Denis found that he preferred Hardware/Software troubleshooting on behalf of clients more than software development so eventually moved on. His next experience was with GTE Data Services in Florida where he worked as the Re-use Supervisor answering to the head of accounting. The Re-Use Supervisors position existed to create a route of disposal, sale, or donation of all older equipment from the various GTE Corporations across the United States. All old Equipment would be shipped to his department where arrangements would be made with computer recyclers to purchase old CRT Monitors for their lead content, various networking and computer equipment would be donated to boy scouts, girl scouts, churches, and non-profits as a means of giving back to the community while simultaneously disposing of old equipment and earning tax breaks for the corporation. If you don’t recognize GTE Data Services as a fortune 500 company, it’s because they changed their name after they purchased the telephone company MCI. You may know them better as Verizon.
After leaving GTE and moving back to New York City, Denis took a job with Decision One as a Senior Desktop support technician working at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan. His main job for the company was to go into a location that was having trouble keeping up their customer Service Level Agreements and resolve hardware and software issues relating to Windows and Novell environments. This position called for an in depth understanding of all thing’s hardware and software, but mostly customer service, handling high pressure situations with doctors who needed their issues resolved in timely fashion.
After resolving the ticket backlog at the Hospital for Special Surgery, Denis was given the task of working at Chase Manhattan Bank in 1998, the SLA was at 76% on his arrival. The average ticket count for each of Decision Ones technicians at Chase Plaza was around 4-5 tickets per day, on day one Denis closed 15 tickets, and then would continue to average between 15-21 ticket closures per day. This became so consistent that the management challenged the other techs that if they could close more tickets then Denis in the Remedy system, they would give them a $100 bonus each week. This resulted in competition leading to a 96% SLA within two months of implementation. Sadly, a contract had already been signed with IBM leading to Decision Ones replacement at Chase before Decision One sent Denis to the site.
After Leaving Chase Denis worked as a Field technician for a company called Manhattan Information Systems Inc in NYC until accepting a Job working at Atlantic Express Bus Company in Staten Island as a Backup Administrator/Senior Desktop Support Engineer. Denis stayed with Atlantic Express until 9/11 which led to a downturn in Bus routes in Manhattan leading to layoffs with the company. Denis moved on to work for Time Warner Cable as a Broadband Support Specialist/Customer Support Level 2 rep Until he developed health issues that eventually led him to what the doctors claimed would be a Permanent health related disability from 2006-2014.
In late 2014 Denis went to the doctors and was informed that the heart related issues the doctors once saw had miraculously healed itself. Having been out of the field for some time Denis was concerned that his skills may be rusty so he spent a year working for Lucid Service and Installation as a team lead deploying digital menu boards networking and troubleshooting their connections on behalf of Insight and Stratacache across the entire Northeast ranging from Ohio to New York and from New Hampshire to Washington DC with emphasis in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, and Rochester New York, this time was also spent working on the CVS and Dollar Tree projects implementing POS’s
Lucid Service and Installation fell apart due to management issues leading to a big hole in eastern Pennsylvania service provider network. Many of the best service providers in this area fell away due to the dissolving of that company, but the one highlights the company owner did right was to introduce Denis to the Fieldnation.com platform.
Denis took the reigns he was handed in 2015 and began creating his own reputation on the platform, from 2016-2017 Denis preformed around 250 contracts and maintained a 5 star rating proving to himself and anyone who took the time to look at his profile that he was a force to be reckoned with, then Denis was provided an opportunity to get back into Desktop Support as a Level 2 technician on behalf of a pharmaceutical company called Covance located in Denver, PA…Knowing that this was necessary if Denis was ever going to achieve his dream job, Denis put fieldnation.com on the back burner.
For the next two years Denis was the sole deskside level 2 technician for 3 Sites on roughly 40-acre campus and extended remote technician in a team of roughly 25 for an additional 70,000 users worldwide. His responsibilities included network Infrastructure, deskside support, troubleshooting, and backup administration of an iSeries AS400 machine until a deal with Envigo where Denis’ position was eliminated. This Led to a re-emergence of fieldnation.com and the first signs that IT Tech Services may become a thing.
Leveraging his reputation, Denis secured a deal with a CVS service provider who asked him to create a team to fill the void left by Lucid Service and Installation. Denis pulled together a few of the old team and augmented them with some newly trained service providers to fulfil CVS’s request. Denis coordinated the implementation of and replacement of CVS’s 3G to 4G routers in every CVS Pharmacy in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts using an excel spreadsheet of address’ combined with Google maps.
Just after this Project completed Denis was offered a Job from Reynolds/Pactiv as a full time Employee with an offer to good to pass on that moved in the direction of his dream job, implementing Cisco Infrastructure with a promise to train on the requirement that if Denis took the job, he could not simultaneously work FieldNation.com because the job required his undivided attention. Denis became primarily responsible for the Networks of 8 manufacturing facilities across the Northeast and Secondary on 8 others. The position required both infrastructure and System administration using SCCM and ticket tracking using Service Now along with proprietary software’s Denis was responsible for Cisco Phone Implementation, UPS replacements, Switch and Server Replacements, coordination of vendors 45% travel to remote sites. On top of these he utilized Bomgar, RDP, AnyConnect, TeamViewer, Avalanche, SAP, VMU Troubleshooting, Label Printer replacements.
After working for two years Denis had repeatedly told his wife that he felt that he had not truly given IT Tech Services the chance it deserved, and an opportunity presented itself in a managerial switch at the job that led to a parting of ways between Denis and Pactiv…This led to Denis having to preform again to the standard he had set previously. When you hire IT tech Services you know you’re going to get a professional leader, and if you need more hands, you’re going to get vetted techs who will represent the reputation of the brand we are creating. With 400 contracts complete and 155 ratings posted we have a 5-star rating because we set the standard in PA for service. We can do it in a store, data centre, or your home, you will get the service you expect.
