Christopher Merkle

Responsible for providing Tier I technical assistance to the 100,000+ faculty, staff, students, and contractors in the Texas A&M University system. Requires ability to effectively and courteously provide instructions to customers, no matter how high or low their position is within the organization. Technical assistance is provided from a state-of-the-art call center, remotely, or at the front desk. Requests came regarding a wide variety of issues including networking, password resets, VoIP, endpoint support, telecommunications, application troubleshooting, hardware support, RDP, application support, active directory, Outlook, G Apps Suite, peripheral support, and directory services. Developed strong skills in using online resources to find solutions to problems. Often entrusted with confidential information regarding employment/enrollment status, HIPPA & FERPA protected records, and identity related information on each customer. Coordinated with team members to efficiently create and fill tickets/documentation for each request with high level of detail and accuracy so that knowledge base articles could later be created based on found solutions. Schedules were highly variable and were assigned on short notice according to available employees. Coordinated with team members to ensure every customer was satisfied or reached the team that could assist them. Standard procedures were based on ITIL framework. Training included supporting customers with BeyondTrust Client (Bomgar), Windows, Macintosh, and Linux desktop support, FERPA & HIPPA regulations, Cisco Jabber, Microsoft Teams, and 2FA support.

Operated customer facing positions at a restaurant on the Texas A&M campus. Coordinated with team in a fast-paced environment to provide an expedited and quality service offering. Maintained consistent and accurate results even when inundated with customers (as many as 80 orders were processed per hour at times). Developed experience working within a highly diverse team from varying backgrounds.

Created a home lab accessable on my local network running Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Its main use is as a Jellyfin home media server, but I also have a bind DNS and VPN server running in podman containers.

Here are its specs:
• MoBo: Supermicro X9DRL-iF
• CPUs: 2x Intel Xeon E5-2667 v2
• RAM: ECC 64 Gb 1600 MHz
• Storage: 11.5 TB

Semester long project completed in my class, TCMG 412. Worked with my team to create a simple REST API using Flask. API server was containerized with Docker. Docker images were built autonomously pushed to DockerHub using GitHub Actions CI/CD software.

Hosted a Minecraft gaming server using an AWS EC2 instance.

Provided service improvement advice related to automating the lifecycle and aquisition process of devices in the Texas Transportation Institute. Supervisor references available upon request.

Created and deployed a simple web application with team of 2 other TAMU students. Utilized serverless technology and GitHub actions for production.

Followed a plan of study to complete degree requirements. Coursework included concepts in database administration, cybersecurity best practices, digital forensics, networking fundamentals, computer science principles, project management, programming, and Unix/Linux server administration.

“CompTIA Security+ is a global certification that validates the baseline skills necessary to perform core security functions and pursue an IT security career. Security+ is compliant with ISO 17024 standards and approved by the US DoD to meet directive 8140/8570.01-M requirements. Regulators and government rely on ANSI accreditation, because it provides confidence and trust in the outputs of an accredited program. Over 2.3 million CompTIA ISO/ANSI-accredited exams have been delivered since January 1, 2011.”

“ITIL 4 Foundation introduces an end-to-end operating model for the creation, delivery and continual improvement of technology-enabled products and services.”
Includes concepts such as:
• How modern IT and digital service organizations operate
• How value streams increase speed and efficiency
• How cultural or behavioural principles guide work that benefits the wider organization
• How to use commonly-used service management terms and concepts

Covers investigative methods and standards for the acquisition, extraction, preservation, analysis, and deposition of digital evidence from storage devices. Offers a wide array of forensics situations that are applicable to the real world. Includes methods for finding traces of illegal or illicit activities left on disk with computer forensics tools and manual techniques, and recovering data intentionally hidden or encrypted by perpetrators.