Chris Easterwood

About Chris Easterwood

For over 25 years, Chris has worked in a variety of roles within the IT department at Southwire Company including system programming, system engineering, technical services, integration, and governance. In the mid 1990’s, Chris ran implementations for IT infrastructure, supporting the recently in-house written warehouse management and shipping system for Southwire. This included the installation and testing for a multitude of remote locations adding to the efficiency of those operations. In Chris led the effort to get the production computing infrastructure Y2K ready for Southwire. This included a myriad of upgrades and replacements to varying systems throughout the company and its remote locations. This was also the time period during which he took over the management of the IT Technical Services and Operations group. In the early Chris led an effort to move the sales agents (non-Southwire employees that sell Southwire products) off dedicated T-1’s and remote servers to a web-based system eliminating cost and reliability issues in the sales area. In 2010, the telecom, EDI, and IT support areas were added as responsibilities. He also worked with the SAP Functional team to implement the first phase of SAP which included a portion of materials management, procurement, financials, and controls. His areas within this were the SAP Basis group, security, and the web interface for procurement. He worked with the SAP Functional team on the second phase of SAP which involved manufacturing, remaining materials management, and quality management. During that phase he lead the SAP Center of Excellence which had the Basis, Security, Master Data Management, Change Management, and Project Management functions. In 2016 he worked with the HRIS team on a project to replace the aging HR and payroll systems with SuccessFactors and ADP. He worked with the different areas of IT to set up an architecture review board to evaluate new and existing systems in regards to the overall architecture, integration, data privacy, and security. Recently he worked with the SAP Functional team, BI team, and Process Orchestration team to upgrade the SAP systems and migrate them over to Google Cloud Platform. He currently works with an Operations team to implement the Connected Enterprise project which will connect the machines on the factory floor to data collection and advanced analytics systems with the goal of gaining efficiency, reducing scrap, and reducing down time as well as works with a Robotic Process Automation team to automate business processes.

Experience

1. VP, its Platform Engineering and Infrastructure & Integration Center of Excellence

   Southwire Company

   Apr 2022 — Present · Carrollton, GA, US

Education

• CIO Executive Council Pathways

  IT Leadership Development

  2010 — 2010

• SIM Regional Leadership Forum

  Information Management Leadership

  2005 — 2005

• Auburn University

  Bachelor of Engineering (BE), Computer Engineering

  1990 — 1994

• Omicron ITED

  Information Technology Executive Development program

  2006 — 2006

Skills

• Windows
• Vmware
• System Administration
• Disaster Recovery
• Integration
• IT Management
• Program Management
• Active Directory
• Unix
• Windows Server
• IT Operations
• Hardware
• Voip
• Data Center
• Operating Systems
• Erp
• Virtualization
• Leadership
• Solaris
• Microsoft Sql Server
• Cross-Functional Team Leadership
• Team Building
• Management
• Telecommunications
• Strategic Planning
• Network Security
• Business Analysis
• Tcp/Ip
• Cloud Computing
• Access
• Storage Area Networks
• Security
• Software Installation
• Troubleshooting
• Software Documentation
• Sdlc
• Solution Architecture
• Visio
• Linux
• Networking