Director, IT Infrastructure

Job Overview

This role is responsible for all aspects of Great Lakes Cheese’s IT infrastructure (& project management) including but not limited to; infrastructure and data center strategy, data center infrastructure architecture, data center operations, data storage solutions, servers, telecommunications, networking (LAN/WAN/WLAN/OT), collaboration and productivity solutions, backup and recovery, disaster recovery, helpdesk, and end user computing. This is the strategic and tactical leader of infrastructure in support of overall business strategy and objectives. This dynamic and seasoned IT leader will be responsible for all aspects of management and development of their team. This leader will maintain a hands on approach and lead through example and action, and enjoy ample opportunity for role growth and development.

Job Responsibilities

• Lead your team of IT professionals and manage numerous complex tasks necessary to drive business value for GLC.
• Lead the architecture, design, and implementation of scalable, secure, and resilient infrastructure solutions across the enterprise.
• Strategic and operational owner of enterprise and plant data centers and critical server & storage infrastructure strategy and execution. This extends to on premise, co-located, and cloud environments.
• Understand, contribute to, and support the overall IT strategy in partnership with the VP IT and your peers.
• Proactively utilize your broad multi-functional knowledge to analyze and interpret business needs across the organization to determine and recommend technology infrastructure solutions.
• Manage vendor relationships and negotiate favorable agreements with infrastructure and associated vendors.
• Plan and manage the enterprise communications infrastructure.
• Deliver an exceptional experience for systems users via your desk-side support team, and continuously work to improve the user technology experience. Technology experienced will include desktop & laptop, mobile devices, AV, copiers, printers, and handheld scanners.
• Manage and support building access and camera security systems across the enterprise.
• Manage data backup and recovery procedures and solutions for all systems.
• Contribute and if necessary lead the creation and maintenance of business continuity, incident response, and disaster recovery planning for business critical systems, including working with other IT and business teams to produce and sustain practical solutions.
• Perform resource management across your team, and recognize when others need to be involved and take action to engage the right people at the right time.
• Own and develop a project management team and approach initially for Infrastructure, then for IT collectively.
• Actively manage and take accountability for your domain areas and teams.
• Effectively coach your team members to bring out the best and most productive version of themselves.
• If necessary via your coaching method develop your teams by setting the example and leading projects from concept to completion.
• Build, mentor, and lead a high-performing team of infrastructure specialists, administrators, and engineers
• Foster a positive culture of within your teams aligned with that of the organization that dries accountability and performance.
• Direct all aspects of daily operations through your IT managers or other skilled professionals, including prioritization, standards and policies, and ensuring systems uptime SLA’s are met or exceeded.
  Partner with other leaders in problem solving and recommending alternatives and appropriate actions to tactical business problems and opportunities.
• Coordinate the activities of your staff to meet demanding schedules, effectively utilizing & balancing resources to meet production and project needs.
• Identify and recommend process improvements to optimize quality and service availability. 
• All GLC employees are expected to perform any assignment or job task according to the stated safety policies and procedures.
• All GLC employees are expected to produce our products in a manner that exceeds the quality and value expectation of our customers and consumers by adhering to Good Manufacturing Practices, Policies and Procedures outlined in our Safe Quality Food Program.
• Other duties as assigned by the manager.

Required Education and Experience

• Degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, or relevant related field.
• 10 years of IT industry experience in a technical leadership role focused infrastructure planning, implementation, and operations.
• Strong technical knowledge of and experience with multiple of the following areas: 
  
  • Storage systems (Pure FlashArray X, etc) including active/active HA architectures
  • Cisco networking technologies (LAN / WAN / WLAN / VLAN / OT)
  • Intel server hardware (such as Lenovo, Dell, HP, Cisco, etc)
  • VXLAN design, implementation, and support
  • Virtualization solutions (such as VMWare)
  • Microsoft technologies (Active Directory, Windows OS, O365, etc)
  • Wireless handheld equipment (RF scanners, mobile computers, etc)
  • End user devices (PC’s, Laptops, mobile devices, etc)
  • Network storage technologies and file system management.
• IT Asset Management systems
• Outstanding communication skills from low level technical detail through to business functions and leadership, including judgement on when and at what level to proactively communicate pertinent information
• Understanding of the implications of changes and events within your domain upon applications, and the business as a whole.
• Skilled and experienced with systems change control.
• Skilled at documentation from the detailed technical level up, including the ability to present complicated topics in layman’s terms
• Manage multiple projects simultaneously and with consistent format and delivering promised results
  Strong teamwork approach to problem solving with the ability to make sound, independent decisions based on functional expertise and experience.  
• Highly skilled at identifying and permanently solving issues to root cause
• Ability to provide leadership, support, communication and direction.  
• Ability to handle multiple tasks, troubleshoot and problem solve beyond routine issues.  
• Ability to understand, evaluate, justify, and as applicable implement new technologies to maximize business value to GLC.
• Intuition and a rapid ability to interpret and understand the environment and events occurring within it, and take action as necessary.
• Ability to travel up to 20% within the United States.

Preferred Education and Experience

• Master’s degree in Business or a relevant technical discipline
• Relevant certifications; Microsoft, Cisco, Rockwell, VMWare, etc
• Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery design, planning, testing, and execution across multiple corporate and plant data centers.
• Cisco & Arista technologies
• Time keeping systems and hardware (ie Kronos)
• Project Management Certification (PMI-PMP)
• MS-SQL Server expertise
• Manufacturing industry expertise (ideally food)
• Networked shop floor controls (Rockwell/AB)

Working Conditions

EEOC & Disclaimer