linux classrooms. My responsibilities also include strategic planning for the Computing Services teams, ITSM management (ServiceNow) including incident, request, problem, and knowledge management. As part of the leadership team I manage and lead multiple projects such as AD migration, migration from SCCM to Endpoint management (Intune/Azure), operating system end of life cycles for Windows and Mac platforms, and the yearly incoming graduate student computer project. I manage website content for my team for internal and external customers. I own the hardware life cycle process from purchasing recommendations for end users to end of life recycling. This includes inventory management in our college's database management system. This system maintains information on hardware information, warranties, operating systems, and support subscriptions. I am a co-liaison to the university's Information Security Office to handle security incidents for computers in the School of Computer Science. This involves working with end users to identify and resolve computers that have become vulnerable or were victim to security breaches. As a leader in the Computing Facilities team I help with strategic planning, technology evaluation, and my specialty is performance management. I have worked with multiple team members who struggled in their careers and helped them to improve.

I led the PC Engineering, Help Desk, Systems Administrators and Academic Technical Support teams at the School of Computer Science. We are a small group that handles many of the responsibilities that many larger groups do for the main Computing Services division. My role is to make sure my teams have the tools, ability, and support to ensure our students, faculty, and staff have the technology tools they need. Part of my responsibility was to build a help desk to meet current expectations which included integrating the ITSM solution (ServiceNow) the central technology division used into our environment. I also restructured the team so that we not only had subject matter experts for the three platforms we support (Linux, Mac, and Windows) but everyone on the team knew how to help customers on any platform we supported. I also implemented a loaner laptop program for the School of Computer Science so faculty, students, and staff could borrow a laptop if their device was in for repair, for travel, or to see what the new devices were like so they could purchase a new laptop. As the leader of the PC Engineering team I helped the team learn how to use ServiceNow from my experience working for the central technology division for three years. I worked with my team to set service level agreements and operating level expectations.

Managed a group of 10 technical consultants provided a daily challenge with technology, user/customer relations and institutional knowledge. On a daily basis I managed a group of desktop consultants whose primary focus is taking care of internal University customers. We also handle things like Active Directory, Group Policy, SCCM, PowerShell scripting and more. As the leader of a cost recovery program I worked with our internal customers to create levels of support to address their needs. Because we were cost recovery, I needed to balance service with cost to the customer because they could hire their own staff or outsource their technical support if we were too expensive or provided inadequate support. I also managed the monthly security updates for the Windows environment. This included rolling out patches to internal customers giving them enough notice to install them and a window to finish their work before their computer had to be rebooted.

In this position I was the IT Director for three separate school districts (Pine-Richland School District in Gibsonia PA, Montour School District in McKees Rocks PA, and Swanton Local School District in Swanton Ohio). I managed a team of IT professionals that handled the day to day operations for all three school districts. This included desktop support for the administration and teachers, classroom support for students, and infrastructure and telephony service for the buildings. I was the project lead on two construction projects that involved technology requirements including AV, network, and telephony in a new high school (Montour) and a remodeled high school (Pine-Richland). I worked directly with each school districts management team to ensure their IT needs are satisfied. I also met with the administration and school board members to discuss technology needs and implementation plans. I also enjoyed the business side of my role which included presenting at conferences as an exhibitor where I provided technical sales support for VARtek. This gave me the opportunity to learn all about the business and sell our services with confidence to prospective customers in Pennsylvania and Ohio. I also was part of the executive leadership team creating strategy and vision for the company moving forward.

During the two years I worked at the Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Lab I was contracted through several different companies where I was a full time employee. The contract changed while I worked there and so did the company I worked for to follow the contract. For my companies my title was Computer Operations Manager. For the DOE I was the CFOS SSAL (Computing Facilities Operations Service, Service Systems Area Lead.) I managed the day to day operations of the Computer Operations staff and data centers for four locations across the country that included servers, storage, desktops, email, BlackBerry support and more. We were responsible for maintaining 99.999% uptime of all production servers at the four data centers across the country. As part of that I was the lead for quarterly maintenance cycles that started on a Friday evening and lasted through Sunday. We would isolate the network and then I would be responsible for each team to begin and complete their part of the maintenance. The maintenance cycle was part of my change management responsibilities using ITIL standards to manage projects, special tasks, and change requests. I was a member of the Technical Architecture Review Board and co-ran the Change Advisory Board. Working closely with the Cyber Security group, I helped to identify and remediate any vulnerabilities on servers, storage, and Blackberry devices. This includes running in depth scans with tools such as NESSUS. Accomplishments: ITIL v3 certified, installed a virtual network using VMware with a NetApp storage backend solution.

Managed the day to day operations of the ITS Field staff at five locations that includes local area network, desktop, and PBX support. This includes supporting students, classrooms and labs, faculty, and staff as well as infrastructure support. Developed, executed, and monitored yearly project plans for desktop image creation, desktop rollouts and deployments including trickle down plan, and classroom software upgrades. Worked directly with manufacturers like IBM/Lenovo, HP, Dell, and others vendors to acquire new computers, printers, and related equipment. This includes evaluating and recommending specifications, negotiating prices, warranty and ongoing relationship with vendors. Planned and coordinated IT resources, projects, and service providers to meet college goals and objectives. Developed a yearly operational and capital budget for the ITS Field department for the day-to-day business activities and yearly projects. Reduced operational spending by $50,000 the first two years I was there. Communicated major information technology plans, issues and new initiatives to the campus councils and executive boards. Defined, implemented, and monitored Service Level Agreements for end user support including help desk issues and projects. Member of the ITS senior management team to collaborate on system wide IT projects, issues, and plans.

Taught Intro to Computing and Hardware Repair classes in the evening.

Graduated with a Master's degree in Public Management in May 2020 with High Honors. Attended this program while working full time at CMU.

I went to school in the evenings at RMU while working a full time job during the day.