Jackson Stark

Tier 2 came with on-call responsibility for infrastructure across 22 countries. The first real test arrived on day one, during a high-priority call, while I was simultaneously training new Tier 1 engineers.

• Took ownership of the failed router rather than handing it back to the queue.
• Coordinated with inventory to source a replacement chassis.
• Applied a backup configuration to the replacement before it left, so the remote site could rack it without a network engineer on site.
• Express-shipped the pre-configured device to the remote location.

• Kept a high-priority outage moving toward resolution on my first shift in the role.
• The Tier 1 engineers I was training saw a complete escalation path — diagnosis, hardware logistics, config restoration, and dispatch — in real time.

Led a project to bring centralized authentication to the network estate, replacing inconsistent device-level login handling with a single authenticated path.

• Configured TACACS+ on 200+ network devices across the environment.
• Trained fellow employees on using Cisco ISE for centralized authentication.
• Standardized the login process so engineers had one consistent way in.

The resort's annual winter opening depends on point-of-sale infrastructure working on day one across retail, food and beverage, and ticketing. I led the readiness effort for the season.

• Tested more than 150 point-of-sale terminals, including Verifone Lane7000, FreedomPay, Mi9, and RTP systems.
• Validated payment processing end to end rather than checking terminals in isolation.
• Coordinated the firewall rule updates required for FCC server and database connectivity.

The operations support team regularly needed to know where a device physically sat in the network — which switch, which port, which VLAN — but getting that answer meant finding someone comfortable on the Cisco CLI. I automated the walk.

• Takes an IP address and traces it through the network hop by hop.
• Returns device, port, VLAN, and neighbor information at each hop.
• Requires no Cisco IOS knowledge from the person running it.

• Gave the operations support team direct network transparency instead of a queue of escalations.
• Encodes the neighbor-discovery and MAC-table walk an engineer would otherwise do by hand every time.

One of three technicians covering the entire resort — Base Area Village and On Mountain. The role deliberately broadened my range from pure networking into Microsoft identity, endpoint management, retail technology, and automation.

• End-to-end IT support across resort operations — desktops, laptops, telecom, network connectivity, and printer environments.
• Resolved and closed 750+ support tickets since May 2025 across all business units using Freshservice.
• Manage user lifecycles across Active Directory, Entra ID P2, Exchange, and M365 including onboarding/offboarding via Cayosoft.
• Administer Intune and SCCM for Windows 11 client management, device deployment, and endpoint compliance.
• Support and troubleshoot POS systems and applications critical to daily revenue operations.

• SSH into the Cisco Catalyst LAN to troubleshoot layer 2 and layer 3 connectivity issues.
• Use Meraki to identify and resolve WiFi problems across resort coverage areas.
• Review Palo Alto Panorama logs to isolate security, NAT, and threat policy issues.
• Terminate CAT cabling and use physical-layer tooling to find layer 1 faults.

• Built a Python script that traces an IP through the network, giving the operations support team hop-by-hop device, port, VLAN, and neighbor detail without needing Cisco IOS knowledge.
• Use PowerShell and Python to automate Network and AD workflows, helping new technicians resolve issues efficiently and identify areas to improve.

Promoted from Tier 1 into escalation and on-call ownership of a worldwide network: 22 countries, 100+ sites, 500+ government entities, and numerous Fortune 100 clients.

• Tier 2 and on-call support for a global network infrastructure spanning 22 countries and 100+ sites.
• Managed 300+ routers, switches, firewalls, and load balancers across Cisco, Palo Alto, F5, and VeloCloud SD-WAN.
• Handled escalated routing, switching, and firewall issues across Cisco IOS-XE, ASA-OS, Palo Alto PAN-OS, F5, and VMware environments.
• Implemented routing changes, firewall security policies, ACLs, and IPsec management.
• Implemented emergency network changes to resolve client-wide outages from routing issues, missing security/NAT policies, F5 VIP issues, and high-latency incidents.
• Led the TACACS+ rollout across 200+ network devices and trained engineers on Cisco ISE.

