Project Manager Resume | PMI Certified PMP

RD Watkins

PMI Certified PMP, IT Project +, MCSE, MCP+I, MCP, CCNA, A+ Certified

Cumberland, MD
Office Phone: (301) 259-1617
email: rdwatkins.com@gmail.com
personal site: http://rdwatkins.com

OBJECTIVE

(PMI Certified PMP) Project Management consultant with 7 yrs of Fortune 500 and 8 yrs IT technical project planning and implementation experience seeks a position fully utilizing strong customer service attitude, exceptional organizational ability and communication skills.

CAREER PROFILE

Seasoned professional, with outstanding project planning, execution, monitoring and resource balancing skills with ability to support multiple simultaneous projects in a matrix organizational structure.
Excel at communicating with stakeholders to provide accurate reporting and information regarding the ongoing projects and initiatives.
Experienced in coordinating, negotiating and motivating outside vendors and off-shore resources in support of time line and IT project deliverables.
Effectively training, motivating and mentoring onsite and offshore junior managers, engineers, developers and technicians.
Superior coordination of user acceptance testing of final IT infrastructure and software development deliverables through iterative evolutions.

SELECTED ACHIEVEMENTS

Develop and QA/User Acceptance Test 1000+ Wise application scripts, in support of 10,000 seat Windows 2000 rollout, using 12 project resources.
Managed script development project integration lab in support of new OS and required client applications. This was a deployment initiative for 8 separate North American locations, two business units’ sales teams as well as other subsidiaries/business units, using 6 Digital India offshore developer resources.
Deliver Y2K Remediation solution to 13 Eastern region manufacturing plants. This remediation included PLC, specialized automation equipment as well as the office PCs and network equipment.
Consolidate 25Million+ accounts receivable into one central office DB and network. Included backup and back-out procedures, validation of DB integrity, and physical movement of Server and data.
Transfer multiple T-1 circuits to new ISP backbone provider. This involved planning a parallel network for both providers until transfer had been accomplished with seamless service delivery to the dialup and hosting customers.
Market and transferred 4300 ISP customers to Mindspring.com supporting division divestiture. Resulted in a $400,000.00 cash infusion and refocusing of corporate purpose and strategic direction.
Co-Authored two Technical Certification books for Syngress Media:

“MCSE Migrating from Windows NT to Windows 2000 Study Guide” (Exam 70-222)

“CCNA Test Yourself Practice Exams”, 2nd Edition (Exam 640-507)

EXPERIENCE

Unilever Global Infrastructure Organization – CES (Customer Engagement Specialist)

5/04– Present

Globally coordinate North American, Asian, African/Arabian, European and Latin American End User Support (Help Desk) design, develop and implement the Sun Identity Manager tool and Service Request Automation Fulfillment process re-engineering. There are total of 90+ stakeholders/contacts/resources involved in requirement gathering and consensus negotiations to support this project. Unilever plans to replace the thousands of non – ITIL compliant processes in 90 different countries into a single common multi-regional set of workflows.

Unilever Global Infrastructure Organization – Project Manager

11/03 – 7/31/04

PM the Design and Implementation of a User Demographics Data Warehouse for the support of End User Services, Customer Management, Service Development and Service Delivery. This data warehouse will dynamically extract the SMS 2.0, User Support dB, Active Directory and LDAP server domain user listings, application deployment data, HR data from PeopleSoft using ACTA into an Oracle based normalized structure available for Business Objects, Crystal Reports and ODBC reporting based on key stakeholders needs.

Unilever Global Infrastructure Organization – CES (Customer Engagement Specialist)

6/03 – 10/03

Central Messaging Migration is an initiative to migrate 15,000+ North American email users to a global messaging cluster. This was a regional project driven by global objectives and planned in parallel across Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. I was challenged to design, test and implement user delivery and support of daily migration processes and then share these designs with the global community. The final plan delivered 1200+ user migrations per four day cycle. I designed a master user demographic database to schedule, track and report this rapid migration pace. Resources managed consisted of an indirect team of 4 Indian engineers and 2 direct Customer Care Center analysts as well as global infrastructure engineers tasked to the project.

