Employment History and Skillset of Paul Willard

Paul Willard

Po Box 221
Waikato Mail Centre
Hamilton, 3240
Phone: +6421638223
Email: paul@paulwillard.nz

My employment history.

A little bit about my employment history, and my education history.
For 3 years I took some time off from IT, and went driving. I really enjoyed the change of pace, the hard work, the physical exercise, and driving big toys.
I returned to IT joining a local ISP ( Internet Service Provider ), and enjoyed managing large scale networks and systems again.

In 2022 I purchased Central Communications Limited.
Now, as a business owner I manage the entire business stack; sales, HR, accounts, and technology.

For the majority of my career, my focus has been on successfully leading teams in infrastructure departments, customer support departments, and development teams.
Both information security and network security have been foundational principles in my work. As part of this focus, I've designed and implemented a wide array of firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and VLAN-segregated networks. I've built and managed both hotel-grade wireless systems, as well as WISP-type wireless links between sites, including VLAN segregation across multiple SSID's.
While implementing enterprise-grade infrastructure, I've created and maintained numerous high-density computing environments using KVM, VMware, Parallels, and Virtualbox. Within these environments I've deployed and maintained Linux and Windows application servers, monitoring systems, and perhaps hundreds of web servers.
I have an insatiable apetite for knowledge. I am often found reading up on new technologies, or new innovative ways of achieving things.

Qualifications

  • Legrand Certified network installer 2023
  • Mikrotik Certified Network Associate ( MTCNA ) 2018
  • Ubiquity Enterprises Wireless Admin ( UEWA ) 2018
  • Ubiquity Broadband Wireless Admin ( UBWA ) 2018
  • Masters in Business Administration ( MBA ) 2010
  • Postgradutate diploma in Business ( PgDipBus ) 2009
  • IBM AIX System Administration ( AN12G ) 1999

A few non-techinical skills.

Communication: I have an outstanding ability to translate between technical and laypeople.
Staff mentoring: I bring the best out of people who I work with, and who report to me.
Adaptability: I learn new things very quickly, especially within technological fields.


Owner operator. Central Communications, Waikato and BOP.

Visit our website, and learn about Central Communications Ltd.

General Manager. Wanna Internet, Hamilton.

Managing an ISP network.

  • Ensuring the business is running as well as it possibly can on a daily basis with a smooth and efficient service that exceeds the expectations of our customers.
  • Offload and be responsible for the daily duties of the Managing Director.
  • Innovation of current and new products and services to increase revenue.
  • Develop and maintain good relationships with a range of external and internal stake holders.
  • Daily accounts reconcilation and Xero accounts financial management.
  • Daily management of Mikrotik authentaction routers, and switches.
  • Coding - DevOps integrations, and automations for accounts, provisioning, and customer management.
  • Implement processes and software for better company management.
  • Provisioning new connections, and processing disconnections.
  • Staff management.
  • Monthly invoicing, and 20th of the month banking (i.e. processing credit cards, and direct debits).

In short, I was the sole manager of a small business with an absentee managing director.

Rural Network Operations Manager. Lightwire, Hamilton.

Managing the engineering for an ISP network.

  • Take responsibility for the day to day operation of the Rural Networking team, providing overall guidance and supervision.
  • Maintain and monitor required staffing levels and schedule to ensure that the team can meet the demand and respond in a timely manner to network engineering requirements.
  • Service - meeting SLA on services.
  • Capacity management – managing utilisation of assets.
  • To develop the team and work with other departments in Lightwire to achieve common business goals.
  • To lead the tier 3 engineering team which acts as an escalation point for customer problems and 
questions.
  • Ensuring the right environment is in place so that staff are effectively mentored, developed 
and trained.
  • Develop and own the processes and procedures used by the team, based on best practice 
for the industry.
  • Organise, and contribute to, prioritisation of workload.
  • Lead projects to improve service, expand the network, or introduce new technologies.
  • Communicate with suppliers and service providers on behalf of the company.
  • Conduct team and individual reviews, and be responsible for personal and career 
development of team members.
  • Provide leadership and vision in the evolution of technologies and systems used in the Rural network.
  • Take responsibility for bespoke complex wireless networks.
  • This role has direct reports containing, but not limited to, all Rural network engineers.

Senior Network Engineer. Lightwire, Hamilton.

Engineering an ISP network.

