Kanawha County, WV homeowner
Hands-on Technology Operations Professional
Infrastructure, network operations, Windows domains, Linux administration, field IT, datacenter support, application support, and business systems. Current Keith's Kitchens technology support; seeking the right full-time hands-on technology role outside Keith's Kitchens.
Resume focus
Profile
I am a hands-on technology professional who came up through real installs, messy sites, family-business problems, and production environments instead of a straight classroom path. The pattern started early: my parents' business had daisy-chained five-port switches, my own connection was bad enough to affect online games, and I wanted proof instead of guesses. I bought used Cisco switches and routers, learned to validate whether the problem was the ISP, wiring, switching, or my own setup, and kept building from there. Today I am strongest where networking, Windows domains, Linux administration, field work, application support, and operational data all meet. I am looking for a full-time technical role where I can stay close to infrastructure, operations, and practical problem solving.
What I Bring
Payment devices, kiosks, POS, workstation refreshes, public-safety site support, VoIP, cabling, rack cleanup, retail systems, lift/forklift work, small equipment operation, onsite validation, and customer-site closeout.
TCS client work for AEP and Eli Lilly, EOS / Meta datacenter work, server receiving/buildout, physical maintenance, monthly patching, release support, ticket discipline, documentation, validation, and handoffs.
SMKK, Doors2Go, reporting, Microsoft 365 workflows, documents, practical automation, and systems that fit how people actually work.
Home rack, Cisco switching/routing, NetApp storage, Dell servers, VMware, Linux/Windows server builds, backups, monitoring, and recovery practice.
Proof
Independent contractor
Worked as an independent contractor before PAFDS Technologies. The proof screenshot shows rating dates and work-order references; customer contact, address, pay, and private message details are not part of the public page.
Open the Field Nation proof screenshot
Field Nation is a contractor platform where someone with platform access could sign in and view provider history. My Field Nation account has been inactive since I moved into PAFDS Technologies. There is no public live-data pull available to this site right now; if Field Nation exposes a safe export, share link, or public profile path later, I would use it instead of a screenshot.
Buffalo High School
A deliberately kept early proof point: Buffalo had a technology environment that caught my attention, and I was the student who could get into the school camera system. I learned the important part the hard way: technical ability only becomes professional security work when it is authorized, documented, and responsible.
Field work
Worked outside and inside live sites installing and servicing ATM machines, drive-thru ordering and display systems, digital signage, POS hardware, and data cabling through conduit.
Winfield High School
Served as the student technology lead for a Business Management class company that sold apparel, including morning-announcement commercials and the Gang Green music video used as campaign advertising.
Home infrastructure
Built and operated a real rack with enterprise storage, Dell servers, Cisco switching, patching, and KVM access before the work shifted cloud-based in 2025.
Home Lab
This rack was not decoration or a weekend toy. It carried home and Keith's Kitchens infrastructure for years, and it was used every day until operations moved cloud-based in 2025. Storage, switching, server hardware, remote access, cable layout, power, noise, heat, failures, rebuilds, and maintenance all had real consequences.
Top-to-bottom rack inventory:
The UCS blades were not built around local server disks. Boot and flash storage were served from TrueNAS, while larger high-speed shared storage lived on the NetApp SAN.
Working NetApp SAN gear is not normal homelab equipment because firmware, vendor licensing, support access, power, noise, and setup friction stop a lot of home labbers. The difference was legitimate professional IT access to vendor resources used for real support work, plus the patience to handle the firmware, licensing, and compatibility details. I was able to responsibly reuse decommissioned storage from a colo datacenter, keep it useful, and learn from equipment that otherwise could have become e-waste.
VMware/vSphere and vCenter, virtualization hosts, Linux and Windows server builds, VLANs, routing, firewall rules, DNS/DHCP, storage layout, SMB/NFS/iSCSI concepts, backups, restores, monitoring, and remote administration.
Keith's Kitchens production infrastructure and my family's home IT environment, not just private experiments. Instead of relying on a standard ISP-provided SOHO modem/router combination box, the rack carried real routing, switching, storage, file services, internal tools, documentation workflows, backups, monitoring, and proof-of-concept environments before those operations shifted cloud-based in 2025.
It gave me repetition with real production constraints: storage decisions, network segmentation, service uptime, physical access, hardware failure, messy incidents, rebuilds, and clean handoffs. One power loss on a rack without battery backup killed vCenter and forced a rebuild, which turned VMware from a lab topic into a real lesson in shutdown order, backups, recovery planning, and documenting how to get management services back. Almost everything that could happen around a small infrastructure stack happened there.
Experience
Support the technology side of a real production business, including shop systems, office workflows, SMKK, Doors2Go, user support, equipment change, and practical reporting. The goal now is to leave Keith's Kitchens with systems steady enough that the next person has a real operating base, not a pile of loose fixes.
