JON C. HODGSON

Springfield, MO • Cell: 732.803.2300 • E.Mail: Jon@JonQ.com

 

Career Objective

Seeking a senior level Systems Engineering position with an innovative and dynamic technology organization, with the opportunity to be a high impact contributor to the revenue/market growth objectives of the company.

 

Professional Summary

Twelve years of progressive technical and business experience, culminating in the recognition as the top customer facing technical resource within the company, substantiated by numerous recognition awards and by persistent demand for my support throughout the sales, product management and engineering organizations.
Unique combination of technology, industry, business process, and technical selling skills accounts for my success in the highly competitive Application Quality Management software market.

 

Professional Experience

Riverbed Technology [Jul 2003 to Present] - consisting of:
  • Riverbed Technology [Jan 2013 to Present] – San Francisco, CA (HQ)
  • OPNET Technologies Inc. (Acquired by Riverbed) [Oct 2004 to Jan 2013] – Bethesda, MD (HQ)
  • Altaworks Corp. (Acquired by OPNET) [Jul 2003 to Oct 2004] – Nashua, NH (HQ)

 

Lead Application Engineer. Lead Pre-Sales Engineer of a suite Performance Management products, focused on external service level monitoring & management (synthetic HTTP transactions etc.) as well as deep internal monitoring of the J2EE & .NET architecture (all Web, App, DB etc.) and root-cause analysis and event correlation. Selling to both Enterprise and ISV/OEM channels, I helped evolve the previous highly technical sales process into a more targeted business-value strategy, catering to the unique needs of the specific channel and targeted area of the application’s life cycle (eg. Enterprise production monitoring vs. ISV pre-deployment performance tuning).

 

Another key role of my position is field technical advisor to corporate Engineering and Product Management to help improve the current product set as well as design the future offerings of the company. I routinely meet with the CEO and VP of Engineering to ensure that the collective needs of our customers and target market continually help define the direction of the company.

 

Day-to-Day Activities

·          Sales presentations & whiteboard ‘chalk talks’

·          Solutions architecture specializing in integration with existing application/enterprise infrastructure, often working with customer’s application developers to help them design future versions of their apps to scale better etc.

·          Create Proposals, RFIs, RFPs and ROI documents including detailed Solution Diagrams with Visio

·          On-site evaluations & Proof of Concepts demonstrating both the technical features and business-level benefits of our solutions

·          Working with the Sales Managers to close deals by winning the approval of the technical champions in the account

·          Creating animated technical PowerPoint presentations to supplement generic marketing messaging needed to sell highly technical products

·          Work closely with product management/marketing & engineering to suggest, design & prioritize new features, products & solutions. This helps keep corporate architects aware of bleeding-edge field issues

·          Work closely with Support to ensure my customers' & prospects' issues are properly resolved & treated with the correct sense of urgency.

·          Given presentations at trade shows & have spoken at industry conferences

·          Train customers & employees on our products as well as network & application monitoring, management & troubleshooting

·          Work with Professional Services to design the SOWs & implementation plans for custom development

 

Pertinent Skills

·          Ability to sell both at the enterprise/business/ROI level as well as the ‘bits & bytes’ technical level.

·          Familiar with ‘Dot-com’, Enterprise and ISV architectures & political structures

·          Work routinely with complex multi-tier J2EE and .NET application architectures

·          Practical packet/protocol level knowledge of TCP/IP & related protocols (OSI layers, 3-way handshake etc.)

·          Detailed low-level knowledge of the internals of Routing & DNS etc.

·          Practical OS knowledge for systems & network troubleshooting, primarily Solaris, Windows 2K/NT – Routinely use tools such as netstat, traceroute, ifconfig, arp, ping, vmstat, ps, top, lsof, snoop etc.

·          Intermediate programming (PERL, shell, JavaScript) for customization and integration of out products

·          Familiar with most current network related server software & protocols, including all web/app/db servers (Weblogic, WebSphere, SunONE Oracle etc.), network monitoring management etc., especially the underlying protocols & communication they utilize

·          Excellent interpersonal & presentation skills

·          Able to ‘think on my feet’ and visualize unconventional workarounds to solution obstacles and product limitations

·          The ability to ‘teach myself’ whenever I encounter new technologies or issues

Resonate, Inc. [Nov 1997 to Jul 2003] – Sunnyvale, CA (HQ)

Regional Technical Consultant. (Nov 2000 to Jul 2003)  Promoted 3 times in recognition of exceptional results produced driving the technical portion of a sale in partnership with the sales account manager. Played a significant role in the successful closing of over 75 new accounts, including strategic enterprise wins at UBS/PaineWebber, GE, Johnson & Johnson, Lehman Brothers, Dun & Bradstreet/CSC, Standard& Poors, Chase Manhattan Bank and DoubleClick.
Senior Engineer supporting all Eastern US Sales Teams. As Resonate’s first RTC, the role was created so that all large Enterprise accounts could have advanced engineering support to architect and manage large multi-location, mission-critical services. Working closely with customer’s chief architects and business managers to gain an understanding of the business criticality of their services as well as technical architecture, I designed Service Level Management Solutions to dynamically shield users from failures and maintain the highest service levels possible.

