J. Thomas Stokkeland J. Thomas Stokkeland
IT Leadership in Infrastructure and Operations

IT leadership for infrastructure and operations, with hands-on engineering depth

IT Director • Infrastructure & Operations • Networking • Security • Telecom • Enterprise IT

I am an IT director with more than 15 years leading IT teams in healthcare software, manufacturing and government. I set technology priorities, own budgets and vendor relationships, and lead teams through growth, acquisitions and migrations. I also stay close to the technology. I can still design and build critical systems myself, and I can work alongside product engineering and customers to solve complex production problems. One of my primary strengths are Troubleshooting and root cause - technical and practical.

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At a Glance

  • 5 direct reports, a ~$750K annual operating budget (Excluding payroll) and $500K–$1M in annual capital spending. Director of IT for a healthcare SaaS company since 2013.
  • A 9-person team supporting ~1,300 users across two campuses, 29 buildings and remote government and healthcare sites.
  • A $2.5M modernization program delivered on budget, within the planned 18 months.
  • About 40% fewer monthly IT incidents within 18 months, through better processes and preventive maintenance.
  • A 75% smaller physical server footprint after virtualization and shared-storage consolidation.
  • A product voice backend I designed and built, sized for 10,000+ configured users and ~4,000 simultaneous active users per server. It has been in production since 2015.
  • More than 30 years in technology, from industrial automation in Norway to hybrid cloud, security and AI.

What I Lead

  • Roadmap and priorities. I set direction for enterprise IT, infrastructure, networking, security and telecom, and tie it to what the business needs next.
  • Budget, vendors and purchasing. I build operating and capital budgets, select vendors, negotiate purchases and manage them over time.
  • Infrastructure and networking. I cover datacenters and colocation, hybrid Azure, carrier redundancy and BGP, virtualization, storage, high availability and disaster recovery.
  • Security and compliance. I implement infrastructure security controls, take part in incident response and security reviews, and collect audit evidence in a HIPAA and SOC 2 environment.
  • Enterprise IT. I run Microsoft 365, Entra ID, endpoint management and patching for a distributed, largely remote workforce.
  • Engineering and customer support. I build and run the test environments Engineering and QA rely on, and I work directly with customers and vendors on production integrations.

Professional Experience

Director of Information Technology | Mobile Heartbeat LLC

Healthcare software • Waltham, MA and remote • Sep 2013 – Present

Leadership and operations

  • I lead five direct reports and manage an annual operating budget of ~$750K, excluding payroll. I also oversee annual capital spending that typically ranges from $500K to $1M.
  • I own the roadmap and operating priorities for enterprise IT, infrastructure, networking and security, and I manage vendors, technology purchasing, migrations and service changes.
  • I led IT through company growth, an acquisition, SaaS expansion, datacenter and cloud migrations, and the move to remote work.
  • I promoted a team lead from within the team and put in place a change control process for the IT team.
  • I oversee Microsoft 365, Entra ID, endpoint management and patching. I implement infrastructure security controls and support incident response, security reviews and audit evidence collection.

Hands-on architecture and engineering

  • Network. I replaced a single-provider network with a resilient design using multiple carriers, BGP, colocation and a disaster recovery site, with tested routing failover. I also designed segmented Azure connectivity with Palo Alto firewalls. The next stage adds company-owned public address space, Azure BYOIP and multi-region disaster recovery planning.
  • Infrastructure. I was given a budget for more servers. Compute was not the real constraint, so I invested in shared storage, virtualization, backup and networking instead. Over time I turned standalone VMware hosts with local storage into a highly available platform built on Cisco UCS, Fibre Channel and all-flash storage, in roughly the same physical footprint.
  • Engineering and QA environments. I built and ran environments for testing customer integrations across platform versions and configurations. They cover Hyper-V and Nutanix virtualization, Cisco CUCM and Avaya Aura telephony, F5 LTM and Citrix NetScaler load balancing, and Cisco and Aruba wireless.
  • Mobile Heartbeat Voice Gateway. I designed and built the Linux/Asterisk backend for this product. It is engineered for 10,000+ configured users and about 4,000 simultaneous active users per server, and has been in customer production since 2015.
  • Customer integrations. I work directly with customers, vendors and product engineering on production SIP and enterprise PBX integrations. That included a vendor-neutral way to carry location information for emergency-call handling through SIP signaling.

Manager, IT Engineering and Projects | Zippo Manufacturing Company

Manufacturing • May 2011 – Sep 2013

  • I led project teams that modernized the datacenter across networking, virtualization, storage and security. VMware consolidation and Dell Compellent shared storage cut the physical server footprint by 75%.
  • I built second-site infrastructure for both active workloads and disaster recovery, and I led the project budgeting, vendor selection and implementation.
  • I engineered redundant 10 Gbps storage links and a 40 Gbps leaf-and-spine datacenter backbone. The work also modernized power, redundant cooling and disaster recovery across the primary and secondary facilities.

IT Coordinator | Seneca Nation of Indians

Government • Director-level role reporting to the Chief of Staff • Salamanca, NY • Mar 2008 – May 2011

  • I led a nine-person IT team supporting about 1,300 users across two campuses, 29 buildings and remote government and healthcare locations.
  • I secured funding for a $2.5M modernization of fiber, networking, wireless, security and VoIP, and delivered it on budget within the planned 18 months.
  • I reduced monthly IT incidents by about 40% within 18 months through process improvements and preventive maintenance.
  • I planned and carried out four datacenter moves, and I led projects covering ERP, virtualization, shared storage and virtual desktop infrastructure.

Network Administrator | Seneca Nation of Indians

Feb 2004 – Mar 2008

  • I rebuilt a nearly flat network into a redundant routed environment using OSPF.
  • I modernized Active Directory, Group Policy, Exchange, firewalls, storage, virtualization and deployment automation.

Earlier Engineering Experience

  • Highland Injection Molding Inc., Automation & Control Systems Engineer, 1999–2004. I retrofitted industrial controls and connected shop-floor systems to ERP/MRP while also supporting company IT.
  • Larsen Automasjon AS, Programming & Service Coordinator, 1998–1999. I set up and managed the programming, service and electrical engineering functions, and coordinated customer installations.
  • Nor-Reg A/S, Programmer and PLC/HMI Engineer, 1991–1998. I developed industrial control systems and supported customer installations and startups across Europe.

Leadership and Technical Expertise

Leadership and delivery. IT roadmaps • Team leadership • Department and project budgeting • Vendor management • Technology purchasing • Modernization • Disaster recovery • Change control • Cross-functional delivery

Infrastructure and networking. Azure hybrid cloud • Datacenters and colocation • BGP • OSPF • VPNs • Firewalls • Linux • Windows Server • VMware • Cisco UCS • Shared storage • High availability

Enterprise IT and security. AI • Microsoft 365 • Entra ID • Active Directory • Intune • Workspace ONE • Endpoint lifecycle management • Vulnerability management • Audit support • HIPAA, SOC 2

Communications and automation. SIP/RTP • Asterisk • Cisco CUCM • Avaya Aura • Twilio • APIs • Scripting

Education and Credentials

Tinius Olsen Skole, Kongsberg, Norway. Degree in Automation and Mechanics (Mechatronics)

ITIL 4 • Microsoft Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900)

Contact

I am open to IT leadership roles: remote, hybrid or in Western New York (Buffalo/Rochester/Southern Tier).