Executive Resume John G. Melott

Azle, TX, 76020 (832) 577-1222

john@tech3pro.com

Expertise

Technology Management, Digital Transformation (Multiple Industries and Apps), IT & Business Strategic

Planning, Global Enterprise IT Architecture, Network Architecture, Cloud Architecture, Development of Data

Centers, Program Management, Corporate Systems Integration, Mass Deployment and Migration Strategies, IT

Operations, Prototyping, Web Applications, IT Performance Standardization, and IT Team Leadership.

IT Leadership Profile

Innovative IT leader, affectionately known as “The Fixer.” Transformative business and IT executive who drives

EBITDA and corporate performance through implementation of innovative business and system solutions.

Collaborative team-builder focused on building highly motivated teams committed to state-of-the-art technology

implementation. Developer of strategic IT plans and roadmaps that are integrated into the corporate mission and

objectives of leadership and business stakeholders. Continually provides IT leadership on initiatives including

digital transformation, enterprise solution development, and technology best practices. Contributes IT vision and

insights across multiple industries and technology platforms as a result of diverse experience through some of the

best consulting organizations in the world.

Leadership Experience

CEO and Founder (“The Fixer”) 2006 to Present Tech3pro, LLC, Azle, TX Trusted advisor and business partner helping companies develop strategic and tactical plans for IT Infrastructure, solve

critical IT problems, and implement new technologies to drive organizational success…often at 3 AM in the morning.

• Developed policies and procedures for financial services company where no processes existed.

• Designed and developed business continuity policies and test plans to achieve audit compliance.

• Plan, build and deploy IT services adding or creating value for business stakeholders leveraging industry best practices.

Dover Corporation, Downers Grove, IL 2016 to 2019 Director, Global IT Infrastructure Primary responsibilities included developing IT standards to gain acceptance across 20 different companies (OpCos)

within the enterprise. Developed a strategic vision, and plan to consolidate all OpCo IT functions into a shared services

business model and rationalized suppliers supporting IT/business services.

• Deployment plan included consolidating eight OpCos into shared services reducing costs by 500k. This project took six months to start due to negotiating with each OpCo CFO and Directors for approval to migrate the OpCo

IT to a centralized business IT model. Program concluded in 15 months successfully consolidating eight OpCos.

One key item uncovered during this process was a lack of standards, not only across IT Infrastructure, but of

financial and HR practices on how IT costs were tracked, monitored and managed. HR processes varied from

OpCo to OpCo with minimal standards.

• The program was approved by the Executive Management Team and as the program progressed, many OpCos realized higher benefit levels than previous IT processes:

1. Standardized and documented Service level Agreements (SLA) with monthly meetings showing improved performance across client services, data center processing and network performance.

2. Standard, centralized process for Service Desk using an enterprise wide platform with multi-capable customer support venues (PC, Mobile, website, etc.).

3. Developed standard Disaster Recovery templates with testing schedule for each OpCo.

4. Improved controls for managing IT finance with standardized roll ups to corporate reporting.

5. Human Resource standards applied once OpCo IT personnel were migrated to Corporate IT.

• Another program had even higher ROI for majority of OpCos. A new network architecture was deployed leveraging software defined networking (SD-WAN) to reduce costs by 2.7M. This program began gradually with

two OpCos completing deployment with significant success in cost reductions and performance improvements.

Once the other OpCos realized how significant the cost savings would be and the levels of redundancy for

connectivity to be gained, ALL OpCos wanted to get on SD-WAN! The budget for this program was 650k and

the ROI was realized in 12 months. As an example of the type of savings, one OpCo would have sites paying over

7k per month for carrier based MPLS (network connectivity meaning Multiprotocol label switching) from any

tier 1 type carrier (AT&T, Verizon, Centurylink), where the OpCo could pay 500 per month for having the same

type of [MPLS] services delivered over an internet connection with a piece of hardware known as SilverPeak

EdgeConnect device. This device performed the work of multiple devices and allowed OpCos to save budget on

hardware for routers, load balancers, switches and firewalls. One OpCo saved 230k in one year by migrating to

the network SD-WAN service in three months.

