David Ray
Yulee,FL
Summary
Strategic IT Leader with 20+ years of experience leading high-performance infrastructure, cloud engineering, and operations teams across global enterprises. Proven track record of delivering multi-million-dollar initiatives, including data center consolidations, infrastructure modernization, and cloud migrations, on time and under budget. Adept at aligning technology with business strategy and organizational directives.
Overview
2017
2017
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Manager Globa IT Infrastructure Engineering
Kraton
2024 - 2025
- Supervised a Global network refresh, upgrading the Core network and Plant networks centered around Cisco 9300/9200 platforms. 38 sites across the US, EU, and APAC regions.
- Managed the Global wireless upgrade and migration that replaced an aged Aruba / Clear Pass implementation with FortiGate, FortiAP, and supporting FortiNet products.
- Architected and managed the migration of several key plant applications to Azure from on prem solutions.
- Spearheaded enterprise-wide migration from Windows 10 to Windows 11 rollout for enterprise endpoints, ensuring compatibility, security, and minimal disruption to operations.
- Led end-to-end migration from Fuze to 8x8 VoIP platform across enterprise users in the US, EU, and APAC regions.
- Mentored staff, fostering a culture of continuous learning and professional development.
- Collaborated with stakeholders to facilitate project planning and resource allocation.
- Initiated and cultivated enterprise relationships with major IT vendors, including Cisco, Dell, and Fortinet, aligning technology roadmaps with long-term business objectives
- Built cross-functional trust and transparency with vendors, enabling joint innovation initiatives and early access to emerging technologies
- Enhanced communication strategies to improve internal collaboration and stakeholder engagement.
- Established S.M.A.R.T performance goals for employees and provided feedback on methods for reaching those milestones.
Manager - Cloud Enablement
The Home Depot
2020 - 2024
- Cloud Enablement SRE team supporting HashiCorp Terraform and Vault, enabling secure, scalable infrastructure-as-code practices across multi-cloud (GCP/Azure) deployments
- Oversaw onboarding of all new Google Cloud Platform (GCP) projects, ensuring alignment with enterprise architecture, security standards, and governance policies.
- Designed and enforced guardrails for GCP resource provisioning, IAM roles, and secrets management using policy-as-code frameworks and Vault integrations.
- Championed continuous improvement through internal training, documentation, and community-of-practice sessions on Terraform modules and Vault best practices.
- Partnered with DevOps, InfoSec, and application teams to accelerate cloud adoption while maintaining compliance with internal and external regulatory requirements.
- Built and led a new Cloud Vault team focused on modernizing enterprise secrets management across multi-cloud environments, with emphasis on scalability, security, and automation.
- Established enterprise KPIs and metrics to track secrets lifecycle hygiene, access audibility, and compliance posture across business units.
- Delivered executive dashboards highlighting adoption trends, risk reduction, and operational efficiency gains tied to secrets modernization.
Manager - IT Infrastructure Integration Engineering
The Home Depot
2019 - 2022
- Directed a team of system engineers in the successful integration of acquisitions into one of the largest global retail organizations, aligning infrastructure, security, and operations with enterprise standards.
- Developed and executed integration roadmaps that balanced speed with risk mitigation, ensuring business continuity and minimal disruption across acquired entities.
- Standardized identity and access management, network segmentation, and endpoint security controls to bring acquired environments into compliance with corporate security policies.
- Established success metrics and KPIs to track integration progress, security posture, and operational readiness, enabling transparent reporting to executive stakeholders.
- Partnered with M&A, legal, and business teams to ensure IT integration supported strategic objectives, cultural alignment, and long-term scalability.
- Led post-integration reviews and continuous improvement cycles, capturing lessons learned and refining playbooks for future acquisitions.
Manager - IT Infrastructure Engineering
The Home Depot Pro
2018 - 2019
- Led a team of 10 in reorganizing core infrastructure to align with The Home Depot’s enterprise strategy, driving modernization, security, and operational efficiency.
- Executed network transformation by upgrading to Cisco Spine-Leaf architecture, enhancing scalability, fault tolerance, and east-west traffic performance
- Migrated legacy ESX environments to Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure, reducing hardware footprint, operational and support cost.
- Directed AIX platform modernization, upgrading IBM Power Systems from P6 to P9, boosting compute performance and reliability for mission-critical workloads.
- Orchestrated SAN migration from Brocade to Cisco MDS 9148 series, improving throughput, manageability, and integration with modern storage protocols.
- Upgraded disk arrays to all-flash Dell/EMC XtremIO, accelerating application performance and reducing latency across enterprise workloads.
- Retired legacy data centers, consolidating workloads and saving $400K annually while implementing enhanced security controls that reduced vulnerabilities by 60%
- Standardized infrastructure processes and led integration efforts with corporate THD IT services, ensuring seamless alignment and governance adherence
Sr Technical Consultant
Direct System Support
01.2017 - 01.2017
- Collaborated with healthcare IT teams to assess infrastructure needs, design scalable architectures, and implement secure data storage frameworks
- Architected and deployed SAN and storage solutions tailored to medical industry requirements, including HIPAA-compliant data handling and disaster recovery strategies
- Led end-to-end implementation of storage platforms including Dell EMC, NetApp, and Brocade/Cisco SAN fabrics, optimizing throughput and reducing latency
- Delivered technical documentation, training, and post-deployment support to ensure seamless adoption and operational continuity.
