{"id":68,"date":"2026-07-11T04:29:33","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T04:29:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/richardpena.info\/WordPress\/?page_id=68"},"modified":"2026-07-11T04:29:34","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T04:29:34","slug":"experience","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/richardpena.info\/WordPress\/experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Professional Experience<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Senior Network Administrator<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>IRG Ventures<\/strong> \u00b7 Waukee, IA \u00b7 July 2023 \u2013 Present<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Architected and maintained enterprise network infrastructure across Palo Alto firewalls, Extreme Networks, and Aruba HPE, ensuring 99%+ uptime and a robust security posture.<\/li><li>Engineered Zone Security, NAT, and Security Policy frameworks on Palo Alto next-gen firewalls to protect organizational assets and enforce least-privilege access.<\/li><li>Reduced email-borne threat exposure by administering Darktrace AI-driven monitoring, identifying and neutralizing phishing and fraud attempts before escalation.<\/li><li>Consolidated and managed 15+ SaaS administration consoles \u2014 including Azure AD, Okta, O365, GSuite, HubSpot, Slack, Zoom, Adobe, and Teams \u2014 improving governance and access control.<\/li><li>Owned VOIP infrastructure (Dialpad, Zoom, RingCentral), including IVR design, contact center routing, and department provisioning for company-wide communications reliability.<\/li><li>Served as Cloudflare and Porkbun domain administrator, ensuring DNS integrity, security, and availability across all company domains.<\/li><li>Built and maintained a comprehensive internal knowledge base, reducing repeat incident resolution time and enabling faster onboarding of IT staff.<\/li><li>Built and maintained internal ticketing systems (Freshworks and Jira).<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">IS System Administrator<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Innovation Refunds, Inc.<\/strong> \u00b7 Waukee, IA \u00b7 June 2022 \u2013 July 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Streamlined employee onboarding and offboarding by managing full account lifecycle across 10+ platforms \u2014 including AD, Azure, GSuite, O365, Slack, HubSpot, Dialpad, and Quickbase \u2014 cutting provisioning time and reducing security risk.<\/li><li>Led the evaluation, pilot, and company-wide rollout of Dialpad VOIP, a FAQ Bot, and HighQ for Legal, delivering measurable productivity gains for cross-functional teams.<\/li><li>Administered Apple and Windows device fleets using Jamf Connect and Microsoft Intune, ensuring policy compliance and secure configurations across the organization.<\/li><li>Managed an RDS environment supporting Windows-based remote users, maintaining performance and availability for distributed teams.<\/li><li>Strengthened network security posture by monitoring traffic patterns and enforcing security policies across all network segments.<\/li><li>Standardized hardware acquisition processes and maintained a complete asset inventory, improving cost visibility and procurement efficiency.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Desktop Support Analyst II<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>StoneX<\/strong> \u00b7 New York, NY \u00b7 August 2020 \u2013 June 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Delivered Tier 2 end-user support in a high-pressure financial services environment, consistently resolving incidents ahead of SLA deadlines using FreshService.<\/li><li>Provisioned and deployed workstations, docking stations, and peripherals for new hires, ensuring day-one productivity with zero configuration delays.<\/li><li>Supported mission-critical trading applications \u2014 ICE Chat, QST, ProphetX, and Eikon \u2014 minimizing downtime for time-sensitive trading operations.<\/li><li>Managed user accounts and device enrollment in Active Directory and Microsoft Intune\/Azure AD, maintaining access governance across the organization.<\/li><li>Configured and supported Cisco IP phones and enterprise conference systems, enabling seamless internal and client-facing communications.<\/li><li>Collaborated with the Security Operations (SecOps) team to vet and validate software compliance prior to deployment, reducing vulnerability exposure.<\/li><li>Supported VPN connectivity via GlobalProtect and Cisco AnyConnect, maintaining secure remote access for distributed staff.<\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Professional Experience Senior Network Administrator IRG Ventures \u00b7 Waukee, IA \u00b7 July 2023 \u2013 Present Architected and maintained enterprise network infrastructure across Palo Alto firewalls, Extreme Networks, and Aruba HPE, ensuring 99%+ uptime and a robust security posture. Engineered Zone Security, NAT, and Security Policy frameworks on Palo Alto next-gen firewalls to protect organizational assets [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ai_generated_summary":"","wpai_meta_description":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-68","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpena.info\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/68","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpena.info\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpena.info\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpena.info\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpena.info\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/richardpena.info\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/68\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69,"href":"https:\/\/richardpena.info\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/68\/revisions\/69"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpena.info\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}