• Data Center transformations and migrations are part of my DNA. As a global leader of Enterprise Architecture (EA), I led teams to design, build and implement plans to migrate the primary North America data centers and

initiated two additional data centers located in London, England and Frankfurt, Germany. I developed the

business case justifying the program for centralizing OpCo IT Infrastructure supporting critical applications and

reducing costs from paying for two data centers in the USA. This program had multiple projects considering the

number of OpCos that would be migrating over a three-year period. The initial migration started with the first

eight OpCos who had been centralized and supported by Corporate IT along with the two Corporate Data Centers.

This program was made a success by establishing a clear, detailed transformation playbook developed by my

program team. The Transformation Playbook had three main objectives:

1. Integrate

2. Stabilize

3. Optimize

• The first was to assess and leverage any existing infrastructure on the Corporate side to allow the OpCo to reduce its footprint of hardware necessary to support critical applications. The second objective was to stabilize any pain

points OpCo end users were having with access or usage of their applications. We fixed any issues to minimize

any blame of business interruptions due to transformations. Finally, the EA team would optimize any IT

infrastructure (this was significant as the majority of OpCos had not upgraded any IT infrastructure in five to

seven years) in the new data centers with improved network connectivity. Some OpCos were able to use newer

IT hardware based on corporate IT assets, other OpCos achieved performance improvements by having the EA

teams re-configure poorly designed platforms and upgrading operating systems.

• The primary theme of this program was that the OpCos and Corporate IT were partners in this effort and not just handing off operations to Corporate IT. A very systematic approach was used which accomplished:

1. Seamless transition to the shared services model within Corporate IT

2. Ensure all aspects of OpCo operations were accounted for within Corporate IT Operations

3. Promoted standardization, accountability, collaboration and team building

4. Provided training and learning on Corporate IT tools and processes

5. Provided assurance that an OpCo could be supported by the scheduled go-live date

• Eight OpCos were successful in transformation and migrations and as new OpCos are brought on, the process is reviewed to ensure continuous improvements are made.

Baker Hughes, Houston, TX 2014 to 2016

Director, Global IT Infrastructure

Total global oversight of all corporate infrastructures. Primary site outdated, vulnerable and not in a secured location;

required relocation of data center to new location.

• Migrated primary Data Center / Tier-3 Data Center facility within schedule and under budget!

• This was the primary reason I was brought on board to Baker Hughes. The primary data center was housed in a building that had been sold to a third party and Baker Hughes IT had to evacuate the building.

•

• There was a very tight timeline and no room to extend the lease, so plans had to be flexible, efficient and very cost conscious! The planning started September 2014 with the final migration of IT Infrastructure occurring April 2015

with a project budget of 16M. The scenario I was in was tricky at BEST! I was to pull a matrixed team together

from seven functional managers. Nobody reported directly to me {yet}. The project was very tight on time and left

no room for missing any hardware or network connections. The network was the most significant portion of the

data center migration as this site was the “universe” where all connections from global sites unified for access to

company and site information. The data center migration design called for each of the racks to be individually

shrink-wrapped, with all equipment STILL stacked in the rack, loaded onto a truck and driven across Houston to a

co-location data center contracted with for a five year period.

• The project successfully migrated all racks within the legacy site to the new colo data center. After the last server and network connections were signed-off by the business, the CIO and VP were incredibly relieved (mostly because

they had reservations about completing the project on time. The new colo data center is still in use today!

Accenture, Houston, TX 2007 to 2014 Senior Manager, IT Infrastructure

Led teams comprised of architects, engineers and technical managers to assess current infrastructure and develop

technology architecture and improve communication across multiple data centers while introducing measurements of

performance and reduced costs.

• Over the course of seven years at Accenture, I engaged with Fortune 500 companies developing technical designs for data center migrations, and IT Infrastructure transformations to cloud without business interruptions.

