Michael Fariss

Box 390059 E-Mail: michael.@8thDay.com
Mountain View, CA 94039 View as PDF


EDUCATION:

BS in Software Engineering San Jose State University GPA: 3.65

MBA in Management
 Argosy University
 GPA: 3.71


WORK EXPERIENCE:

Systems Administrator
 Digital Marketing Research Associates (DMRA) 2011-Present

  • Budgeted, implemented & supported company smart phones, building security and computers.
  • Processed data sets of over 11 million records (for marketing analytics).
  • Successfully negotiated with AT&T & Verizon to save hundreds on phone bills.
  • Performed security audits, log reviews and trained programmers in proper security practices.
  • Planned a company-wide transition to a cloud-based E-Mail solution.


Founder and Manager
 8th Day Computer Consulting 1991-Present

  • Managed 4+ employees (separately), managed vendors and handled all finances and promotion.
  • Wrote custom programs including iPhone web Apps, databases and Linux web accelerators.
  • Setup several data centers, routers and servers for E-Mail, Internet, databases and more.
  • Trained, advised & implemented Best-Fit technologies for clients (for individuals & organizations).
    (Cagen, Carey, St. Elizabeth Seaton, Old Orchard, PV District & Prospect Sierra).


Database Administrator
 Sacred Heart, San Francisco
 2009-2011

  • In one year, was able to save staff over 1000 hours of labor per year & every year thereafter.
  • Wrote exciting databases & reports that reduced painful 3-day tasks, into easy 3-minute jobs.
  • Ran weekly meetings, balanced competing priorities & deadlines by maintaining project schedules.
  • Earned praise from many departments for creating professional tools and enjoyable faculty training that made professional grading, gift reporting and creating ad-hoc lists, a breeze (SQL, BlackBaud, FM).


(Sr.) System Administrator (with management duties)
 The Priory
 1996-2009

  • EXPERIENCE MANAGING PEOPLE & EXECUTING PLANS:
    • Directed meetings, set performance goals & prioritized plans according to management’s needs.
    • Managed, interviewed and trained 7 employees to deliver high-quality IT, troubleshooting and responsive customer service to teachers & staff (separately).
    • Managed the IT budget since 1999 and made monthly reports of KPIs (of progress & budget).
    • Wrote policies, technology plans, managed vendor costs & conducted weekly training exercises.
    • Consistently earned praise for my cheerful & professional demeanor while working with others. 
  • SYSTEM AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT EXPERIENCE:
    • Managed 20+ major projects that concurrently involved several departments. Delivered on-time.
    • Wrote 10+ linked databases including: Point-Of-Sale, Library Circulation, Health & Help Desk.
    • Built multiple 24/7 data centers including AC, HVAC & a network spanning 34-buildings, hosting 700 computers. Services included (E-Mail, payroll, Internet, monitoring and 32 other services).
    • Invented a dynamic method to keep 1200 users on the Internet, despite a faulty telco connection.
  • TEACHING, TRAINING AND COMMUNICATING:
    • Taught a class of students the core concepts of technology usage & Senior Project (3 yrs).
    • Taught weekly classes to faculty staff and administrators, in the new uses of technology (2 yrs).
    • Integrated helpful technology into teacher’s lesson plans, that matched the curriculum (10 yrs).
    • Wrote technology plans, policies and instruction manuals for non-technical audiences (10 yrs).


Performance Engineer (SEED)
 Hewlett Packard
 1997-1998

  • Performed SPEC-Web benchmark-tuning for clusters of enterprise-grade UNIX web servers.
  • Wrote time-saving software tools in C, for optimizing and configuring HP-UX servers.
  • Learned various industry “Best Practices” for writing code & doing IT in a large corporation.



