EDWARD A. GREGORY
Kilgore
Summary
Dynamic professional leveraging leadership and client service expertise to drive operational excellence within a forward-thinking organization. Committed to making significant contributions across all phases of operations while fostering collaboration and innovation. Proven ability to enhance day-to-day processes, ensuring efficiency and effectiveness in achieving organizational goals. Eager to support a team-oriented environment prioritizing growth and continuous improvement.
Overview
40
40
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Director of Technology Services & Support
DePaul University
07.2023 - 12.2025
- As the Director of Information Services (IS) my role was to ensure and streamline operations for the Services Team in alignment with the business objectives of the university. I provided administrative direction and support for daily operational activities of the team. The Services Team consisted of the following areas: helpdesk, ID card services, field support; in-person support, the computer depot, and Audio Visual support. I worked closely with the decision makers from around the university to ensure that IS was delivering high-quality services to the university community. I helped define and implement IS policies and procedures.
- I managed the financial aspects of the Services area and oversaw a 2 million budget, including purchasing and budget review. I also negotiated and managed vendor contracts and service agreements.
Associate Director of Technology Support & AV Support & Design
DePaul University
07.2021 - 06.2023
- I was directly responsible for managing the University Help Desk and AV Classroom support and design team. I was responsible for supporting all University faculty, staff, students, perspective students, and customers both on campus and remotely. I ensured that the highest level of professionalism and customer service and support was provided to our customers at all times.
- I also managed the University's Audio-Visual implementations and support of over 200 Classrooms and Conference Rooms. I worked closely with the Director of Services to ensure that the highest level of professionalism and customer service support was provided to our customers at all times.
Team Lead Audio Visual Support & Design
DePaul University
07.2018 - 06.2021
- I also managed the University's Audio-Visual implementations and support of over 200 Classrooms and Conference Rooms. I worked closely with the Director of Services to ensure that the highest level of professionalism and customer service support was provided to our customers at all times.
- I helped establish and maintain regular written and in-person communications with the Director of Services regarding pertinent activities and reviewed and monitored implementation procedures for AV technology in all of the classrooms and conference rooms.
Technical Lead of Services
DePaul University
11.2014 - 06.2018
- I was in charge of all aspects of customer service support and monitoring using Qualtrics to solicit and review survey results. I was also in charge of creating and analyzing dashboards for the Services area using Tableau, I created over 20 dashboards so far. I worked closely with the Director of Services to create a benchmarking survey for the services area that was distributed to over fifteen various universities. I also was a project lead for several different initiatives within the services area.
Director of Business Continuity Planning
DePaul University
09.2008 - 10.2014
- I was in charge of the Business Continuity program at DePaul and I was involved with the emergency planning area as well. I provided the direction and the coordination for the ongoing development, maintenance and implementation of the Campus Emergency Operations Plan as well as all university wide Business Continuity Plans. I provided for the integration among departments and offices involved in emergency planning and helped manage the Emergency Operations Centre once activated. I was the team lead for the university's Crisis Management Team and coordinated all the activities of the team. I developed and maintained emergency and business continuity planning related policies and procedures and I presented them to the Executive Vice President of the University.
- I worked with the Executive Vice President and the Director of Information Services to ensure the development of disaster recovery plans and developed recovery strategies as well off-site storage and backup of our critical data. I did several risk assessments and presented those results to the executive leadership. I maintained a high level of awareness of Emergency Management and Business Continuity Management planning and related technologies, standards, processes and procedures by attending conferences, workshops and reviewing industry leading publications.
Manager of Enterprise Application Administration and Enterprise Resource Development
DePaul University
06.2007 - 08.2008
- I took on additional duties and was put in charge of not only the Enterprise Applications Administration group but also the Enterprise Resource development group. I led a group of seventeen different members not only in administrating the systems but developing it as well. I helped lead the university through an upgrade of our Peoplesoft system and ensured the upgrade was signed off and approved by our users. In my role as manager of both areas I was responsible for the management of the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) applications and other related ERP and web-based applications.