Other Simultaneous Projects: Lotus Notes POC, NA Digital Broadband, GIO NA UPlan Rollout of NIKU software, Aelita Security Utilities, ATT NA, ATT Canada, ATT Global and the British Telecom network operational support outsourcing project.

Unilever & Home and Personal Care – CEM (Customer Engagement Manager)

3/03 – 6/03

This contract was to CRM & PM the design approval, hardware budget draft and acquisition, installation and integration of PlumTree Portal, LiveLink (OpenText) and My Unilever Web/Extranet. The subsequent legacy applications that would be integrated as modules into this new extranet environment also needed project planning.
In addition to these projects, I owned the project planning and execution for Project Phoenix, integrating three Puerto Rico manufacturing facilities into the standard “Shared Services” support model.

Other Simultaneous Projects: Aztec 2.0 Canadian Application Deployment (Business units included were Unilever Canada Retail, Unilever Best Foods Canada, Good Humor Breyers Canada and UCI Canada) and Niku Methods Development.

Unilever & Best Foods- CES (Customer Engagement Specialist)

6/02 – 3/03

I was assigned to perform Project Management on behalf of the Supply Chain CRM and the HPC Sales Group CRM.

North American Videoconferencing is an initiative in response to September 11^th and the need to reduce travel and the costs associated with it. The project required negotiations with Wire One, a Videoconferencing vendor who supplied equipment as well as connection services to the sales offices targeted to explore this new cost saving technology.
Gentran for NT replacement entailed detailed design, testing and transitioning of the current NT platform EDI solution called “Gentran” to a single clustered technology on a UNIX platform shared by both Best Foods and Home and Personal Care Business Units. This system transfers the daily cash and order transactions for Wal-Mart as well as other key retail partners for Unilever and is a critical system.
Manufacturing for the Millennium and Order to Cash Projects integrated the Logistics from the Order intake into a Central SAP module to the Manufacturing facility then on to the Transportation Logistics planning and finally to retail delivery. These Projects Utilized a Matrixes IT Group, IS Group and GIO resources to complete the final deliverable. These systems are also mission critical.

Other Simultaneous Projects: NA Sales Targeter, Bridge the Gap initiative, CCRS Integration, Saddle brook Office Expansion, Business Objects Enhancement, Aztec 2.0 deployment for Clinton, CT Customer Service Facility, E-Catalog, Enterprise Forecasting – Manugisitics.

Unilever & Best Foods – Project Scripting Technical Manager

1/01 – 1/02

This Unilever Project entailed the gathering of business requirements for applications, planning the Wise scripting process and managing 8, freshly imported, Off-shore (Digital India) resources that were to be trained in Wise package development to create the Application deployment scripts. Upon arrival of the Indian resources I drafted training materials and delivered the same educating these resources relating to the packaging process sanctioned by Unilever. I mentored them in analyzing the User Acceptance Testing and QA processes, planning the infrastructure required to support all these phases and implementing it. These components were to be delivered in overlapping stages to 8 Business Units and locations in North America within one year. Communication and Coordination with all software Vendors and Business Unit Stakeholders were Critical to this projects success. I still manage and coordinate many of the Off-shore resources I trained in 2001 on the various PM assignments at Unilever up to and including the present Central Messaging Migration Project above (2003). Others have returned to India to staff a truly remote Scripting facility in support of Global Unilever Initiatives.
In parallel to this effort, the desktop OS deployment team of Digital India resources required my team’s input relating to the Wise package technology to ensure a complete un-attended installation of OS and Applications to suit the particular user profile intended.

Aztec 2.0 Application Scripting and Deployments (Overlapping Business Unit Deployments): HPC Sales, Unilever Best Foods Retail Sales, Military Sales, Franklin Park Facility, Lyle Logistics Group, Somerset Research Facility as well as other Aztec.