 

Sr. Technical Business Development Manager. (Oct 2002 to Jul 2003)  Secondary role to develop technical solutions with key partners such as Sun, BEA and Accenture, with the goal of creating Resonate solutions that overlay on the partner’s offerings, adding both pre-sales value to the partner and post-sales value to the customer.

 

Sr. Systems Engineer. (Nov 1997 to Nov 2000)  Senior Pre-Sales Engineer presenting, architecting & implementing a suite of network monitoring, management, high availability and load balancing software tools. Technical Manager for all territory accounts, ensuring ongoing customer satisfaction as well as prospecting for follow-up activity.

 

Awards & Achievements

SE of the Year 1998, 1999 (Award not given subsequent years), 100% Achiever’s Club 1999, 2000, 2001 (Award not given other  years)

“Above and Beyond SE” 2001, “Team Player SE” 2002.

Meta4 Digital Design [Apr 1996 to Nov 1997] - Livingston, NJ

Sr. Systems Administrator.  Managed entire internal and external technical infrastructure for an internet design firm, including a multiplatform (Win/Mac/Unix) TCP/IP Network (LAN/WAN) and related workstations, servers and applications. This architecture supported several large Fortune 500 web sites including General Electric, Fuji Film and Hasbro/Star Wars.

Newark Public Radio, Inc. WBGO-FM [Feb 1992 to Apr 1996] - Newark, NJ

Systems Administrator. Responsible for designing & maintaining the LAN infrastructure supporting all departments, developing and executing all computer related procedures including generation of a wide range of statistical reports. Other responsibilities included management of various mass mailings including a monthly program guide and coordination of on-air fundraisers.

Webmaster. Created and managed the station’s first Web Site, including all HTML coding, graphic design and CGI (PERL).

New Jersey Army National Guard [Jan 1994 to Feb 1998] - Jersey City, NJ

Behavioral Science Specialist/Mental Health Counselor. Advanced psychological counseling of active military personnel and veterans for various conditions, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, organic mental disorders, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, family advocacy and stress management. Awards received include the Army Achievement Medal for “conduct, professionalism and highly motivated attitude in dispatch of duties” Dec 1995,  ‘Outstanding Soldier Award’ for 1995 and an Army Certificate of Achievement Award for 1997.

Education

New Jersey Institute of Technology - Newark, NJ

Electrical Engineering B.S., Junior

US Army Academy of Health Sciences - Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, TX

Behavioral Science Specialist (Mental Health Counselor), Honor Graduate

Skills Summary

Operating Systems: Solaris, Windows XP/2K/NT/9x/3.x, AIX, HP/UX, Linux, MS-DOS, MacOS

Programming Languages: Advanced Perl (incl. OOP & modules), HTML/CGI, SQL, Java/JavaScript, and Various Shell/Scripting Languages.

LAN/WAN Architecture: Enterprise-scale TCP/IP architectures utilizing Routers, Firewall, Bridges, VPN, Load Balancers, IDS etc.

Internet Protocols: HTTP/S, XML, FTP, Telnet, SMTP, POP3, DNS, DHCP, LDAP, ODBC, DNS, Streaming Media, sockets.

Applications: Most current Web/Application/DB/Enterprise Servers, including Weblogic, WebSphere, SunONE,  Apache/Tomcat, JRun, JBoss, IIS, Cold Fusion, Netscape Directory Server, Oracle Apps, Oracle, MS-SQL, DB2  etc.

Network Management Software: Packet Sniffers, App. Tracers, Netscan Tools etc. Also familiar with Mercury, Patrol, Tivoli, Unicenter etc.

Other Applications: All standard business applications (MS-Office, Visio, Acrobat etc.)

Other Skills: Photography, Computer-based Graphic Design and Non-Linear Audio & Video editing.

Excellent Interpersonal and Communication Skills and the ability to ‘Teach Myself’ when a project requires knowledge of a new technology (Hardware/Software/programming language etc.).

References

Available on request.