  • Part of team looking after day to day operations of the Lightwire Rural Network along with other networks that Lightwire operates.
  • Provide leadership and vision in the evolution of technologies and systems used in the Rural Network
  • Configuration of equipment for complex customer solutions and new site builds and maintenance
  • Providing support for the field technician, customer care and sales teams delivering a best of class customer experience
  • Ensuring all activities that you participate in are well documented and up to date.
  • Participating in the Engineering team on call roster

Driver. Goodman Fielder, Hamilton.

driving an 8 wheeler late model Volvo doing deliveries around Hamilton, a late model Volvo with either a 4 axle or 5 axle trailer doing line haul to Taupo and Auckland, or a 10 year old Freightliner 3 axle semi with 18sp road ranger doing line haul to Taupo and Auckland.

Driver. Bidvest Fresh, Hamilton.

Delivering FMCG. 40-60 drops per day. Chiller unit.

Vice President of Operations. SMX Limited, Auckland.

Completed initial setup of cloud based hosted email and support service and am responsible for the day to day technology, plus involved in weekly and monthly IT governance decisions. I lead the team that guides technology through the wider organisation interpreted from the organisational strategy guidelines.

  • Weekly executive meetings.
  • Monthly executive reports on operations and customer service
  • Management of staff.
    • Recruitment
    • Performance management
    • Discipline
    • All aspects of HR
  • Infrastructure design and implementation.
    • Big data storage design
      • Data security in terms of consistent and confirmed DB writes.
    • Capacity planning for 350% growth in customer base
  • Customer liaison for large Multi Nationals
  • Account management for key accounts.
  • Over international support management across 4 countries.
  • Hands on System administration
    • BAU operations (RHEL environment)
    • Package building and management
    • Automation through scripting (BASH / Perl )
    • Database capacity management (2TB postgres)
    • Network security audits, and network design.
  • Oversight of all systems, all non-development staff report to me.
  • Vendor relationship and management.

Technology leader. Earthquake Commission (EQC), Hamilton.

Completed initial setup of office and support service (150 workstations) and was responsible for the day to day technology on the Hamilton site, plus involved in weekly and monthly IT governance decisions for Wellington and Christchurch. I formed part of the team that guides technology through the wider organisation interpreted from the organisational strategy guidelines.

  • Weekly reports to the senior executive level.
  • Management of local staff.
  • Technical advisor to wider organisation.

Self-employed contractor. Net Enterprises Ltd, Hamilton.

Contract to IT organisations to provide overflow capacity, or relief. Predominantly web based companies where my extensive experience in running data centres, supporting customers, and “business as usual” coding allows me to fulfil needs quickly and efficiently. I am a veteran website designer with in depth knowledge of a number of programming languages and design programmes. I manage my own accounting, marketing and sub-contractors.

Business and Operations Manager. Computer Troubleshooters, Hamilton.

Responsible for the oversight of the company, I worked alongside the owners as a trusted advisor, and relief manager. The owners and I made joint decisions for the organisation, and I was responsible for implementing the outcomes with the company on a day to day basis. I embarked on launching a new brand to promote the higher managed service that the company sells, and connected the service with a new aspect of professional services. I encouraged company growth by encompassing my existing networks. Operationally I implemented peak performance strategy to maintain employee engagement, and as such ensure added value for the customer.

Systems and Operations. NetValue Ltd, Hamilton.

I was responsible for the infrastructure, capacity planning, and business continuity for NetValue. I led a team of people who successfully established a strong technology foundation within the organization. My involvement was instrumental in making decisions that influenced the availability of the company products and services. I was directly responsible for new consumer products that integrate with the infrastructure that has resulted in news sales, and reduced overheads. Key responsibilities included strategic infrastructure planning, supplier management, database server management, and staff management, and I designed and executed a successful service desk, focusing on single point of contact, rather than first point of contact resulting in an easily understandable system for the customers, and more reliable data for monitoring and reporting.

Board of Trustees. Hamilton’s Fraser High School.

The school employs approximately 200 teaching staff, and 27 support staff. I was directly responsible for liaising with media, the ministry, and the school management; responsible for Policy writing, legal documentation preparation, ministry reports, financial oversight, and senior staff appraisals

Systems Administration Team Leader. Mondiale Freight, Auckland.

I managed a small team of database programmers and system operators.

I was responsible for a portion of the infrastructure, reporting to the IT manager who was remote; I had sole discretion of the daily duties, responsibilities, and priorities. (60-70 workstations)

System administrator. RadioPIE, Hamilton.

Cool concept start up: RadioPIE - Personalised Internet Entertainment.
A precursor to iTunes and Spotify.

I kept the servers runnning.

System administrator. iTouch / Vodafone, Auckland.

Making sure the blinking lights kept blinking.

Young geek.

Liked to play with tech things

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