Marathon Oil – QA Manager – User Acceptance Testing Coordinator

1/00 -1/01

This project required the Wise scripting of approximately 1700 applications for automated deployment, most of which were in-house or non-COTS (Commercial off the Shelf) or legacy software. There were 20+ scripters 4 of which were my direct reports in the QA team and tasked with the UAT and Quality control relative to these scripts. This project was to facilitate the migration of the 10,000+ seat corp. offices to Windows 2000 Professional and desktop application suites via SMS and Peregrine Asset Manager to complete asset monitoring and licensing monitoring and automation. My Project Management responsibilities were analysis, planning and implementation of a QA process that met time requirements. Managing the QA team to meet the Quality level required by the stakeholders was a key deliverable. Communicating with the vendors’ developers and script developers to determine error resolution plans was of prime importance to success on this project.

Other Simultaneous Projects:

Syngress Media -Technical Writer 9/00 – 10/01

Syngress approached me to be a contributing author for the below listed IT related study guides. The work entailed using a basic guide for the Chapters, obtained from Syngress, and creating content to aide certification candidates in learning the in-depth info required to pass their CCNA and MCSE 2000 exams. These Book projects were started and completed during my spare time at Marathon Oil Contract.

Deliverables:

“MCSE Migrating from Windows NT to Windows 2000 Study Guide” (Exam 70-222)
“CCNA Test Yourself Practice Exams”, 2nd Edition (Exam 640-507)

NovaCare Rehabilitation- Project Manager/Engineer-Y2K Remediation

3/99 – 9/99

The Pittsburgh Office was the billing and reimbursement central office for NovaCare. As such they maintained the Accounts Payable Databases (records for 25Mil + in accounts receivable). Upon arrival, there was no Y2K remediation completed, no Disaster recovery plan in place, no backups being performed, and 56 offices had no links to sync the database info to the home office in Philadelphia, PA.

The first project included analyzing the Y2K status of all 56 offices and remediation as required. Hardware as well as software remediation was necessary.
Next steps included diagnosing and resolving network and server performance issues, implementing a backup, off-site tape rotation/disaster plan and stabilization of the office environment.
Once this was accomplished, several remote offices had duplicate databases on non-y2k compliant hardware/OS’s. These were consolidated into the primary database from the Baltimore and Chicago regions and all the office workers as well were installed into the Pittsburgh Office space. As a background responsibility, all local help desk and vendor coordination for this project was mine to manage.
NovaCare acquired additional competitors in the Chicago area and I was called to lead the project to link (Dialup and Cisco WAN) their systems into the Pittsburgh Office infrastructure.

Other Simultaneous Projects: Raintree DB Project installation project in Indiana, Illinois and Baltimore offices and Desktop Support Duties.

AKI Corp- Corporate Business Manager

12/98 – 1/02

AKI Corp. is the corporate entity through which I performed my contracting during the stated time period. As such the duties of sales and marketing, negotiations, accounting and Tax filings were mine. I also own several web sites, which required management and that I maintain to broadcast and market my availability and skills as a consultant so that I could maintain full employment.

Kraft Foods – Project Engineer-Y2K Remediation

2/97 – 3/99

Kraft Foods had several subsidiary sites that needed to be remediated to Y2K compliance. My team was the first, to have the Y2K project completed on time.

The Oscar Myer plant was still operating on a serial network and required upgrading or replacing all of the PCs, Allen Bradley PLC Chips and network infrastructure to reach compliance.
The Stonebreakers packaging plant needed Server and workstation remediation to bring it into compliance.
Breyer’s ice cream and yogurt plants needed PLC updates.
Finally, the Capri Sun and Kool-Aid plant were going through a major build-out and addition of the Lunchables lines, Fiber installation on top of the Y2K remediation. These assignments were through MI Corp., an integration service provider, as I was an employee there at the time.

MI Corp. – Project Engineer

2/97 – 3/99

MI Corp needed a hands-on manager relative to the ISP division including help desk, web mastering and vendor coordination of troubleshooting WAN connections and e-mail issues. At that time the web-farm had no backup plan and was poorly located. Therefore, analysis, planning and implementation were done to correct these situations.

