Matthew Strickler
Associate Director, Systems Operations
Overview
11
11
years of professional experience
Work History
Associate Director, Systems Operations
Virginia Tech
04.2020 - Current
- Manage a team of Engineers responsible for the underlying compute and storage infrastructure supporting hundreds of critical applications essential to University operations.
- Lead an Operations team in overseeing service delivery, optimizing daily workflows, and implementing process improvements to ensure seamless execution of tasks and service excellence.
- Enhance and refine organizational processes to improve efficiency, scalability, and adaptability, ensuring alignment with business goals and evolving operational demands.
- Translate business needs into technical requirements by collaborating with key stakeholders, ensuring IT solutions align with organizational objectives and operational priorities.
- Lead procurement initiatives by translating application and service requirements into cost-effective hardware, software, and tool solutions that optimize performance within budget constraints.
- Partner with customers and stakeholders to assess service performance and reliability, leveraging technical and leadership expertise to drive strategic improvements that enhance efficiency, scalability, and operational excellence.
- Define, monitor, and analyze key performance metrics, providing actionable insights to senior leadership to drive data-informed decision-making and continuous improvement.
- Develop, implement, and refine operational policies and guidelines to align with industry standards and best practices.
- Coordinate and respond to technical and standards-based audits annually, ensuring compliance with policies and governance frameworks.
- Conduct NIST 800-30 risk assessments and implement NIST 800-37 risk management frameworks to enhance IT security and regulatory compliance.
- Lead multi-disciplinary projects using Agile frameworks (Scrum, Kanban), managing multiple deliverables while ensuring operational success and value-driven results.
- Provide coaching, leadership, and strategic direction to team members, fostering a high-performance culture, driving process improvements, and mentoring staff for professional growth.
- Evaluate existing IT solutions to identify optimization opportunities, providing strategic recommendations for enhancements or replacements to align with business objectives.
Systems Engineer
Virginia Tech
11.2016 - 04.2020
- Lead of team of Systems Engineers operationally responsible for the underlying compute and storage infrastructure that serves hundred of applications
- Install, deploy, patch, monitor, customize, troubleshoot, secure, and automate data center infrastructure of ~1200 virtual and physical systems.
- Utilized configuration management and version control tooling to deploy, configure, and document changes to servers as Infrastructure as Code (IaC).
- Worked collaboratively across multidisciplinary teams at every level of service lifecycle.
- Conducted research to test and analyze feasibility, design, operation, and performance of equipment, components and systems.
- Contributed towards continuous improvement initiatives aimed at streamlining internal processes and enhancing overall service delivery quality.
- Analyze existing solutions to provide recommendations for improvement or replacement to team/organization leadership.
- Designed high availability strategies to minimize downtime during critical systems outages or disasters recovery scenarios.
- Reviewed and analyzed security logs to determine and alleviate network threats.
- Coordinated with stakeholders throughout all stages of the project lifecycle from inception to completion.
- Participated in systems and software requirement reviews to collaboratively develop solutions that meet customer needs.
- Conducted regular system audits to ensure compliance with industry best practices and regulatory requirements.
- Participated in agile frameworks such as Scrum and KANBAN.
System Administrator
PEC
01.2014 - 11.2016
- Designed proactive preventive maintenance schedules to prevent unnecessary downtime and hardware faults.
- Experience designing, implementing, maintaining, troubleshooting, and supporting network services that include DHCP, DNS, VPN, NTP, Wireless, and Ethernet services in a corporate environment.
- Reduced downtime by proactively identifying and resolving potential issues through thorough system monitoring.
- Migration of local assets and tools to cloud based infrastructure-as-a-service solutions.
- Service and configure network equipment such as, Cisco switches and routers, Sonicwall security appliances, NAS, and wireless APs.
- Developed and implemented comprehensive disaster recovery plans, ensuring minimal data loss during critical incidents.
- Established effective communication channels between IT support staff and end-users, leading to improved issue resolution times overall.
- Simplified troubleshooting processes by creating detailed documentation for system configurations, procedures, and best practices.
Education
Master of Science - Information Technology
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA 01.2018 - 2022.05
Graduate Certificate - Cybersecurity Management
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA 01.2018 - 2022.05
Graduate Certificate - Cybersecurity Technologies
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA 01.2018 - 2022.05
Bachelor of Science - Management
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA 08.2007 - 2012.12
Timeline
Associate Director, Systems Operations
Virginia Tech
04.2020 - Current
Master of Science - Information Technology
Virginia Tech
01.2018 - 2022.05
Graduate Certificate - Cybersecurity Management
Virginia Tech
01.2018 - 2022.05
Graduate Certificate - Cybersecurity Technologies
Virginia Tech
01.2018 - 2022.05
Systems Engineer
Virginia Tech
11.2016 - 04.2020
System Administrator
PEC
01.2014 - 11.2016
Bachelor of Science - Management
Virginia Tech
08.2007 - 2012.12
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