site · terminal
Intermodal trucking terminal — the operational environment behind the IT work
Intermodal trucking terminal — the operational environment behind the IT work

01 // The Early Days · Navigating Chaos

I joined Phoenix Management Solutions as an IT Technician in November 2022. The company was expanding fast, and the IT estate hadn't kept up — a patchwork of legacy solutions, each with its own quirks. The first year was about imposing order: remote-control tooling, ticketing, patching, backups, anti-virus, email security, MFA, identity and access management, firewalls, and baseline networking across every site.

02 // System Overhaul & Optimization

Promoted to Systems Administrator in September 2023, the scope widened. The early-days chaos started giving way to structured processes. The flagship initiative was a networking optimization project that started at headquarters: audit every link, identify bandwidth bottlenecks, right-size the equipment against the actual compute load, and replace reactive repairs with a planned upgrade path.

It scaled out nationally from there. Every U.S. site onboarded into the same Ubiquiti network for unified visibility and control. Larger sites got redundant internet backups for 99.99% uptime. I worked side-by-side with HQ, Terminal Managers, and Field Operations to plan and install Wi-Fi, switching, and routing — co-designing against real business needs rather than shipping a spec from a desk.

03 // Digital Transformation

In April 2024 the role became Network & Systems Administrator. With the foundation stable, the work shifted from running IT to driving the business with it — generative AI, automation, and the kind of customer-service uplift that's only possible when the underlying systems are already reliable.

04 // Results

▸ uptime
99.99% site uptimeRedundant internet backups at larger sites; no more single-ISP outages.
▸ unify
One network, one paneEvery U.S. site under a unified Ubiquiti deployment.
▸ secure
Full security stackMFA, IAM, patching, email security, firewall policy, and backup coverage.
▸ scale
Built to growReference architecture for onboarding new sites without reinventing the wheel.

05 // Reflection

The arc from "IT Technician putting out fires" to "Network & Systems Administrator setting standards" is the arc I'd wish on any growing company: fix the basics, unify the platform, then use the stable base as a launchpad for automation and AI. Today we're not just keeping up with the logistics and transportation industry — we're setting new bars for it.