Resume

Principal Architect with 25+ years of experience advising Fortune 500 and digital-native enterprises on large-scale cloud transformation, hybrid architecture, and mission-critical distributed systems. Deep expertise in enterprise architecture, resilience, multi-region design, and executive-level technical strategy. Proven record of influencing CIOs, CTOs, and VPs of Engineering, driving $100M+ cloud initiatives, and shaping industry best practices across enterprise cloud, distributed systems, and resilience through thought leadership, publications, and global conference presentations.

Experience

  1. Principal Solutions Architect · Amazon Web Services

    Mar 2018 — Present

    San Diego, CA

    • Serve as a trusted technical advisor to strategic enterprise customers, engaging regularly with CIOs, CTOs, VPs of Engineering, and chief architects to define long-term cloud strategies and roadmaps.
    • Lead enterprise-scale cloud transformation initiatives spanning infrastructure, data platforms, security, and application modernization, including multi-region and hybrid architectures.
    • Founding member of the AWS Resilience Specialty community, defining best practices for disaster recovery, business continuity, and highly available global architectures.
    • Partner closely with sales leadership and value engineering teams to articulate total business value, influence enterprise buying decisions, shape roadmaps, and unblock complex technical objectives.
    • Consistently achieved annual sales attainment targets (6 of 7 years), contributing to deals up to $300M in total contract value.
    • Recognized industry thought leader: frequent speaker at AWS re:Invent, Summits, executive briefings, and customer events.
    • Authored multiple whitepapers and blogs adopted broadly across AWS field teams and customers.
    • Mentored and coached 75+ Solutions Architects, influencing architectural quality, career growth, and customer outcomes.
    • Actively involved in hiring, onboarding, and developing senior and principal-level architects.

  2. Architect / System Engineer III / Manager of San Diego Office · Atomic Data

    Apr 2014 — Feb 2018

    San Diego, CA

    • Acted as lead architect for over 100 complex customer environments, spanning education, retail, healthcare, and enterprise IT.
    • Designed and governed secure, highly available architectures across on-prem and hosted environments, including automation, monitoring, and DR strategies.
    • Led architecture for the company's top two revenue-generating clients and 13 of the top 50 overall accounts.
    • Developed customer-specific disaster recovery playbooks aligned to business RTO/RPO requirements.
    • Supported enterprise pre-sales, technical evaluations, and executive presentations.
    • Selected by CEO to establish and scale the company's first remote office, growing the San Diego presence from zero to a full delivery team.

  3. Senior Systems Engineer · Deluxe Digital Distribution

    Nov 2013 — Apr 2014

    Solana Beach, CA

    • Supported global video-on-demand infrastructure serving 30+ million subscribers.
    • Automated content validation and lifecycle workflows across 7+ petabytes of CDN-hosted data, reducing monthly operating costs by ~5%.
    • Scaled virtualization and encoding platforms to support 30% YoY growth in digital media distribution.

  4. Platform Engineer II · Atomic Data

    Nov 2011 — Nov 2013

    Minneapolis, MN

    • Top biller on a 30+ engineer team, supporting 300+ customer environments.
    • Led large-scale data center migration projects with minimal downtime (<1 hour per client).
    • Assisted customers with full-stack application deployment and troubleshooting from network through application layers.

  5. Co-Founder · The Packet Factory

    Jan 2010 — Nov 2013

    Minneapolis, MN

  6. Sr. Systems Engineer / Manager of I.T. · CotterWeb Enterprises

    May 2008 — Nov 2011

    Mendota Heights, MN

  7. Information Systems Manager · The Minnesota Daily

    May 2007 — Jan 2008

    Minneapolis, MN

  8. Webmaster / Web Programmer · The Minnesota Daily

    Oct 2004 — May 2007

    Minneapolis, MN

  9. Web Developer / Technical Support · Starpoint Communications

    Dec 2002 — Aug 2005

    Marshall, MN

  10. Computer Technician · Avera Health Systems

    Mar 2002 — Apr 2004

    Marshall, MN

Education

  1. Bachelor of Science in Computer Science · University of Minnesota

  2. Semester at Sea · University of Virginia

Skills

Core Competencies
Enterprise & Solution Architecture (Public, Private, Hybrid, Multi-Cloud) · Executive Advisory & C-Level Engagement · Cloud Migration & Modernization (On-Prem → Cloud) · Distributed Systems & Global-Scale Architectures · Reliability Engineering, DR, and Business Continuity · Value Engineering & Technical-to-Business Translation · Complex Sales & Strategic Account Leadership · Cross-Functional Orchestration (Sales, Product, Engineering)

Certifications