CORE COMPETENCIES:
MANAGERIAL, ORGANIZATIONAL AND COMMUNICATION:
  • Consistently earned praise for my cheerful & professional demeanor while working with others.
  • Managed, trained and mentored 17 people, over 16 years
    (11 years part time & 5 years full time).
  • Delivered over 30 major projects to several departments, each with varying needs, on-time or sooner.
  • Fantastic time-management skills (forecasting with Gantt charts), detail-oriented and energetic.
  • Directed other employees who did troubleshooting, repair and configuration of computer systems, with no problems “on my watch” (technical or managerial).
  • Negotiated significantly lower costs (44% off) with vendors including AT&T, ISPs and VARs.
  • Able to prioritize in a multi-tasking environment & remain organized and on-schedule 91% of time.
  • Verbally communicated technical concepts to technical and non-technical people alike.
  • Requested by peers, to be Project Manager for more than 5 different groups at San Jose State University, including the 5-person Engineering Senior Design Project.
TECHNICAL:
  • Programmed 15 databases with GUIs, that are used by 16 people, in 7 departments, everyday.
  • Wrote about 50 well-structured programs in various languages (defined requirements, tested, etc).
  • Wrote over 12 binders of clear system documentation for technical and non-technical audiences.
  • Have performance-tuned over 20 systems, extremely familiar with TCP/IP and related protocols.
  • 18 years of experience doing IT work for 25 organizations and individuals, under my own business.
  • Installed or supervised the installation of hundreds of fiber & copper cables for various organizations.
  • Setup 800+ professional-grade servers, clients and routers (including AC, raised-floors & racks).


TECHNOLOGY SKILLS:
  • SW: Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Project, PhotoShop, Illustrator, InDesign, Apache, Sendmail, Exchange, VMware ESXi, FileMaker Pro, BlackBaud Raiser’s Edge, EE, ADP & Track-IT.
  • OS: Win 2000/XP/7/2003/2008 R2 Server, Active Directory, Linux (RedHat, CentOS, Ubuntu), OS X.
  • HW: PC, Mac, Cisco, SonicWALL, Juniper Routers/Switches, Fiber, Copper & Wireless 802.11b/g/n, Dell PowerEdge, PowerVault, CommVault, Backup Exec, Retrospect, HP Proliant, iPhone/iPad.
  • Code: Java, C/C++, PERL, PHP, JSP, SQL, XML, HTML, CSS, shell scripting, ETL, ODBC, MySQL, MS SQL Server, Tomcat, IIS, RegEX, network sockets.
  • Misc: NAS storage, iSCSI, SMB/CIFS, NFS, HTTP, TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, SMTP, SSH, tcpdump, iptables, wireshark, Ghost, VLANs, RAID, iPhones & backup. Responsible for multiple production servers: 5+ E-Mail servers, 4+ web servers, 25 dbases (incl. programming), 2 AD, 5+ caches & more.


VOLUNTEER WORK:
  • Santa Cruz Animal Shelter (helping to sell cats to the general public) for over a year.
  • Helped the Bay Area chapter of Habitat for Humanity, build three houses.
  • Fostered kittens for various bay area animal rescue organizations for over 5 years.
  • Provided Ham Radio communications during 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
  • Various diabetes bike-a-thons (providing Ham Radio communications).


OTHER EXPERIENCE:
Metro Newspapers - Intern (web content) [short-term job: June 1995 to Sept. 1995]
• Created web content and wrote automated content-generating programs. 
High-Speed Internet Co-Op - Founder & Manager [administrative & IT: 1996-2008]
• Offered high-speed Internet to neighbors for $8/month (put network on fences & shared costs).
Mid-Pen -  Business Analyst (accounting & clerical work)  [short-term job: June 2011 to Sept. 2011]
• Copied accounting data between systems, documented procedures and created user accounts.


OTHER EDUCATION:
UNIX Administration Certificate Sun & SJSU
Communications Skills Course
 CareerTrack
Management Course
 CareerTrack
Certificate in Management
(in progress)
 UC Berkeley Extension


References & recommendations available upon request.