A return offer from the internship, taken before graduating. This is where the fundamentals got built — volume ticket work, live configuration, and formal change management.

• Resolved 2,000+ network incident tickets; supported Tier 1 bridges coordinated by Major Incident Management.
• Applied baseline configs to Cisco routers, switches, Nexus, ASAs, and VeloCloud SD-WAN — both on-site and remotely.
• Configured and baselined replacement switches and routers for high-priority incidents.
• Troubleshot physical-layer faults and network service issues.
• Completed 100+ standard and normal CAB changes adhering to strict change management protocols.
• Reviewed firewall logs and rules in Palo Alto Panorama to enforce security policy and manage traffic efficiently.

My entry into IT, taken during my final semester at the University of Utah. Earned Network+, TestOut Network Pro, Certiport IT Specialist, and the CCNA over this period.

• Monitored applications and processes in a NOC environment; escalated and created 1,000+ tickets.
• Assisted with incident management, root cause analysis, and environment stability across support teams.
• Learned IT operations fundamentals — monitoring, escalation, troubleshooting, and IT inventory and processing.
• Tracked end-user inventory using Excel and the wider M365 suite as part of end-user services.
• Used Microsoft Intune to simplify end-user device deployment and integrate devices with extensive AD domains.
• Followed operational runbooks and prepared system reports to support daily business needs.

• Configured live Cisco routers and switches — VLANs, spanning-tree, EtherChannel, trunking.
• Implemented network services including DHCP, DNS, and iSCSI in a Windows Server environment.
• Gained hands-on experience with physical cabling, MAC addressing, and enterprise network fundamentals.

Designed, deployed, and troubleshot various network, server, security, and cloud topologies from multiple vendors within a self-hosted server (HPE ProLiant DL360 Gen9) running Proxmox VE and EVE-NG. These topologies accurately represent diverse network/server infrastructures and technologies, including multi-vendor environments.

• BGP (Border Gateway Protocol)
• OSPF (Open Shortest Path First)
• EIGRP (Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol)
• HSRP (Hot Standby Router Protocol)
• DMVPN w/ IPsec (Phases 1 – 3)
• BFD (Bidirectional Forwarding Detection)
• Redistribution
• Policy-Based Routing (PBR)
• Tracking Objects
• CoPP (Control-Plane Policing)
• Layer 2 Switching
• Firewall Security Policies

A tool built to close a specific gap: the operations support team needed to know where a device sat in the network, and getting that answer always required an engineer comfortable on the Cisco CLI.

• Accepts an IP address and traces it through the network hop by hop.
• Reports the device, port, VLAN, and neighbor information at each hop.
• Presents the result without requiring any Cisco IOS knowledge to interpret.

• Encodes the neighbor-discovery and MAC address-table walk an engineer performs manually.
• Runs against the resort's Cisco Catalyst LAN over SSH.
• Designed for non-network staff as the primary audience — the output is the documentation.

Scripting the repetitive parts of running a resort-wide Network and Active Directory environment, with a second goal of making the team faster rather than making myself indispensable.

• Automates recurring Network and Active Directory workflows.
• Keeps configurations streamlined and consistent across devices on the network.
• Gives new technicians a faster path to resolving issues, and surfaces areas where they can improve.

Built and deployed a personal portfolio site to Azure Static Web Apps as a hands-on exercise in cloud-native hosting. The project reinforces infrastructure-adjacent skills — DNS configuration, CI/CD pipelines, and version-controlled deployments — bridging the gap between traditional IT support and cloud operations.

• Provisioning and configuring Azure Static Web Apps resources from the Azure portal.
• Custom domain binding and DNS record management for a production-facing site.
• Version-controlled deployment workflow using Git — changes pushed to the repository are automatically built and deployed.
• Hands-on exposure to Azure's cloud platform beyond traditional on-prem infrastructure.