Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Accomplishments
Certification
Software
Timeline
CustomerServiceRepresentative
Thomas E. Bright

Thomas E. Bright

|Sr. Software Support Engineer
Alpharetta,GA

Summary

Dedicated Computer Technology professional with over 25 years of successful experience in multiple areas of software engineering with history of meeting company goals utilizing consistent and organized practices. Excellent Project Management skills with the ability to work under pressure and adapt to new situations and challenges to best enhance the organizational brand. 20 years experience Managing /Supervising/Leading IT Systems Support Organizations, including the creation of a premium applications support group from the ground up when Verizon Wireless was first formed. IT Project Management with track record of delivering projects on time and within budget.

Overview

28
28
years of professional experience
7
7
years of post-secondary education
4
4
Certificates
2
2

Languages

Work History

Production Support Lead

Global Payments, Inc
, GA
12.2021 - Current
  • Provide leadership and guidance to team of 14 software support engineers in the 24x7x365 application systems support for a Credit Card Disputes Management System running on Google Cloud Platform that globally manage disputes (chargebacks) through the entire dispute lifecycle for all the major Credit Card brands and is used by merchants and acquirers globally and internally by Analysts in the Operations Team, Application/Customer Support Team and various oither internal Employees
  • Maintained system availability at 100% by monitoring application functions by implementing various healthchecks and alerts using tools like logic-monitor, Splunk, various GCP Services, and our own internally developed alerting tools and dashboards to quickly respond to issues and mitigate them before they became outages
  • Maintained continuous system integrity by adhering to strict Change Management rules and keeping compliance with security standards and policies of the banking industry
  • P?erformed daily monitoring and validation of dozens of incoming Credit Card Brand files containing hundreds of credit transactions and making multiple SQL queries to determine status of the transactions and reprocessing records as necessary
  • Created new support tools and automation scripts to pro-actively identify and resolve potential problems and avoid outages
  • Investigated incidents reported through Service Manager tickets and performed root cause analysis to determine closure or defect.

Distinguished Member of Technical Staff

Verizon Communications, Inc
Alpharetta, GA
09.2000 - 01.2019
  • Led / Supervised team of between 8 and 20 Technical Analysts that provided 24x7x365 support and were responsible for the availability of over 40 production applications running on Unix, NT and Mainframe platforms used by Verizon business units and call centers to manage all aspects of wireless telephone service to over 100 million people
  • Implemented OWASP guidelines, process improvements and test automation into the development cycle of several Agile application systems to increase cross team collaboration and achieve DevSecOps standards
  • Maintained system availability of supported apps above 99.975% by Crisis Management of major outages, conducting outage reviews, adhering to Change Management rules, developing new support tools and automation scripts to pro-actively identify potential problems and resolving issues with minimal impact to the user community
  • Project Management of special activities including the deployment of new applications to the Production Environment, the implementation of testing automation, implementation of log management using the ELK Stack, the migration of systems to the Amazon Cloud, and the consolidation of over 40 legacy systems down to 8 directional systems
  • Worked with software development team on reported errors and bugs on newly released software and deployed release fixes abiding byChange Management practices
  • Represented Business Customer Systems as POC and SME for the IT Chapter for Performance Monitoring, Logging and Resiliency and was instrumental in the adoption of various support applications as the Verizon standard for AWS to significantly reduce training and licensing cost
  • Identified areas of inefficiency and created innovative solutions using advanced Unix Shell scripting and web programming that significantly increased productivity of team, allowing for less people to handle more work.

Advisory Systems Engineer

Verizon Data Services
Temple Terrace, FL
04.1997 - 09.2000
  • Proposed technical feasibility solutions for new system designs and suggested options for performance improvement of technical components
  • Provided day-to-day support to system users, educating employees on troubleshooting and problem-solving protocols
  • Streamlined troubleshooting processes to improve system support and enhance communication between support team and end-users
  • Strategized technical support plans and designed budgets, timelines and scopes for over multiple successful projects
  • Project Manager of Y2K effort for entire support team, identifying all affected code and driving developers to complete all necessary changes on time, resulting in zero problems on Y2K
  • Project Manager for the migration of all GTE Call Centers nationwide from clustered Unix Workstations to a NT PC Desktop environment
  • Increased efficiency and streamlined procedures by automating the more complex portions of the conversion process which permitted it to be performed by any less skilled technician, allowing for the contracting of an SOW to assist with the onsite conversions such that project was completed 6 months ahead of schedule and $500,000 under budget, and got me nominated for the Chairman Leadership Award that year
  • Developed multiple system monitoring , diagnostic and trouble-shooting tools that brought efficiency to support of the DBASII system used to administer the GTE LIDB
  • By keen observation of the work performed by users of DBASII/AFM system came up with a way to generate a better report that identified occurrences of fraud that AFM did not, allowing users to identify over $40,000 of fraud monthly early enough to recover those losses.