- I was responsible for developing, implementing, and enforcing policies, standards, and ISO methodologies for migrations and change management processes. I was responsible for the hardware, software and middleware administration and I did contract negotiation for provisions and interfaced with the legal department, for changes to the maintenance and license agreements. I oversaw the information systems personnel administration, including selection, training, and personnel development. I was in charge of production support for (24x7x365) environments and I insured all production environments were patched, tested and signed off by our users. I continued to be responsible for maintaining the Information Systems Disaster Recovery plan and the administration of the LDRPS planning software tool.
Manager of Enterprise Application Administration
DePaul University
08.2006 - 06.2007
- In charge of Enterprise Applications Administration Craft and was responsible for developing, implementing, and enforcing policies, standards, and ISO methodologies for migrations and change management processes. I was responsible for hardware, software and middleware administration and did contract negotiation for provisions and interfaced with the legal department, for changes to maintenance and licensing. I oversaw the information systems personnel administration, including selection, training, and personnel development. I was in charge of production support for (24x7x365) environments and assured all production environments we documented appropriately and made sure all patching implementations were tested and signed off by the user. I was in charge of responding to and providing information for all internal and external audits for the department. I was responsible for Information Systems Disaster Recovery planning and the implementation of the software and maintaining the disaster recovery plan. I as also the team lead of the universities crisis management team. I was responsible for the overall administration of the production data warehouse and the support of that environment.
Business Continuity and Security Lead
DePaul University
10.2003 - 08.2006
- In charge of coordinating, assessing, developing & communicating recovery environment requirements and contingency plans associated with DePaul Universities Business and Academic units to protect the university in the event that facilities or technology resources are unavailable due to an unforeseen disruption. Provide project leadership between the technology groups and other business units, emphasizing regular, direct communication with all those involved. I am a skilled negotiator and problem solver and was successful in resolving problematic issues towards mutual benefit of all parties involved. Coordinate & facilitate all business continuity planning activities and interact with the critical business units and support groups for the purpose of planning, directing, controlling and maintaining the contingency planning effort. Train and educate functional users on the university’s disaster recovery planning system software package helping them create and exercise their customized plans. I assumed role as Team Lead of the university disaster recovery team in March of 2003. I conducted a university wide table top exercise with the main business and academic units in February of 2004 to ensure that the procedures and processes were correct. Reviewed the university emergency response procedures and monitor the effectiveness of procedures during evacuation drills. Project Lead to build our own internal backup data center to replace our current contracted SunGard hot-site.
Data Center Manager
DePaul University
02.2000 - 10.2003
- Directed the operations support staff in the day to day functioning of client/server 24/7 operations. Responsible for the university data center operations and ensured the provision of power and space. Responsible for managing the sourcing, negotiation and ordering of all hardware purchases and the maintenance of all servers, printers, tape drives, disk drives and racks. Created the policy and procedure for physical access to the data center, updated and maintain the access list. Managed and monitored all backups from PeopleSoft, NT, Novell and Unix and purchased new licenses and the maintenance for any new clients on those platforms. Directed and lead the Information Services disaster recovery team in the planning and revision of disaster recovery procedures for our mission critical applications. I established recovery time objectives and recovery point objectives collaboratively with the business units, application support team, technical leads and the Vice President of Information Services. Since March of 2002, lead three different exercises at SunGard’s recovery center, to verify our plan’s functionality, look for ways to improve, and provide recovery experience for our staff. Wrote detailed summary reports after each exercise to VP of Information Services that included the test results, any outstanding issues and any changes that needed to be made to the plans. Responsible for monitoring production services and maintaining a centralized emergency notification system called Alertcast. Was part of the university wide disaster recovery team that built the disaster recovery program at the university. As part of the team, negotiated and selected the disaster recovery software that university is currently using to update and house the university plans.