• New Data Center buildout for High Powered Trading Firm

• The project was scheduled to start in early 2011 and complete by mid-2012 – which it did. The guiding principles in this project centered around improving energy efficiencies in both construction and technologies used in the

new Data Center, no business interruption between any of the migrations and testing of over 1,000 devices would

be seamless and unobtrusive.

• The buildout of the Data Center started out like this:

• to this…

• Over the course of nine months, evolved into this:

•

• The total cost of the buildout was approximately 50M and provided capacity for growth over the next ten years. The customer was happy and excited to leverage this world-class Data Center!

• Infrastructure Consolidations for U.S. government agency consolidating nine data centers to two – savings of 50M

• The objective of this project was to design and implement a migration strategy that optimized the ability to transfer large amounts of compute resources with an efficient testing and migration schedule. Larger deployments were

facilitated by providing a testing environment that enabled testing during normal business hours, essentially

minimizing the Deployment Acceptance Testing (DAT).

• The overall migration objectives were:

1. Make the transition experience seamless to the customer’s business units.

2. Rationalize and modernize where appropriate, consolidating 80% of x86 District workloads into Virtual Machine (VM) farms.

3. Establish a virtual work force to manage this new environment, drawing on talent existing in the Accenture location.

4. Plan and execute an approach that:

o Minimizes risk to business areas during transition.

o Verifies client operational stability and capacity prior to migration.

o Integrates client’s IT teams early in the planning stage and provides a workload assimilation period for the client IT steady state organization.

o Reduces errors that cause rework or back outs and rescheduling of go-live events.

o Verifies that systems are tested in the target data center before final cut-over

o Transitions execution knowledge, tools, and plans to the Server Management Transition (SMT) team and positions them to be successful in executing migration events after project completion

• Further, a goal of designing migration processes to maximize the number of concurrent migrations was established to provide the ability to migrate multiple District sites into the central Data Centers simultaneously which was

successful, while minimizing risk. I worked with my Design Engineers to develop a standard process (cookbook)

that could be repeated and automated to ensure accuracy and speed in performing migrations. The migration team

performed all Data Center migrations remotely from the Accenture site in San Antonio, TX. The primary

functions of my team were running these processes in parallel across multiple sites:

- Infrastructure design work

- Process design work

- Testing design work

• The Accenture team was flexible to accommodate client resource availability and review cycles. They migrated over 1,500 servers from nine major locations to two primary locations in just under 12 months. The great success

of this team was due to the highly skilled and experience of the team to automate key areas of the migrations

specifically around server migrations, testing and validating configurations. The tools that were used in this

project were Platespin Protect and many PowerShell scripts for testing and validations.

• Team completed migrations March 2012 with total client satisfaction. In fact, the CIO at the time was so comfortable with our approach, determination and capabilities, he forgot about the migration factory team until

we had notified him of the final migrations being completed! He was very happy and treated my whole team to

a celebratory dinner.

Aegis Mortgage Corporation, Houston, TX 2004 to 2006

Senior Vice President, Head of Technology Services Primary responsibility was to work with business stakeholders to improve IT performance and capabilities, improve

team morale, develop standard processes and limit tools for managing and monitoring workloads.

• Managed 72 people reducing attrition rate from 15% down to 3% - team building and personnel development.

• Deployed new server architecture standards reducing costs and improved performance (saved 800k annual).

• Deployed new network architecture reducing costs by 1.5M and improving customer performance time by 90%.

• Improved business contingency deploying new storage ($1.6M project).

• Revamped Service Desk technology and team dynamics improving morale and technical knowledge, improved customer satisfaction from 66% to 98% rating.

IBM Global Services, Houston, TX 2001 to 2004

Senior Project Manager Collaborated with business leaders of Washington Mutual (WaMu) to provide technology services for mergers and

acquisitions of domestic companies. Performed complete transformational IT services for standardizing infrastructure

and improving customer accessibility of platforms.