Computer Consultant

DMR Trecom, Inc
Tampa, FL
09.1996 - 04.1997
  • Analyzed software issues to identify troubleshooting methods needed for quick remediation
  • Patched software and installed new versions to eliminate security problems and protect data
  • Developed enhancements and performed code maintenance for LIBR, the Unix-based revision control application used by GTE for all software development projects
  • Performed Configuration Management of CMSS, the main customer contact application used in all GTE Customer Call Centers, working with developers to get code checked-in to LIBR in a timely manner for compilation of new executable builds to release new versions of the code for installation to test environment for user acceptance.

Sr. Software Engineering Technician

Harris Corporation
Melbourne, FL
09.1992 - 09.1996
  • Developed Code for customization of XA21 Energy Management System for multiple projects on UNIX platforms and C++ and Java programming
  • Configuration Management Lead for IVS Project, accountable for the revision control, compilation, debugging, testing and distribution of executables
  • Created simulation scripts and programs to perform Final Acceptance Performance and Stress Testing at customer location in Mexico
  • Wrote programs to convert databases and assisted in database administration for SoCal Edison Project
  • UNIX System Administration of Sun Servers and Workstations, and IBM AIX servers for the Southeastern Electric System Project

Education

- Electrical Engineering

Boston University
Boston
08.1987 - 06.1988

Associate of Science - Mathematical Sciences

Panama Canal College
Balboa, Panama
08.1988 - 06.1989

Computer Engineering

University of Central Florida / Valencia Community College
Orlando
08.1989 - 12.1990

Computer Engineering

Florida Institute of Technology
Melbourne
01.1991 - 06.1992

- Computer Science

Rollins College
Brevard Campus Melbourne, FL
05.1993 - 05.1996

Skills

Troubleshooting skills

undefined

Accomplishments

  • Software diagnosis
  • Application support
  • Staff education and training
  • Desktop support
  • Technical issues analysis
  • Written Communication
  • Microsoft Office
  • ANSI SQL Using Oracle
  • NOSQL
  • UNIX (HPUX, AIX, SunOS)
  • LINUX
  • UNIX Shell Scripting and Perl Programming
  • Relational Database Design
  • RCS Administration
  • Project Management
  • Microsoft Project
  • C++ Programming Network Administration TCP/IP
  • Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
  • Java Programming
  • JavaScript
  • Web Services/XML
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • MySQL Database
  • MySQL Workbench
  • Dreamweaver
  • Agile
  • Elasticsearch
  • Logstashe
  • Kibana
  • TeamQuest
  • Datadog
  • Apache Web Servers
  • Wily Introscope
  • HTTP
  • JSON
  • XML
  • Secure Shell (SSH) and key encryption
  • IIS
  • Jenkins
  • DevSecOps
  • Splunk
  • Cloud Computing
  • Amazon Web Services
  • SQLPlus
  • CSS
  • BMC Patrol
  • Winrunner, Loadrunner
  • VISUAL STUDIO
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Dreamweaver
  • Agile
  • Elasticsearch
  • Logstashe
  • Kibana
  • TeamQuest
  • Datadog
  • Apache Web Servers
  • Wily Introscope
  • HTTP
  • JSON
  • XML
  • Secure Shell (SSH) and key encryption
  • IIS
  • Jenkins
  • DevSecOps
  • Splunk

Certification

Certified IC Agile Professional (#I-140-3461), International Consortium for Agile - 9/26/2012

Software

Unix/Linux Shell Scripting and System Administration

Performance Monitoring, Logging and Resiliency for High Availability

DevSecOps while maintaining strict Change Management practices and Security Compliance of Banking Industry

Amazon Web Services

Google Cloud Platform

Elastic Search, Logstashe, Kibana

Application Monitoring tools like Splunk, Datadog, Big Brother, LogicMonitor, BMC Patrol

SQL, ANSI SQL, SQLPlus on Oracle and MySQL DBs

Timeline

Production Support Lead

Global Payments, Inc
12.2021 - Current

Distinguished Member of Technical Staff

Verizon Communications, Inc
09.2000 - 01.2019

Advisory Systems Engineer

Verizon Data Services
04.1997 - 09.2000

Computer Consultant

DMR Trecom, Inc
09.1996 - 04.1997

- Computer Science

Rollins College
05.1993 - 05.1996

Sr. Software Engineering Technician

Harris Corporation
09.1992 - 09.1996

Computer Engineering

Florida Institute of Technology
01.1991 - 06.1992

Computer Engineering

University of Central Florida / Valencia Community College
08.1989 - 12.1990

Associate of Science - Mathematical Sciences

Panama Canal College
08.1988 - 06.1989

- Electrical Engineering

Boston University
08.1987 - 06.1988

Similar Profiles

CREATE PROFILE
Thomas E. Bright|Sr. Software Support Engineer