Paul G-Blog

Bio

Work

I’ve been an IT Professional for over 24 years managing, developing, deploying and supporting Information Technology. I am a :

Strategic Innovator and shaper of mission and vision.
Relationship builder across and beyond the enterprise.
Information steward and Guardian of high-quality data and operationally reliable systems enforcing security & privacy.
Leader in enterprise-wide integration of processes, information and decision support.
Educator who provides insights about key information technologies and provider of solid, dependable and responsive IT infrastructure services.
Skilled in analyzing and managing IT infrastructure, applications, solutions and processes.

Specialties:

LAN Architecture
Storage Architecture
High Availability Systems
Network Security
Network/Database Performance & Health
Project Management
Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity
E-commerce
Software Development
Quality Assurance

Some of the systems and programming languages I have used over the past 22 years:

Burroughs B3500 – Cobol & Fortran
HP-1000/3000 – Fortran, Pascal, HP Image database
VAX/VMS (all hardware models), Fortran, Pascal, C, Basic, Cobol, RPG II, some LISP, Ada, Rdb, SQL, SQLmod, RMS, TDMS, ACMS, FMS, DecForms, Oracle RDBMS
Various Linux
IBM PC XT (8086, 10 Mb hard disk) running MS-DOS with the Lattice C compiler
HP-9000 (all classes), L2000, RP – HP-UX, C, Sybase, Trans-SQL, ksh, csh, bsh, perl
Microsoft Windows (choose your poison) running under a variety of servers, Visual Basic, Visual C++,J++, SQL Server
HTML, Dynamic HTML, Java script, VB script, authoring with HTML using cascading style sheets and programming with the DHTML object model
Macromedia Cold Fusion & Flash

CURRENT EMPLOYMENT

Director, Technical Services at Affinity Group, Inc.
(Privately Held; 1001-5000 employees; Consumer Goods industry)
March 1998 to Present

+ Align IT capabilities and infrastructure with the needs of the business.

+ Work with the principals of the business to define how IT can support business needs, articulate these needs as IT projects and manage them through execution.

+ Continuously explore and present new technologies and best practices with the goal of improving effectiveness and efficiency, as well as select and partner with the most appropriate and reliable suppliers of IT products and services.

+ Develop and manage IT budgets, policies and procedures.

+ Lead, coach and develop technical staff in serving the organization.

Adjunct Professor, Colorado Christian University
(Educational Institution ; 201-500 employees ; Higher Education industry)
June 2008 to Present

+ Teaching all major courses for the Bachelor of Science Degree: Computer Information Systems & Project Management curriculum; College of Adult and Graduate Studies.

PERSONAL

+ Born & Raised in Philadelphia PA. Lived in Philly for 26 years, Delaware for 4 years.
+ Passionate Sports FAN – All Teams Philly
+ Living in Colorado Springs for past 16 years
+ Married to Carmen; 16.5 years
+ Two children. Gabriela 10 & Alejandra 6. Both girls medical miracles!

Interests

What interests me the most is living in this world in a state of serenity, and that means finding a power in which I can live. Yes, there’s only one that I’ve had success with, and that Power is God. Powers like sex, money, alcohol, drugs, you-name-it, didn’t last too long. It only left me with an emptiness and longing for ’something else’. So my life today is about connecting with God and keeping that channel active and open.

‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. He who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says!…’

Connecting with God [for me] means a lot of self-sacrifice. Amazingly I have found that when I put my agenda to the side and focus on meeting other peoples needs that all ‘my stuff’ tends to get done. Funny or God? I believe the latter…