• Developed data center migration plans for JP Morgan Chase sites in Houston to IBM sites

• Completed acquisition of Bank United into Washington Mutual IT architecture

• Completed acquisition of Dime Bank IT infrastructure into WaMu with no business impact

EDUCATION, CERTIFICATIONS AND AFFILIATIONS

Education

• University of Phoenix-Online; GPA 3.38

• Leadership Program, Leavey School of Business and Administration, Santa Clara, CA

Continued Education/Professional Development

• Accenture Certified Solutions Architect / Certified Delivery Lead

• IBM Certified Delivery Lead

• Lean Six-Sigma Green Belt

• ITIL certified

• Experienced Program/Project Management

Honors, Awards, or Special Recognition

• 2005 Presidential award for Excellence in IT Leadership

Specialized Computer Skills

• Network SD-WAN advanced deployment (SilverPeak)

• Data Center transformations and migrations

• Active Directory Domain migrations

• Mobile Device global management

Publications:

• CIO article (2008) CIO Entourage

• Approaching the Clouds, watch for turbulence

Key Accomplishments

Company in DIRE Straits

Situation: A global manufacturing conglomerate ($7B in revenue) with over 20 autonomous Operating Companies (OpCos), lacking IT standards, experienced extremely high costs due to overlapping vendors, issues with non-compliance, and poor customer satisfaction across all IT service platforms.

Action Plan:

• Top priorities: Developed plan for collaborative relationships with OpCo stakeholders

• Deploy approved standards for IT Infrastructure (Vendor and Configuration)

• Implemented centralized shared services where multiple OpCos could leverage corporate IT services

• Migrated centralized IT infrastructure from OpCos Data Centers to new Data Centers in NA and EMEA

• Optimized wide area network connectivity by deploying SD-WAN capabilities globally

• Deployed security platforms and protocols throughout corporate and OpCo communities to align with compliance and regulatory requirements

Results:

• Established architectural standards across hardware, software and procurement services; one process for procurement of hardware and software; rationalized applications by 500

• Published ITIL framework for centralizing IT services migrating eight OpCos (in two years) with 500k savings across all eight OpCos

• Renegotiated service and maintenance contracts improving services, adding service capacity with two additional Data Centers in EMEA aligned with two in NA. Reducing service costs by 2.4M

• Developed network optimization standards using SilverPeak SD-WAN and eliminating redundant service providers, reducing costs by 2.7M over two years

Key Accomplishments

STRIKE ONE, STRIKE TWO…!!

Situation:

Global oilfield services company had tried several times to get OUT of their primary data center location – failed

twice. I was brought in to develop a plan, execute the plan and move all critical infrastructure out before deadline

(building had been sold and lease terminated following year). Critical to migrate corporate and external supplier

network connectivity without impact to businesses. I was the THIRD batter to swing at this project! If I was NOT

successful, I was OUT (literally). No savings attributable to this program – just a commitment from the sponsor to

vacate the premises prior to last contract date.

Action Plan:

• PACK up and MOVE the Data Center – ASAP. Given seven months to vacate building which had been sold.

• Develop project plan, schedule activities, onboard teams, develop responsibilities and budget for new hardware, services to migrate hardware

Results:

HOMERUN! Data Center was migrated successfully without any business interruption or business degradation of

performance in applications. Highly matrixed team in a very functional style of management. Developed clear

processes and procedures with distinct roles and responsibilities. Applications and network connectivity was

seamlessly migrated. Many unnecessary applications being rationalized saving 350k annually. Improvements to

processing (real-time) and customer response time significantly improved based on customer satisfaction ratings from

80 to 97% over three months.

