Edward Christensen

Director of Technology

January 2010 to Present

Gilardi & Co. is a privately held, full service class action claims administrator with nearly a quarter century of experience. Gilardi &
Co. are experts at every phase of claims administration, from notice and publication through final distribution and reporting.

Technologies Utilized: Position:
• HP Enterprise Servers Member of Management Team charged with re-engineering IT team, processes, software
• IBM Blade Servers and procedures and bringing the company into a competitive space. Responsible for • Microsoft Software bringing Gilardi into compliance with FISMA, ISO 27000 and creating a secure data
o Windows Server processing environment.
o Active Directory
Key Results: o Exchange
o SharePoint • Revived project to remove legacy Cobol system and replace with modern software,
o SP Portal including C# and VB.net applications running on MOSS, InRule and MetaStorm BPM
o SQL Server • Brought Gilardi & Co. into FISMA Rev. 3 and ISO 27000 compliance, and created testing
o IIS and control programs to maintain compliance
o C#, VB.net, ASP.net • Simplified the infrastructure from un-integrated, and siloed solution of Novell, DOS, and
• InRule Rule Engine Windows environments, to a fully integrated Windows AD, with Exchange, MOSS, and • MetaStorm BPM Microsoft desktop solutions
• Cisco Networking, VoIP • Reduced costs via controlling vendor relations, and creating and managing to a budget of • Novell Networking $1.6M OpEx and $800,000 CapEx
• Novell Groupwise • Simplifying the IT department by consolidating thin positions into robust support and • Blade, Rackmount development teams who worked cohesively vs. independently, reducing personnel costs
• SAN (EMC, HP) by 30% and nearly doubling productivity individually
• Veritas, VMWare • Consolidated servers and software onto integrated virtual machines, greening and lowering datacenter costs, and increasing the disaster recoverability
• Applying SDLC and introduced project management strategy, which includes change
control procedures, source control and quality assurance best practices. Successfully
reducing errors by 20% and bringing software development into line with expectations of the executive management team
• Created disaster recoverability plan, including off site business resumption
• Handle the hiring and firing, coaching, and leadership support of a team of 9 full time
information technology professionals and up to 4 consultants, working on and supporting
multiple development projects utilizing SharePoint, C#, Ajax, Silverlight and MS SQL
Server

Director of Technical Operations

May 2005 to May 2009

A wholly-owned business of the Tribune Company, McClatchy Company, Washington Post Company, Gannet Co. Inc, and A.H
Belo Corp, providing internet presence and advertising for automotive manufacturers, dealers and owners.

Technologies Utilized: Position:
• HP Enterprise Servers Senior leader heading IT strategy and initiatives critical to achieving corporate and business
• Microsoft Software goals. Planned and executed business and operations strategy as a member of the executive
o Windows Server team reporting to the CTO and CEO. Re-engineered IT organization and key applications to o Active Directory strengthen quality of service, timely delivery and staff capabilities while improving
o Exchange reliability and reducing costs.
o SharePoint
Key Results: o SP Portal
o SQL Server • Managed $6 million in annual budgets including budgeting, implementation of business
o IIS objectives, reporting, and purchasing.
o C#, VB.net, ASP.net • Primary vendor manager for large vendors including IBM, Oracle, BEA, Sun, HP, Savvis,
• Cisco Networking, VoIP Qwest and was responsible for identifying, selecting, and procuring technology and • IBM P & X Series Servers services to assure meeting business goals; negotiated deals that saved Classified Ventures
• Sun Microsystems Servers more than $5 million dollars in the past 3 years.
• Blade, Rackmount • Oversee delivery and support of Internet products and applications, including system
• AIX, Solaris, HP-UX design, architectural fit and compliance, resource schedules and delivery milestones.
• Linux (Red Hat, IBM, SusE) Worked closely with the business leadership to define KPIs, and create support systems in • Tomcat, IIS, Apache accordance with business objectives
• Oracle, MS SQL, MySQL • Successfully introduced virtualization in the web, application and database tiers resulting
• SAN (EMC, HP, 3Par) in a reduction of 60% in overall hardware footprint, and 38% infrastructure costs
• Veritas, VMWare • Designed and implemented strategy to allow the Cars.com group of applications handle the 300% spiked/140% sustained traffic increase that resulted from Cars.com advertising in the Superbowl
• Designed, implemented, and successfully tested DR strategy, resulting in a successful
"resumption of business" in seven hours, reduced from 36 hours.

Director of Program Management and Infrastructure

July 2002 to May 2005

Leading supply chain software vendor serving national and regional retail stores within the United States and Europe

Technologies Utilized: Position:
• IBM P, I & X Series Servers Led a 24 person team in providing development, integration and support of a leading
• Dell Enterprise Servers supply chain store application. Oversaw the program management of existing and new
• IBM AIX, Red Hat Linux development efforts, local and off-shore work forces, and technology infrastructures of • Websphere, Tomcat, IIS multiple, multinational offices, with a $2 million annual budget
• MS SQL, DB2
Key Results: • Cisco Networking, Firewall
• NAS • Successfully completed $600,000 development project conducted in South Africa, which
• Windows AD, Server converted the warehousing subsystem to a Java J2EE web browser enabled architecture
• Microsoft Exchange, Sharepoint from a Cobol coded AS400 effort.
Portal • Applied SDLC, which included change control procedure, source control and quality
assurance best practices. Successfully reducing errors by 97%, and increased productivity.
• Upgraded the networking system to a Windows 2003 Active Directory utilizing Exchange

2003 to 2003

2003, CheckPoint Firewall systems; UltraBak backup systems; TrendMicro Server,
Workstation and Exchange AV; IIS 6 Webserver (intranet); IPMonitor monitoring systems.
• Handle the hiring and firing, coaching, and leadership support of a team of 8 full time
information technology professionals and up to 16 consultants, working on and supporting multiple e-commerce related projects and systems utilizing IBM UNIX-AIX;
OS390/zOS; WebSphere; DB2.

Manager of eSystems and ETL

April 2001 to July 2002

Now GE Finance, a leading supplier of specialized financing and servicing programs facilitating manufacture, distribution and sale of products.

Technologies Utilized: Position:
• Windows Server Responsible for segments of emerging technologies, including the eCommerce, online bill
• Microsoft SQL Server payment systems, and EDI sub-systems. Supervised a team of 18 programmers and support
• Microsoft Exchange personnel. Spearheaded the unification of corporate and task-based IT departments creating
• BEA Tuxedo greater integration of IT and business goals, strengthened quality of service, timely delivery,
• DB2 and staff capabilities. Controlled annual $1.6 million capital expenditure budget.
• GoldMine
Key Results: • TUCANS
• FileNET • Managed $1.6 million in budgets for seven support areas to include budgeting,
• Panagon implementation of business objectives, reporting, and purchasing.
• WMS • Managed development, support and maintenance of the e-commerce arm, which
• Informix processed 40% of the receivables, translating to more than 34,000 individual logins
monthly and nearly $48 million in transactions annually
• Managed development, support and maintenance of the EDI system, which translated
86% of the invoice purchasing business.
• Manage the third-party programs, which controlled B2B areas in Leasing, CRM, Accounts
Receivable, Workflow Management and Imaging.
• Successfully reduced the support budgets by 42% in a four month period; brought in all
development projects on time and under budget

System Architect/Webmaster

August 1999 to April 2001

International Association of Defense Counsel

September 1996 to August 1999

Director of Communications