William Downs
Bowie
Summary
For the last 19 years, I have provided advanced cyber security and network engineering support to vital government entities. These positions have afforded me the opportunity to strengthen my leadership, operational and technical skills shaping me into a season business and technical expert.
Overview
19
19
years of professional experience
Work History
Firewall Engineer
Defense Intelligence Agency, DIA
06.2023 - Current
- Installed and maintained firewalls to include Palo Alto firewalls, working with security vendors to consistently apply best practices and software updates.
- Developed and maintained company-wide endpoint security solutions.
- Performed network troubleshooting to isolate and diagnose common problems.
- Troubleshot complex multi-vendor network service provider issues.
- Provided complete end-to-end engineering and installation of route-based IP network solutions.
- Provided detailed network diagrams and procedural guidelines.
- Created VPN infrastructure and allowed for secure remote connections.
Customer Success Manager
McAfee/Trellix
11.2011 - 03.2023
- Managed customer service effectiveness by monitoring performance and assessing metrics.
- Motivated and developed employees to overcome challenges and achieve goals to boost efficiency and performance.
- Handled complex and sensitive client relations and quality control issues to minimize negative impact to business direction.
- Built relationships with customers and community to establish long-term business growth.
- Managed accounts to retain existing relationships and grow share of business.
- Collaborated with supervisors to escalate and address customer inquiries or technical issues.
- Assisted customers in identifying issues and explained solutions to restore service and functionality.
- Trusted Advisor and responsible for fostering strong relationships between McAfee and DoD customers.
- Provided advice and recommendations based upon experience and expertise for McAfee products across all levels of an organization.
- Served as a customer advocate to support proper functioning of McAfee products deployed throughout organizations.
- Coordinated the McAfee Support team and resources needed to resolve issues that prevented the proper operation of products in production.
- Collaborated, communicated and coordinated with customers, Product Specialist, Tier III, Development and Management as required to ensure customer's satisfaction.
- Assisted customers with identifying, recommending, and implementing improvements in existing processes and procedures related to the proper functioning of McAfee products.
McAfee/SCIF Platinum Support Team Lead
McAfee
11.2010 - 11.2011
- Team Lead for McAfee SCIF Support team and was responsible for providing technical support for McAfee Platinum Enterprise level support for McAfee's Platinum customers.
- Provided a queue-based point of contact for all Platinum support customers, to include but not limited to; data entry, escalation of issues, testing, and problem solving.
- Responsible for providing value added to technical service of fault recording, diagnosis, and problem solving, escalation and resolution delivery for McAfee products.
- Responsible for ensuring compliance with Service Level Agreements as contractually documented for both Platinum and Business Support customers.
- Provided on-site technical support for the installation and maintenance of all McAfee's Network and Endpoint Security suites.
Government Senior Technical Firewall Lead
Defense Intelligence Agency, DIA
06.2005 - 11.2010
- Responsible for securing DIA's unclassified and classified networks and security incident handling and reporting.
- Responsible for supervising the collection of the security incident handing data as required by the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA).
- Technical lead of six network security engineers responsible for managing DIA's vast network of intrusion detection/protection sensors deployed worldwide as well as a suite of firewalls deployed throughout DIA's networks that included McAfee Sidewinders, Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) and Palo Alto Next-Generation firewalls.
- Responsible for the vendor research, testing, product selection, and deployment of all new network security devices and maintenance of all IAPC workstations and servers.
- Provided regulatory guidance to technical and non-technical DoDIIS customers based upon extensive knowledge of DCID 6/3, Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIGS), and other DoD regulations and current network security best practices.
- Conducted continued research and development on the latest hardware and software security solutions.
- Assisted DIA's NIPRNET upgrade project which was responsible for improving the overall security of DIA's NIPRNET enclave.
- Lead as DIA's representative to the DISA Technical Advisory Group which supported the security risk and risk mitigation aspects of the Ports and Protocols Management Process (PPMP).
System Administrator / Network Security Analyst
Windermere Information Technology Systems
02.2005 - 06.2007
- System Administrator / Network Security Analyst with Windermere's Information Assurance Division.
- Responsible for the installation, maintenance and integration of complex intrusion detection software and hardware solutions for worldwide intelligence networks. Work involved extensive knowledge of current network security vulnerabilities as well as continued research and development into the latest hardware and software solutions.
- Assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency's Information Assurance Protection Center (IAPC) and maintained the Agency's complex network of Cisco Works/IDSMC Consoles and 100+ Cisco IDS/IPS sensors located at various remote locations worldwide.
- Responsible for building, managing and configuring two Microsoft Software Update Services (SUS) servers to receive critical updates for enterprise clients on DIA's networks.
- Lead the installation, configuration, and maintenance of the new DoDIIS Enterprise Patch server.
- Responsible for the installation, configuration and maintenance of a three network Niksun Net Detector system responsible for the fraud, waste and abuse program at DIA.
- Assisted in the complete rebuild of the IAPC IDS Monitoring Console and Sensor system. The IDS Monitoring Console was migrated from Sun Solaris to Windows 2000 with no downtime while the 100+ sensors were upgraded from Cisco IDS 3.x to Cisco 4.x with minimal downtime.
- Continuously developed documentation and procedures for training in the IAPC as new hardware and software was implemented.
Education
Security + Certification
CompTIA
CySA +Certification
CompTIA
CISM Certification
ISACA
PCNSE Certification
Palo Alto
Certified Ethical Hacker
EC-Council
Palo Alto Administrator Firewall Training
Juniper Firewall Training
McAfee Network Security Platform Essentials
Bachelor of Science - Information Technology
University of Maryland University College (UMUC)
College Park, MD01.2025
Skills
- Panorama M600 Manager
- Palo Alto 3000 and 5000 series firewalls
- McAfee Network Security Platform
- McAfee Sidewinder firewalls
- McAfee Active Threat Defense
- Network Security Manager
- Cisco IDS/IPS
- McAfee Application/Change Control
- McAfee Active Response
- McAfee Endpoint Security
- McAfee Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
- McAfee VirusScan (VSE), McAfee Agent, Host Intrusion Prevention (HIPs)
- McAfee Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
- McAfee Web Gateway
- Cisco PIX/ASA firewalls
- Juniper firewalls
- Symantec firewalls
- Fedora linux Red Hat Enterprise
- Sun Solaris
- ArcSight ESM Manager
- Cisco Network Manager
- Cisco 2950, 3500, 4500, 5500, 6500, and 8500 series switches
- Cisco 2500, 3600, 7200, 7500, 7600 series routers
- MARS, Nitro Security i3000, m8000 and m1250
Timeline
Firewall Engineer
Defense Intelligence Agency, DIA
06.2023 - Current
Customer Success Manager
McAfee/Trellix
11.2011 - 03.2023
McAfee/SCIF Platinum Support Team Lead
McAfee
11.2010 - 11.2011
Government Senior Technical Firewall Lead
Defense Intelligence Agency, DIA
06.2005 - 11.2010
System Administrator / Network Security Analyst
Windermere Information Technology Systems
02.2005 - 06.2007
Security + Certification
CompTIA
CySA +Certification
CompTIA
CISM Certification
ISACA
PCNSE Certification
Palo Alto
Certified Ethical Hacker
EC-Council
Palo Alto Administrator Firewall Training
Juniper Firewall Training
McAfee Network Security Platform Essentials
Bachelor of Science - Information Technology
University of Maryland University College (UMUC)
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