Key Accomplishments

NEXT GENERATION DATA CENTERS …DELIVERED DATA CENTERS ARE IN MY DNA

Situation:

In my endeavor as a senior manager with one of the largest, global consulting firms, I was fortunate to lead several

teams which transformed a Federal agency (nine data centers reduced to two), a major Wall Street trading company

(migrate corporate location and build Tier-3+ data center) and a super-major energy company transforming their IT

Infrastructure (Data Centers) from non-standard, undocumented processes, legacy infrastructure

Action Plan:

• PLANNED

• Created and approved project charter

• Defined scope for each initiative, identified stakeholders

• DEFINED BASELINES

• Identified the requirements based on stakeholder involvement

• Established deliverable, milestone and baselined activities, budget and timelines

• EXECUTED

• Managed project work across each initiative

• Implemented changes requested by customer

Results:

The Federal agency was very excited at the completion of the project achieving 50M in reduced costs. The CIO of the

agency was so used to my team completing each data center migration, that he completely FORGOT about us when

the project ended! We executed so flawlessly, he forgot we were progressing and completing migrations without a

single business interruption.

The Wall Street Trading company was also a huge success as the migration of their corporate headquarters and

buildout of their new, state-of-the-art data center were deployed without any business interruption. The data center

buildout (budgeted at 50M) was completed on time and on budget. This CIO also made specific mention that his

office phone never rang once with a complaint about the project. All customers were very satisfied.

The transformation of IT Infrastructure for the energy company took 8 months for multiple sites and multiple data

centers. In this project, a key deliverable was also improving relationships with corporate IT and global teams. All

infrastructure was migrated on time and on budget!

Industry Insights

Approaching the Clouds-Watch for turbulence!

After reading the article, ‘Achieving cloud-native operability with Microservices, DevOps, and continuous delivery’, by Casey West, I feel it is necessary to add a few points on the difficulties some established companies have embracing cloud-native operability. I have been fortunate to work in IT Infrastructure for the past 35+ years, across several industries (Financial, Consulting, Energy, Oil & Gas upstream and downstream and transportation) and have seen these similar problems across companies:

• Only a few companies actually maintained architectural guiding principles and had processes to validate projects establishing new IT services for the business

• Most of the companies I worked for had established applications (five years or older) which have been customized beyond OTS (Off-The-Shelf) recognition or were developed in-house

• Some applications, during development, ignored architectural principles and considered only the platform they were currently on instead of designing portability to other OS platforms

• The majority of the companies I was at had not heard of DevOps (it was still very new or non-existent). We believed if we were performing the components of ITIL and ITSM, that was good enough!

• Most companies I worked at also did not have established continuous improvement programs, although while I was in consulting, we always made sure CI was listed as a deployment phase

• Probably the most difficult was replacing hardware platforms. This usually required considerable investment and was obtained by

o Repeated outages of existing hardware where business departments constantly complain to Executive Management -- or --

o Lack of security compliance and repeated audit findings were reported to Executive Management and some Boards!

• Employing automation throughout IT and Business areas was difficult since many people believe it would mean lost jobs, after all, if I am not performing the tasks manually, what ELSE am I going to do?!

With the companies I worked for, it was a struggle to improve IT Services to a noticeable level by the business. How did we do it (I say “we” because nobody does it by themselves)? It can seem insurmountable and a constant uphill battle, but the way I would start was to make an honest assessment of three key areas within IT in the company: People; Processes; Technology. In most cases, the people I led were very good technically, needed additional training (which is usually the first item cut in budgets) to maintain pace with changing technology. The second, standard policies and procedures were the biggest issues. It is SO easy for IT Infrastructure to just get on with day-to-day operations and not bother to document WHO and HOW operations happen. It is always too late once the auditor shows up and wants to see you execute the procedures! In my opinion, this is where most IT in companies fail on processes. Not focusing on 2 primary areas:

1. Maintaining policies and procedures up to date (at LEAST have them updated in the current year!) 2. Not following the procedures as documented (quickest way to fail an IT audit)

Make sure your documentation is up to date. As for Technology / Tools, I have experienced a couple of ways to improve automation and collaboration.

1. If your IT infrastructure areas are outsourced (IaaS or PaaS), make sure the internal IT management team has the ability to access the tools the service provider uses to manage and monitor the environments.

