Mark Blackford

About Mark Blackford

I\'m a Marine that openly uses the training I received as a Marine to be a leader. To…

Experience

1. Various Equipment Engineer Positions

   AT&T

   Feb 1998 — Present

   Oversee Decommissioning of Transport and Switch Equipment as a direct power savings and by transferring assets within the Central Offices gives AT & T a projected $1.5M per year taxable cost savings.Point lead on the SONET RIP Energy Savings Initiative. 783 Central Office’s showing $2.5M annualized savings.Participant in the National 200M Power Savings Plan for the next 7 years “Lock-down” Ranked #1 in overall job count (1,367) for 6 years in addition had 100% “On Time Delivery to the Customer”One of the 8 members on the Etrack test committee that led to the release of Etrack region by region.Project Managed 56 Decommissioned jobs both internal and by Vendor on the Switch and Transport side which totaled a recovery sum of over $16M in assets and $100K in power savings. Co-led the change of the RIP APEX document which led to a massive cost savings for AT & T. Operated with APEX document team on the process for equipment going to MDC, Reuse, or Scrap. Created a “Quick Reference Guide” for all regional Implementation Engineers the process to highlight Transport equipment’s processes and procedures, design and external and internal requirements.One of 5 members on the new Wireline asset recovery team that recovered over $11M in assets in the 1st year. Transferred over $2.5M in assets to correct locations and developed a step by step process to getting scrap and reuse material removed from AT & T vendor warehouses. Project managed an cable removal task in a mandated completion to billing timeframe of 35 days. Communicated effectively with Material and Installation Vendors, Planning, Project Management, and other AT & T internal & external departments. Successfully converted (3) 1-A to 5-E switch installs, cutovers, removals, and cable mining. Led a special project by NPE Director Betsy Crawford that moved equipment from 28 remote locations in MOKA to the Lancaster Warehouse which led to cost reductions of over $30 million in three years.

Education

• University of Arkansas

  General Education

  1975 — 1978

Skills

• Switches
• Unified Communications
• Telecommunications
• Voip
• Cisco Technologies
• Networking
• Vendor Management
• Program Management
• Network Design
• Wireless
• Decommissioning
• Project Management
• Management
• Team Leadership
• Ip