The ATT Transition Project assessed the current Internet backbone vendor costs and was to plan a transition from the current UUNet backbone to a qualified alternative. Through my research and vendor solicitation AT&T was selected for this service and their ISP division engaged. Once negotiations were complete, the transition project was implemented which included setting up parallel WAN networks during the transition period, duplicating mail and hosting accounts and preparing the help desk staff to supply info to users.
Shortly after this transition, it was determined that the ISP division would be divested to Mindspring. I coordinated the technical migration and marketing of this transition to our current 4,300 dial-up customers. Upon completion of this project an approximate 400,000.00 infusion was attained.
Internal assignments included Allstate 5250 help desk support as well as off-site integration projects with clients such as Kraft foods.

Freelance Computer Consultant-Internet Consultant

5/95 – 3/99

Freelancing, I supported local consumers who wanted to use the internet for personal and business purposes. Tasks included setting up ISP accounts, mail accounts, designing web pages for local small businesses and setting up new computers and installing software.

U.S. Navy- Lotus 123 Database Programmer – Asset Database Project

10/89–10/91

At the request of the OIC at Balboa San Diego Naval Hospital, I program a database to track the laboratory facility assets. This lab had 350 staff members and performed brunt of the blood testing, on the west coast for the Aids virus and supported Operation Desert Storm. There were 40,000 plus items in the database to catalog and track. Lotus 123 for DOS was the software used to build this DB. Upon completion, of analysis, planning and programming the DB was used for its intended purpose.

EDUCATION

Cheetah Learning PMP Exam Preparation Course

4/25/05 – 4/29/05

I attended the Project Management Professional (PMP) Exam Preparation course at Cheetah Learning Centers in Hartford-Windsor, CT April 24th through the 28th 2005. On that Friday April 29th, I took the PMI PMP Exam and passed.

MS Project 2003 – Unilever Corporate Training

1/05

This course was presented as part of a corporate transition to a PMO standard MS Project 2003. The training included the basics of the MS Project Interface and general usage as it related to Unilever integration with the Niku and Clarity tool set.

Niku & Clarity: Teams and Tasks – Unilever Corporate Training

1/05

This course was provided to Unilever Project Managers to assist them in using these tools to manage their resources within a corporate PMIS. Adding tasks and requesting/assigning resources in the Matrix environment was the focus.

Niku & Clarity: Look and Feel – Unilever Corporate Training

1/05

This course was a familiarization with the tool interface which is web/java based. Maneuvering through the tabs and obtaining key information from with the PMIS was the skill to be acquired.

Niku & Clarity: Properties and Document Manager – Unilever Corporate Training

1/05

This course taught navigating the document manager and creating appropriate structure to maintain all project documents. Additionally, how setup personal preferences, attributes and key features were discussed.

Niku & Clarity: Project Lifecycle Awareness – Unilever Corporate Training

1/05

Within Unilever there is a unique project lifecycle that had been developed using the Clarity tool within Niku. This course mapped out the initiation, planning, executing, controlling and closing processes and how they were to be used and reported against within this PMIS.

Niku & Clarity: Process Workflows – Unilever Corporate Training

1/05

This course taught the gates and work-flows that enabled work authorization to occur within Unilever and how it was to be used in Niku/Clarity to progress projects through to successful and standard-compliant completion.

Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (In Progress)

started 4/04

I am currently progressing through my junior year toward my Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree. My goal is to be complete with this degree by December 2006.

Microsoft Technical Training Course

12/00

I Attended “Pre-installing and Deploying Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional” Training course # MS 1567 and “Installing and Configuring Microsoft Windows 2000 File, Print, and Web Server” Training course # MS 1594.

ICTS NT 4.0 Boot camp

3/98 – 4/98

I Studied the Windows NT 4.0 MCSE Track under Dr. Margaret Smith. I graduated second in my class. June 29^th – July 3^rd, 1998 took all 6 of the MSCE NT 4.0 test and passed all on the first attempt.

Ricks College, NAU and FSU

9/84–6/95

Continuing education courses in Philosophy, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, and other Chiropractic pre-med requirements.

US Navy

10/89 –9/91

I attended and graduated with honors as a Hospital Corpsman. Because of my ranking in my studies, I was rewarded with advancement and enrollment in the Naval School of Health Sciences as an Advanced Medical Laboratory Technician. I also graduated with honors from this school. I was the class Educational Petty Officer (Class Tutor/Mentor) for 23 naval medical students.

OPERATING SYSTEM & ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE SKILLS