- Partnered with vendors and internal stakeholders to evaluate emerging technologies and align infrastructure investments with long-term business goals.
Director – Enterprise Storage Engineering and Implementation
McKesson Corp
01.2015 - 01.2017
- Directed a $20M enterprise storage and SAN service portfolio, driving modernization, cost efficiency, and performance across multiple data centers.
- Led migration of 10.5PB of data to all-flash Netapp and IBM arrays, improving performance by 70% and generating $3.5M in annual savings through reduced power, cooling, and support costs.
- Executed SAN consolidation initiative, reducing footprint from 16 to 4 SANs across multiple data centers, streamlining operations and cutting support overhead by 20%.
- Restructured Storage Engineering team to align with evolving business needs, enhancing agility, accountability, and cross-functional collaboration.
- Instituted fiscal governance practices including cost avoidance strategies, vendor renegotiations, and lifecycle planning, contributing to multi-million dollar budget optimization.
- Strengthened data security posture through standardized zoning, access controls, and encryption protocols across consolidated SAN environments
- Delivered executive dashboards and performance metrics to track utilization, cost trends, and SLA adherence, enabling data-driven decisions and strategic alignment.
Director – MMS Data Center Services
McKesson Medical Surgical
01.2013 - 01.2015
- Oversaw operations and strategic planning for enterprise data centers across multiple states, ensuring high availability, security, and alignment with business continuity goals.
- Led consolidation of four regional data centers into the primary Sacramento facility, reducing operational complexity, improving resource utilization, and lowering annual costs
- Architected and validated enterprise-wide disaster recovery and failover plans, enabling seamless recovery of Tier 1 applications and critical infrastructure.
- Overhauled disaster recovery program, reducing RPO for Tier 1 applications from 8 hours to 15 minutes and RTO from 48 hours to 12 hours for full production failover
- Partnered with infrastructure, application, and business continuity teams to test and refine DR scenarios, ensuring readiness for real-world disruptions.
- Delivered executive-level reporting on data center performance, resiliency metrics, and risk posture, influencing strategic investment decisions.
Director of Data Center Operations
PSS World Medical
01.1998 - 01.2013
- Directed daily operations of enterprise data centers, overseeing compute (physical and virtual), storage, and core networking across multiple facilities.
- Led team through three successful data center relocations and consolidated disaster recovery operations into Sungard, improving resiliency and reducing operational overhead.
- Managed four core network refreshes, upgrading infrastructure to support increased bandwidth, security, and scalability across production environments.
- Oversaw server lifecycle upgrades from Windows NT4 through Windows Server 2012, ensuring compatibility, performance, and supportability across business-critical systems.
- Part of a cross-functional project team that upgraded JD Edwards ERP, including a platform migration from HP/UX to IBM AIX on P6, storage rearchitecture, and database upgrade from Oracle 8 to Oracle 10.
- Led SQL Server modernization initiative, upgrading environments from SQL 7.0 to SQL 2012, enhancing performance, availability, and reporting capabilities.
- Partnered with cross-functional teams to align infrastructure upgrades with business priorities, compliance requirements, and long-term scalability goals.
Education
Bachelor of Science - Political Science
Southern New Hampshire University
Hooksett, NH07-2026
Associate of Applied Science - General Studies
Florida Community College
Jacksonville, FL01-1998
Skills
- IT Strategy & Roadmapping
- Budget Management & Cost Optimization
- Team Building & Organizational Restructuring
- Vendor Management & Enterprise Contract Negotiation
- KPI Development & Executive Reporting
- Governance & Compliance (HIPAA, SOX, PCI)
- Cloud Platforms (Azure, GCP)
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
Certification
- MCSE 1611189
- Currently Working toward GCP Cloud Architect
AWARDS & RECOGNITIONS
2004 Speaker, CA World Conference, 2013 McKesson Eagle Award, 2015 Speaker, IBM Edge Conference, 2016 Speaker, NetApp Insight Conference, 2018 THD Executive Homer Award, 2021 THD Executive Homer Award, 2022 THD IT Leadership Mentor
PROFILE
- Experienced IT Infrastructure Manager
- IT Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery Architect
- Builder of Efficient, Customer-Focused Teams
- Skilled in Executive Reporting and Presentations
- IT Strategist Aligning IT with Business Goals
- Detailed-Oriented Project Planner
- Systems Architect (x86, UNIX, Storage, iSeries)
- Experienced System Administrator (AIX, Linux, iSeries, Windows)
Timeline
Sr Technical Consultant
Direct System Support
01.2017 - 01.2017
Director – Enterprise Storage Engineering and Implementation
McKesson Corp
01.2015 - 01.2017
Director – MMS Data Center Services
McKesson Medical Surgical
01.2013 - 01.2015
Director of Data Center Operations
PSS World Medical
01.1998 - 01.2013
Manager Globa IT Infrastructure Engineering
Kraton
2024 - 2025
Manager - Cloud Enablement
The Home Depot
2020 - 2024
Manager - IT Infrastructure Integration Engineering
The Home Depot
2019 - 2022
Manager - IT Infrastructure Engineering
The Home Depot Pro
2018 - 2019
Bachelor of Science - Political Science
Southern New Hampshire University
Associate of Applied Science - General Studies
Florida Community College