Worked in high-quality datacenter facilities on rack/stack, cabling, labeling, hardware checks, break/fix, RMAs, ticket updates, ETAs, and handoffs. I respected the standards and quality of the facilities, but the repetition made me want to return to work where I could improve a whole business system instead of only repeat a narrow datacenter lane.
Worked at MRC Global under an HCL Technologies contract engagement, adding another enterprise customer environment to the path between field work, support operations, and larger-company IT standards.
Moved into application support in a TCS-supported Eli Lilly environment, where the work shifted from mostly infrastructure to software deployment, Veeva CRM issues, release support, user validation, compliance-sensitive documentation, and closer coordination with developers around new features and fixes.
AEP is where I got to show the infrastructure side of my skill set at a larger scale: receiving servers, building them, coordinating with the network environment to get them online, handling physical server work, supporting monthly patching, SSL renewals, physical and virtual systems, PowerShell checks, and isolated Active Directory domains in remote areas. I also spent significant time around the Roanoke, Virginia disaster-recovery datacenter environment, where redundant infrastructure preserved copies of critical IT systems and made resiliency more than an abstract concept. Growing up in Winfield, Putnam County, in the shadow of John Amos made the work personally meaningful. The work included power-station context such as black-start/dark-start environments around Clinch River in Virginia and visits to hydro facilities such as Rocky Mountain, and it built a strong interest in power operations, environmental impact, grid demand, electric vehicles, and datacenter power needs. My interest in the TCS and Jaguar TCS Racing Formula E connection also helped lead to Jaguar-related project exposure.
Managed Meraki networks, 3CX phone administration, Microsoft 365 tenant/domain support, Barracuda appliances, vendor coordination, and alert response. Also supported law-enforcement laptop deployment work, including a Portsmouth Police Department laptop rollout while at NIS.
Completed POS and network installs for Arby's and retail sites, including racks, switches, firewalls, wiring, POS equipment, cable management, and cutover support.
Trained on ATM installation and maintenance, Walmart self-checkout installation and maintenance, and Walmart network infrastructure support.
Worked break/fix on payment devices in gas stations and other public-facing systems, including fast-food kiosk environments.
Completed independent-contractor work mostly through Field Nation, with additional work through Upwork and WorkMarket. Took on office workstation upgrades, nurse cart deployments, WAP deployments, hospice-environment support, COVID-era workstation refreshes, public-safety site support, and hands-on IT deployment labor across a wide variety of company environments, sometimes hiring trusted friends as assistants for larger onsite jobs while staying accountable for the work. Also participated in Thomas Hospital IT infrastructure upgrades before PAFDS Technologies.
Assisted customers with laptop and printer purchases across Best Buy and Office Depot retail locations, with a focus on HP hardware, printer setup needs, and HP Instant Ink conversations.
Started around Keith's Kitchens operations and a family-business network that needed practical cleanup: consumer switches chained together, unreliable connectivity, and no clear way to prove where problems started. That became the first version of the work I still do now: clean up the environment, validate the path, and make technology dependable for the business using it.
Case Study
SMKK is a private Keith's Kitchens workflow platform I helped build and support. It connects the work that happens in the office, shop, and field: leads, quotes, orders, receiving, shop/CNC coordination, scheduling, installs, closeout, documents, and reporting. It is the practical version of what I kept seeing across field work and enterprise support: if the data is captured cleanly while the work happens, the business can see problems earlier and recover faster.
Lead capture, no-order tracking, quote flow, active jobs, ordering, receiving, shop/CNC coordination, scheduling, install, closeout, DocumentAI, and reporting.
ASP.NET Core, C#, Razor Pages, MongoDB-backed workflows, Azure Blob storage, Microsoft Identity, Microsoft 365 paths, deployment scripts, TLS, and health reports.
Make work visible, keep users in their task flow, reduce lost details, improve reporting, and turn blockers into tracked follow-up instead of loose conversation.
Hands-on troubleshooting, proof-backed changes, user-readable notes, no fake action claims, careful privacy boundaries, and practical rollout discipline.
Business Growth
Doors2Go matters because it was not just a website or a side task. It grew from Keith's Kitchens shop knowledge into a business channel by connecting real production experience, customer questions, documentation, product understanding, and practical digital workflows. That is the startup work I care about: take something the shop already knows how to do, make it understandable to customers, and give the business a cleaner way to repeat it.
Helped move Doors2Go from a shop resource into something that could support real customer interest, quoting conversations, product clarity, and repeatable sales/support workflow.
Connected what was happening in the Keith's Kitchens shop with the way customers understand doors, options, lead times, expectations, and what information needs to be collected up front.
Worked on the practical bridge between photos, notes, customer needs, business process, and digital systems so Doors2Go could become clearer and easier to operate.
Project Highlights
Worked on WAP installs in a controlled site environment.
Started post-high-school field work in 2018 with break/fix on gas-station payment devices and public-facing fast-food kiosk systems.
