Colorado State University

Colorado School of Mines

Career Mentor & Director of Data Services & Enterprise Architecture at Mercy Corps

Okta

Social Impact Solutions Architect

The Data Services team is a new dept in IT tasked with providing standardized data sharing services, well documented system and business process architecture, and custom software solutions to allow reliable and consistent information delivery in the form of data, reports, and visualizations to Mercy Corps team members in order to glean business insight from the data that is created everyday.

This position requires both hands on technical work as well as managing the people and processes that make data flow through the agency. In order to deliver these services we will continue to develop an enterprise architecture practice at Mercy Corps as these responsibilities will cut across departments, countries, and regions requiring our team to define and streamline end-to-end business processes and data flows.

● Provide leadership in developing a more impactful data culture at the agency
● Lead the Data Governance team in expanding the membership to include all business units
● Lead the effort to develop a high-quality data practice at Mercy Corps that successfully turns data into insight and leads to better decision making.
● Co-chair the Data Steering Committee
● Recruit, develop, and mentor team members
● Work to continuously improve our Enterprise Architecture practice
● Develop the technology roadmap to enable this new team to thrive
● Architect groups, folders and business automation rules for enterprise systems 
● Create and manage the technical documentation describing how data flows through the agency and the controls that will be used to ensure their secure and reliable operation
● Collaborate with business units to create reports and data visualizations that help them make good decisions
● Evaluate and implement the necessary technical systems to drive data services and custom software development operations
● Develop and manage the common data model for enterprise systems

Mercy Corps

Director of Data Services & Enterprise Architecture

Utilize broad IT experience spanning the solutions, information, integration and technology domains. I regularly talk to both technical developers and business managers to articulate details about projects, systems, and business processes. Formulate the technical systems direction on a global scale for Mercy Corps in an iterative fashion by keeping in context existing technologies and business systems, current project needs, future business requirements and emerging technology trends.

• Collaborate across departments to develop the data strategy for enterprise systems.
• Lead the effort to develop an enterprise architecture practice at Mercy Corps based on The Open Group's TOGAF standard. 
• Utilize the DAMABOK methodology to lead the Enterprise Data Governance team in managing data flows between large enterprise systems.
• Develop and manage the data model for all enterprise systems
• Project Lead for Okta IAM system implementation. 
• Okta system administrator. Create SAML and OIDC connections to web apps and enterprise systems for SSO and user account provisioning. 
• Define and outline the technology systems architecture that will be needed to support Mercy Corps’ business strategy. 
• Build communication plans to rollout new practices and technologies to the global agency. 
• Embed in engineering teams when needed to establish a new pattern or solve high priority problems. 
• Support end-to-end technologies related to applications and data, including distributed and web applications, middleware, presentation, integration, data stores, database decision support, coding languages, development environments and platform choices.
• Make tough decisions by using analysis frameworks such as SWOT, Decision Matrix, etc.
• Develop decision making models for use cases such as vendor analysis & feature prioritization.

Tech tools: Draw.io, Okta, Jira Confluence, Jira Service Desk, Trello, GSuite, Wrike, Adobe CS, Git, CLI, Apache Web Server, Drupal.

Enterprise Architect

Provide systems  ownership,  and support for Mercy Corps’ Identity and Access Management (IAM) and related enterprise web applications. Analyze the business and information needs of field programs and cross-functional areas of the organization, in order to develop technical and process solutions to business problems. This is a combo role that allows me to function as a project manager, business analyst, and engineer. 

• Led Enterprise Data Governance team to better manage the flow of enterprise data throughout our global agency. 
• Created a unified data model for major enterprise systems such as Finance, HR, and 20+ apps that comprise our intranet. 
• Led software vendor evaluation process for new IAM system. Established framework for evaluating software vendors.
• Developed go-live & project implementation plan. Migrated 20+ web apps into Okta. 
• Mapped current data flow of Mercy Corps’ team member data. Architected new automated Okta data flow. 
• Trusted member of IT team who helps to lead digital transformation to better support business needs.
• Presented to other non-profits at the Okta user conference on invitation from Okta for Good team. 

Tech tools: Okta, Trello, Google (Analytics, Tag Manager, Data Studio, Search Console, GSuite), Wrike, Adobe CS, Git, CLI, HTML5, CSS3, Javascript, JQuery, MySQL, PHP, Drupal.

Senior Systems Analyst

Exercised full breadth of knowledge to manage the platform, engineering team, and digital marketing while driving the overall success of the web platform. The MicroMentor platform is a global social initiative of Mercy Corps that allows entrepreneurs to connect with volunteer business mentors. On contract through Vanderhouwen & Associates.

Successes:
• Achieved 15% increase in new user conversions by identifying and re-designing critical bottleneck in onboarding workflow. 
• Documented complex drip email system used for acquisition, engagement & retention of users.
• Improved team's understanding of user community by instrumenting platform with analytics & user interaction tracking.
• Provided deeper user community intelligence to team by developing custom data visualization application. 
• Enabled feature prioritization by creating feature ranking model for feature requests and bug fixes. 

