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Professional Background

Table of Contents

Summary #

I’m a Technical Program Manager who came up through the engineering ranks: SRE, DevOps, Linux admin. I focus on execution: getting things shipped, keeping teams unblocked, and making complex programs actually work. I stay hands-on with the technical side because it helps me understand what the teams need.

Currently at PENN Entertainment, where I’ve spent the last few years leading SRE and platform programs through some of the largest migrations in the gaming industry.

Experience #

Senior Technical Program Manager #

PENN Entertainment · Remote · Mar 2022 – Present

My most challenging role yet. I joined a scrappy, startup-style company with little process and plenty of chaos. Later in 2022 we merged with theScore. Early 2023 we kicked off the Barstool Sportsbook migration from Penn Interactive’s AWS stack to theScore’s GCP infrastructure, all while launching new states and building out an on-prem Kubernetes solution with Anthos. That migration is considered the largest in North American gaming history. A few weeks after completing it, we were asked to do it again, this time rebranding from Barstool to ESPNBet. Through hard work, dedication, and long hours, we made it happen.

I work alongside the SRE team and their leadership. Some of the smartest, most dedicated, and hardworking people I’ve ever worked with, taking on challenges unique to our industry. My scope has grown to include three teams: two SRE Core teams and SecOps. I transitioned SRE from Scrum to Kanban, which improved our 7-day resolution rate from 50% to 70% while handling 43% more support tickets. I still contribute code (31 PRs merged in 2025 across infrastructure repos) while driving programs that delivered ~$10M in cloud cost savings. 2024 and 2025 brought significant leadership and org changes, and late 2025 saw the departure of ESPNBet. The future looks bright.

  • Led SRE program delivery for the largest technology migration in North American gaming across 16 state jurisdictions
  • Drove ~$10M in cloud cost savings through infrastructure optimization

Technical Program Manager #

Expedia Group · Springfield, MO · Aug 2019 – Mar 2022

A senior director tapped me to join a newly formed team and thought I’d make a good TPM. The role evolved from “Technical Specialist” to “Technical Product Manager” to “Technical Program Manager” during my time. I learned to manage backlogs, plan roadmaps, negotiate engineering priorities with product stakeholders, and design technical solutions, all while staying embedded with the team and contributing code when needed.

I moved across several products: started with TAAP (Travel Agency Affiliate Program), then the AMEX partnership team where I focused on delivering faster and advocating for engineering. After that, an API Gateway tiger team consolidating our Edge layer, and finally the Hotel Content API team where we launched VRBO and CTRIP integrations and built out cleanliness features during COVID.

  • Improved bank partner team velocity by 20%+ through workflow optimization ($2B GBV partnership)
  • Led technical roadmap execution for Hotel Content API across multiple partner integrations

Site Reliability Engineer / DevOps Engineer #

Expedia Group · Springfield, MO · May 2017 – Aug 2019

Expedia was the hot company to work at in Springfield. High pay, high challenge, the exciting place to be. I joined colleagues I’d known for years from O’Reilly on the DevOps team, focused on keeping developers unblocked and ensuring their code shipped smoothly through CI/CD pipelines and well-managed deployments. After about a year I was promoted and asked to be the first engineer on a newly formed SRE team (just a manager and me), tasked with establishing the practice from scratch while the DevOps team was embedded into development teams.

We built out SRE processes, advocated for incident management and metrics, and created NewRelic dashboards to track critical Expedia partners. This was the real deal: an API handling roughly 500k requests per minute for one of the largest online travel agencies in the world. I honed my Python skills here, building automation for dashboard creation and executive reporting, and joined a tiger team to build out a caching solution for backend data ingestion. The team eventually grew to six people, and I started taking on more of a product owner role, helping define strategy and priorities.

  • Maintained 99.99% SLO for APIs handling 500k+ requests/minute
  • Grew the SRE team from 2 to 6 engineers while establishing incident management practices

Senior Linux System Administrator #

O’Reilly Auto Parts · Springfield, MO · May 2015 – May 2017

The dream job I’d been working toward. I was eager to learn everything: managing systems, writing Bash and Python, automating with Puppet, monitoring with Icinga2 and Zabbix. This was around the time companies were really starting to embrace the cloud, and I realized I wanted to keep pushing myself toward cloud operations and DevOps. I spent my time here learning the fundamentals of automation and configuration management, and shifting my mindset from help desk to infrastructure. Great team and environment to be a part of, and I had mentors in my direct leadership who I’ll always be thankful for. Their patience and wisdom made a real difference.

  • Managed 1,000+ Linux VMs across Ubuntu and RedHat environments
  • Implemented Puppet for configuration management and infrastructure automation

Software Support Analyst #

McKesson · Springfield, MO · Jun 2014 – May 2015

A lateral move to challenge myself in a different environment. The pace was slower than O’Reilly but the problems were more complex, and I got my first real exposure to SQL and VS Code. I’d had my eye on becoming a Linux admin ever since my help desk days, so I used this time to learn on the side what it would take to get there. After a year, I rejoined O’Reilly in the role I’d been working toward.

  • Software support for McKesson Homecare product

Computer Help Support Technician #

O’Reilly Auto Parts · Springfield, MO · Aug 2007 – Jun 2014

My first corporate job, after working retail in the O’Reilly stores. Having been on the other end of those support calls gave me real empathy for the retail employees I was helping. I knew what it was like when the system goes down and you’ve got customers waiting. Learned the fundamentals here: customer service, prioritizing critical issues, and building a technical foundation in Linux, AS400, and ticketing systems. After seven years of managing high volume in a fast-paced environment, I was ready to move into more technical roles where I could use what I’d learned to make things better.

  • Provided technical support across 4,000+ retail locations

Skills #

Technical: AWS, Kubernetes, Docker, Linux, CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code (CloudFormation, Ansible, Puppet), Python, Site Reliability Engineering

Leadership: Agile/Scrum/Kanban, Cross-functional coordination, Process optimization, Stakeholder management

Projects #

Homelab Kubernetes Infrastructure #

2024 – Present

Production-grade homelab with GitOps workflows: K3s, ArgoCD, Prometheus/Grafana/Loki, automated cert management. Mostly an excuse to tinker with things I can’t break at work.

Education #

Bachelor of Science, Information Technology Western Governors University · 2020 – 2022