Mainframe Operations Manager
DePaul University
02.1993 - 01.2000
- Managed day to day operations of our 24/7 mainframe systems which ran payroll, billing, financials and the student systems for the university. Oversaw the printing of our payroll checks, billing statements, grades, etc. which totaled around two hundred and fifty thousand pages a month. Monitored all backups to ensure the data was being backed up in compliance with university standards. Set up the rotation schedule for the backups to be sent to Iron Mountain and verified that they returned as scheduled. Verified that all our online CICS systems for student, finance, payroll and development were up and functioning properly from 7 am until 10 pm. Verified that the approximately one hundred and twenty batch jobs that ran nightly were successful and reported any problems with them to the appropriate personnel. Was part of the Y2K team and helped develop a back up plan in case of any system failures. I negotiated a hot-site contract with SunGard Recovery Services in case of any hardware problems with the mainframe, disks arrays, tape drives and printers.
Mainframe Operations Supervisor
DePaul University
03.1990 - 01.1993
- I was in charge of bringing up and monitoring the finance, payroll, student and development systems on both our test and production systems. I worked with our systems support staff to fix any problems with the systems and IPL the mainframe when required. In charge of setting up the schedule for the 2nd and 3rd shift personnel and changing over 200 parameters a day to ensure the batch changes were run according to the user specifications. Ran all forty payroll jobs every two weeks to ensure the paychecks were cut and the updated tapes were sent to the bank.
Mainframe Computer Operator
DePaul University
01.1986 - 03.1990
- In charge of taking down all the CICS systems for student, payroll, finance and development and ran all scheduled backups for those systems. Ran all jobs for the second shift, verified they ran according to the schedule and reported any problems to the person on call. In charge of printing production of over fifty thousand pages a night and separating/sorting for distribution to user departments.
Education
Bachelors of Arts - Philosophy
St. Mary’s Seminary
Perryville, MO01.1984
Skills
- Microsoft Office Suite, PeopleSoft, Living Disaster Recovery Software, Tableau, Qualtrics
Affiliations
Member of Business Resumption Planners Association from October 2002 until October of 2014
Certification
- Graduate of the Educause Institute Leadership Program, June 2001
- Graduate of the Dooley Group Leadership Learning Forum – October 2007
- Credentialed Associate Business Continuity Planner (ABCP) – Disaster Recovery Institute International – March 2002 Based on classroom and independent study and passing certification exam.
- Certified Business Continuity Planner (CBCP) - Disaster Recovery Institute International – July 2005
- SunGard’s Living Disaster Recovery Software - Credentialed August 2002
- Member of SunGard Software User Group Advisory Board – 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011
- Co-Authored article on Business Continuity Certification in Higher Education, presented at least six times at various Educational and Business Continuity conferences.
- LAN Certification, DePaul University, Jan 2001
Timeline
Director of Technology Services & Support
DePaul University
07.2023 - 12.2025
Associate Director of Technology Support & AV Support & Design
DePaul University
07.2021 - 06.2023
Team Lead Audio Visual Support & Design
DePaul University
07.2018 - 06.2021
Technical Lead of Services
DePaul University
11.2014 - 06.2018
Director of Business Continuity Planning
DePaul University
09.2008 - 10.2014
Manager of Enterprise Application Administration and Enterprise Resource Development
DePaul University
06.2007 - 08.2008
Manager of Enterprise Application Administration
DePaul University
08.2006 - 06.2007
Business Continuity and Security Lead
DePaul University
10.2003 - 08.2006
Data Center Manager
DePaul University
02.2000 - 10.2003
Mainframe Operations Manager
DePaul University
02.1993 - 01.2000
Mainframe Operations Supervisor
DePaul University
03.1990 - 01.1993
Mainframe Computer Operator
DePaul University
01.1986 - 03.1990
Bachelors of Arts - Philosophy
St. Mary’s Seminary