Trained on ATM installation and maintenance, Walmart self-checkout systems, and Walmart network infrastructure support.
Helped with a COVID-vaccine workstation refresh at a refrigeration plant.
Handled hands-on IT field labor across many company environments: workstation swaps, nurse cart deployments, WAP deployments, monitor and printer staging, desktop setup, cable cleanup, user-ready validation, and practical closeout, including COVID-era refresh work.
I like working in law-enforcement and public-safety environments because the work has to be practical, respectful, and dependable. Experience includes laptop and workstation refresh work for police-station environments, light IT work at the West Virginia State Police building in Winfield as an independent contractor, and a Portsmouth Police Department laptop deployment while at Network Innovation Solutions.
Operated scissor lifts, boom lifts, man lifts, forklifts, trenching equipment, and a small excavator when field work required practical access, placement, or physical site execution.
Completed a VoIP-focused onsite visit with network cleanup and practical conference-room support, including table cable-routing work as extra cleanup around the main phone install.
Bought used Cisco switches and routers, built school-age network and Wi-Fi antenna projects, and learned to test the network path instead of assuming the connection problem was somewhere else.
Completed independent onsite IT dispatch work before PAFDS Technologies, mostly through Field Nation and also through Upwork and WorkMarket. For larger jobs, brought trusted friends as assistants when extra hands made the onsite work move better.
Helped on healthcare-site IT infrastructure upgrade projects as an independent contractor before PAFDS Technologies.
Worked through Tata Consultancy Services on AEP infrastructure operations and Eli Lilly application support. A Jaguar TCS Racing Formula E driver profile image during the AEP work became a small internal TCS culture signal and helped lead to Jaguar-related project exposure.
Worked around a live shop environment where CNC, sanding, paint, prime equipment, air requirements, pneumatic systems, and machinery maintenance were part of the business changing over time. That context shaped how I think about technology supporting real production work and gave me practical PLC and pneumatic-system familiarity.
Core Skills
Cisco IOS switching and routing fundamentals, VLAN/L2/L3 troubleshooting, DNS, DHCP, VPN, SNMP, Meraki, Cisco wireless controllers, Nexus/ASA exposure, Palo Alto exposure, Cisco ACI collaboration, and the habit of proving whether the issue is ISP, cabling, switching, routing, DNS, or endpoint.
Windows Server, Active Directory, GPO, DNS/DHCP, domain-joined endpoints, file/share access, Office deployment support, user support, and practical troubleshooting across isolated or business-critical Windows environments.
Debian-style Linux is my preferred admin environment, especially apt-based systems, SSH, logs, shell workflows, hosting, systemd services, containers, scripting, and low-friction troubleshooting. On laptops, it is hard to beat a clean Linux desktop; on desktops and lab systems, I am open to experimenting.
Turning normal work into useful operational data: intake facts, item status, custody, blockers, photos, documents, activity proof, health checks, and reports that show what is happening without making employees do duplicate entry.
Systems that detect drift, surface blockers, route follow-up, validate state, and improve over time through dashboards, telemetry, reminders, repair scripts, rollback notes, and proof-backed support.
ASP.NET Core/Razor Pages, MongoDB-backed apps, IIS/TLS, SQL Server support, Azure Blob storage, ServiceNow, SCCM, N-able scripting, PowerShell validation, virtualization practice, and NetApp storage lab work.
POS and kiosk installs, ATM and drive-thru systems, WAP deployments, VoIP visits, rack/cable cleanup, workstation refreshes, public-safety and law-enforcement site support, drywall-aware install work, trenching and buried conduit, antenna mounting and aiming, CNC/shop technology context, pneumatic systems, practical PLC familiarity, and onsite closeout.
Education and Training
Diploma, 2018. Business Management focus. Technology Director for Project Generals, a class company that sold T-shirts, long sleeves, sweatpants, and hoodies. Served as the student technology lead for digital media, morning-announcement commercials, audio support, and campaign presentation work for the Gang Green shirt campaign. The #GANGGREEN music video was made by Matthew Wright with audio produced by Luke Lavender. WHS Show Choir with guitar.
I keep this older high-school media visible on purpose: it shows early creative technical work, comfort putting work in public, and the more human side of the same build-and-prove pattern that later became professional IT work.
Freshman year. I started high school at Buffalo partly because the technology environment caught my attention. That early curiosity became a lasting respect for authorization boundaries, responsible security work, and careful documentation.
Junior and senior year vocational Cisco Networking program, where I completed CCNA-focused coursework and achieved my CCNA while still in high school.
CBT Nuggets, INE, homelab practice, Cisco coursework, Microsoft server history, and ongoing infrastructure study. Early YouTube learning started around 6th grade with Eli the Computer Guy, and Jeremy Cioara's networking training became a major influence later.
Links
PAFDS stands for Process Automation Flow Design Systems. PAFDS Technologies is Luke Lavender's company identity for business IT, automation, workflow, infrastructure, and support work.