Several companies I worked for, we were at the mercy of the service provider to keep us informed when

issues (either outage or capacity) occurred. 2. If the IT infrastructure areas are internal, leverage OTS tools with capability to interface and automate

workflows as well as tasks

3. Having the tools integrated with incident and problem management process/tools is a big step towards establishing automation

For collaboration, it is a difficult process to get IT to adopt. The companies I was a part of had many silos with high towering walls – and that was just within the IT Infrastructure teams! Network Services did not see any need to communicate with the server/storage teams, Applications-Development teams did not communicate unless necessary with IT Infrastructure/Operations and Architecture groups don’t feel compelled to work with Operations. In a couple of companies, Architecture would develop guiding instructions, but would not help Operations build it or document it. Talk about a lack of collaboration! Mr. West states that using Microservices doesn’t make it easier to build apps – he is right and for that reason, many companies skip the architectural exercises because it slows down the speed to market or costs too much. This is not fixed by adding more complexity, it is fixed by increasing the awareness (and modifying the culture) to see the long-term benefits. In every company I worked at, speed-to-market to get a jump on the competition was a primary concern, right after cost. Management wanted it “out-the-door”, we’ll fix it later. I agree with Mr. West; culture is critically important to the success of Microservices or DevOps. A company’s culture is one of the hardest and longest set of beliefs and behaviors to change and can take years to modify. It is easier for a startup company to deploy new platforms and establishes a culture that embraces a cloud based enterprise architecture, however, getting a company built with legacy applications, infrastructure and culture, is an uphill climb to adopt Microservices, DevOps and Continuous Delivery. Not impossible, just takes more time and planning. Couple of points to note, however, when transitioning applications to a cloud environment:

1. Make sure your cloud service provider will provide full range of operational services 2. Make sure you have a RACI matrix identifying WHO is going to do WHAT on how often 3. Understand what services your cloud service provider is NOT going to do – you will have to probably hire

a third party for operational tasks

If companies have these items documented, approaching the cloud environments should be smoother….

Industry Insights

Has Work From Home Been FORCED Upon us?

Working from home, why management doesn’t LIKE it …

With the outbreak of Corovid-19, Corona virus, the government has strongly requested the public and business sectors

to STAY HOME, Hunker DOWN, HIBERNATE, Don’t Contaminate! What are CEOs and CIOs doing to ensure

businesses continue to operate as normal – even during major disruptions like a pandemic! Right now, IT

infrastructure, domestic and global networks are being stretched to their limits within each business.

There are many lessons learned that will come from living and working through this corona virus attack, mostly that

business culture must adapt and overcome these types of future challenges. It is simple and easy enough to pour lots

of money to upgrade infrastructure, to provide for alternative work processes with resources (work from home; shifting

work schedules (flex time), however, the management must develop a new mindset on HOW to manage people,

processes and technology in a virtual environment. I see many articles now starting to appear on processes for

developing, mentoring and managing a virtual work force. This will be a critical skill of management (front line AND

executive) capabilities in the upcoming decades. Executive management must set the example of managing virtual

teams and develop new policies and procedures to follow!

Management from the 60s and 70s doesn’t work …

If I can’t SEE you, how do I know you are really working? This has been the “mental-thorn” in the side of many

Managers for years. If you are not in the office, people don’t see you scurrying about the office with papers in hand,

how could you be working, getting deliverables completed?

Executives and Managers have to change. Three things have to be achieved if we are going to embrace the virtual

workplace:

1. Executives and Managers already understand the concept of deliverables, milestones. Management just needs to get better at how business requirements are communicated. Best practice of project management states

requirements, schedules, deliverables and responsibilities should be written in clear, simple documentation.

2. Job instructions are important, however, policies and procedures are ALSO important. Without the guidance of how the work is supposed to be done, chaos and confusion are the result instead of the expected business

outcomes.

3. Having the right tools to get the job done -- makes the work stream faster. The more the work can be automated, the less chance of human error will occur.

Many Executives and Managers have taken these steps to improve the ability of people to work virtually, but more

has to be done on BOTH sides – Management and Team Member.