Responsibilities included: 
• Overall product strategy. 
• Key spokesperson for the product.
• Conversion Optimization.
• Analyzed user data, web & platform analytics. 
• Collaborated across departments and with external vendors.  
• Defined and implemented content strategy for platform & Wordpress properties.
• Gathered feedback from international team and distilled into a cohesive and actionable vision.
• Managed development team in planning, estimating, & delivering web software for the platform.
• Testing the quality of software releases and validating requirements before pushing live.
• Define a rolling product roadmap based on the product strategy & drive key releases.
• Prioritize and sequence the product backlog; develop business cases for new features and products. 

Tech tools: Trello, Optimizely, Basecamp, Google (Analytics, Tag Manager, Search Console, AdClicks, Apps), Salesforce, Git, CLI, SourceTree, HTML5, CSS3, Javascript, JQuery, MySQL, MySQL Workbench, AWS, PHP, WordPress, Adobe CS.

Product Manager - MicroMentor

ProductCamp is an annual conference where Product Managers share, learn, and grow. I'm a co-organizer of the event and I'm responsible for digital marketing programs to drive attendance and foster community with the Portland product community. I've helped to double the size of this event by driving email and social media marketing programs. 

Tech Tools: Google Analytics, Social Media Marketing (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook), MailChimp, GSuite, Adobe CS.

ProductCamp Portland

Digital Marketing Manager (Volunteer)

Collaborating with this start-up to help clarify strategic partnership and hiring strategies. Also involved with recruiting for hard to hire positions. During this time they successfully raised 3 rounds of funding and expanded in size from 4 employees to over 30 employees.

The Dyrt

Technology & Recruitment Advisor

Learned the art of technical recruiting at Portland based staffing agency focused on placing IT Professionals such as developers, product managers, & business analysts. Clients ranged from large organizations including Nike & Intel to small startups like Trapit & Elemental Technologies. Started as a recruiting assistant and was promoted in 9 months. 

Successes:
•	Led technical professionals through difficult career decisions resulting in lasting relationships.
•	Gained knowledge about modern software development methodologies by participating in 3-4 technical meetups per month on topics such as product management, marketing automation, content marketing, and web analytics.

Responsibilities:
•	Interview: Conducted in-depth technical interviews with candidates, hiring managers, & professional references. 
•	Negotiate: Negotiated employment agreements for direct hire, contract, and contract-to-hire roles.
•	Urgency: Very fast paced work environment; averaged over 1000 monthly points of contact with candidates.
•	Write: Edited resumes to better tell the candidate’s story. 
•	Present: Created & delivered Powerpoint slideshows to recruiters and code schools.

VanderHouwen & Associates

Technical Recruiter

Founder of website development and digital marketing agency. Collaborated with clients to gather requirements and with production team to deliver digital projects for over 75 website properties. Clients included Hewlett-Packard, Konica-Minolta & a variety of companies in tech, tourism and recreation, real estate, and financial services. Hired and managed a staff of 5.

Successes: 
• Defined, planned, and implemented custom e-commerce solutions for catalogs of over 80k items.
• Designed ETL workflow that drove an automated inventory synchronization app that processed over 300k records daily. 
• Improved organic search results by as much as 1000% and drove over 750k user sessions annually.
• Made data driven product decisions to web platforms that attracted nearly 1 Million visitors annually. 
• Developed relationships with e-commerce channel partners such as Amazon, Shopzilla and Google. 
• Integrated custom e-commerce systems with clients Point of Sale (PoS) systems used to manage inventory. 
• Developed custom reporting dashboards for e-commerce and user community applications. 

Responsibilities:
• Product Management: Prioritized feature requests, owned product roadmaps, set budgets and strategic direction. 
• Analysis: Analyzed web analytics reports for both marketing campaigns and for product decisions. 
• Documentation: Documented business processes, technical procedures, & help documents. 
• Content Marketing: Created and implemented content marketing strategies to optimize organic search results. 
• User Experience (UX): Developed website concepts from wireframes to complete designs of website user interfaces. 
• Strategic Partnerships: Partnered with outdoor brands such as Teva, Paddler Magazine, and American Whitewater.  

Tech tools: Google Analytics, MySQL, MySQL Workbench, Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator), MS Office, Git, PHP, HTML5, CSS3, JQuery, Ajax, Coldfusion, CLI for Linux (Redhat, CentOS), BASH, Putty, Apache web server & Solr.

Quicksilver Interactive Media, Inc.

Director of Technology & Product 

HP/CoCreate developed CAD, PDM & collaborative engineering software for Mechanical Engineers. Worked in a field marketing team chartered with generating business for North and South America.  
Successes:
• Developed internal website for communicating America’s marketing activity; Managed database of 100k customers.
• Developed strategic partnerships with companies such as Silicon Graphics, Sun Microsystems, & Mentor Graphics. 
• Successfully managed annual user conference with a budget of $250k and attendance by 200 customers.  
Responsibilities:
• Collaborated with international cross functional teams to provide sales support and develop lead generation programs.  
• Directed communication with our installed customer base via newsletter and user group meetings.
• Managed vendors such as marketing agencies to develop resources like websites & multimedia CDs.
• Created and approved technical content for marketing activities and marketing collateral. 
• Supervised a staff of telemarketing representatives who qualified sales leads from marketing campaigns.

Brad Goettemoeller