Faron Hopper

About Faron Hopper

By building internal and external vendor relationships that work in synergy (think great communication), IT can excel at what it does best; implement technology. The time that I have spent in IT has given me a broad range of experiences that covers all aspects of infrastructure services. I am looking to use that knowledge to support and transform the infrastructure environment. My experience ranges from designing, installing, and supporting IT equipment and applications, to managing people and processes. I manage a remote team of expert level engineers that drive change across the infrastructure while maintaining optimal site uptime. I interface with different business unit managers, assist in the analysis of new operational tech solutions to meet company standards, working with the procurement team, and to train new administrators. Driving change throughout the network occurs most during projects. During projects we analyze the scope of the project and determine what we can update/change to continue to drive our company’s network into the 21st century. An example of this is revolutionizing the WAN and its uptime all the while being transparent to the users and minimizing downtime. Another revolutioniz came from synergizing with the server team to update standalone servers to virtual machine clusters, increasing the uptime for each site and minimizing the time to create servers for the business.Please contact me at f••••••••@gmail.com

Experience

1. Engineering Manager

   Smithfield Foods

   Mar 2018 — Present

   In my current role as the Network Engineering Manager for Smithfield Foods, I guided the network team through a migration away from an outsource IT provider; moving to a new WAN provider with new router technology and from TDM to ethernet with a smooth transition. The network team designed and installed network connectivity for 3 new distribution centers and all new sites. During our last Distribution Center project, I was instrumental in installing WI-FI in the parking lot and we were able to save the costs of implementing a 4G direct antenna system saving my company several hundred thousand dollars. I have guided the network team through shutting down several sites all of which require exquisite timing to keep the business running right up to the end and then remove all of the networking equipment and to cancel the data and telecom circuits. I coordinated multiple data center moves as each site consolidated from multiple floors into one floor. In another project I oversaw the replacement of all Meraki AP\'s with Cisco AP\'s alleviating many production issues. When a business unit decided to expand and buy a new factory, I traveled to Las Vegas to assist with analysis of the site that included network, server, and telecom infrastructure, determined what needed to be upgraded and then oversaw the purchase and installation of that equipment. I managed the network when my company replaced outdated time clocks with new cloud based time clocks (a $14 million project). I managed the network team that installed 50 pairs of highly available IoT firewalls (using Fortinet technology and remote hands) following the Purdue model. This separated our production operations from our enterprise operations, protecting Smithfield’s assets and allowing my team to secure every site’s networking infrastructure. During this project I also caught a mistake with our VAR which gave us a savings of about

Education

• Northwest Missouri State University

  BT in Electronics, Electronics

  1991 — 1999

• Northwest Missouri State University

  BS in Computer Science, BT in Electronics

• Northwest Missouri State University

  BS, Computer Science

  1991 — 1999

• Western Governors University

  Master of Business Administration

• North Central Missouri College

  AS, Electronics

  1997 — 1999

• North Central Missouri College

  Associate of Science

• WGU Missouri

  Master of Business Administration - MBA, IT

  2016 — 2018

Skills

• Cisco Security
• Cisco Firewalls
• Networking
• Brocade
• Switches
• Security
• Cisco Ios
• Cisco Switches
• Ccnp
• Eigrp
• Cisco Routers
• Bgp
• Telecommunications
• Riverbed
• Foundry Switches
• Foundry Management
• Hardware
• Ccna
• Asa
• Cisco Nexus
• Cisco Technologies
• Vpn
• Checkpoint
• Wan
• Routers
• Pix
• Border Gateway Protocol (Bgp)
• Network Engineering
• Virtual Private Network (Vpn)
• Firewalls
• Blackberry Enterprise Server