June 1995 - June 1997

American Axle & Manufacturing, Detroit MI

Technical Lead / Account Manager responsible for startup through implementation and steady state of the technical Infrastructure. This was my first EDS account, where I survived a trial by fire of a huge ERP/MRP implementation. We successfully implemented a highly redundant LAN, WAN, NT and Unix environment for about 2000 seats, from scratch in this GM Spin Off.

I got my first exposure to big systems like T and V Class MultiProcessor Servers from HP, Multi TeraByte Systems from EMC, and more.

When my manager moved off site, I pretty much ran the technical and financial end of things, and declined a formal promotion to TI Account Mgr. After murders and drug raids, I jumped at the chance to manage EDS's IT service offerings at a different account (Peregrine).

This was a challenging environment, where the old style way of doing things was in constant conflict with the new management style of doing things.

I learned that there were few union procedures that could not be overcome with hot coffee and a few dozen donuts.