Hello World

My name is Marshall, and I work for the Dorchester County Technology Department.  I plan to detail and structure my projects and plans, so as to mentally flesh out (and annotate the process) my goals in writing, in hopes that it will assist in accomplishing them.
I am an avid proponent of productivity, creativity, ambition, consistent growth and learning through ongoing education, using a hands-on approach, as well as researching various science and technology -based topics.




Dorchester County provides me with many great technological tools to complete my tasks in the Information Technology position that I hold, under the county IT Director, namely for the Public Safety agencies, such as the 911-Center, Sheriff's Office, detention center (jail), Animal Control, and Emergency Services/Emergency Management agencies, among other minor areas.

I am responsible for over 20 servers, from storage arrays, to domain controllers; and I have many switches and subnets for each agency, in which I employ various security and network topology methods.

The position involves tasks varying from connecting a LifePAK medical device - which can perform EKG's and take blood-pressure readings, etc. - to an information system interface on a tablet for the EMS workers, to replicating an SQL database (or 10) to a secondary server, so that outside (3rd party) organizations can have safe/secure access to some of our data, while not interfering with - or even accessing directly - our Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system.

One of the newest things that I work with is the 800MHz radio system by Motorola.  I am responsible for 5 tower sites, with an IDF at each location, full of equipment.  There are giant UPS's and generators at each IDF.

I am loving all of the new stuff, although there is always a lot to do, and I am on-call 24/7.  I am provided with a cell phone, computer, truck, and a bunch of other minor things, to ensure that I can accomplish my job.  After all, if something goes wrong in the 911 Center, someone needs to be able to know how to fix it, and quickly!

Before taking the county job, I worked IT for (about) 8 years in the automotive industry.  That was more of a systems admin job, but fun, too.  I built several Linux NAS servers, a metric ton and a half of computers, camera systems, backup, etc etc - a ton of stuff.  I was basically left alone by management to do what I had to do; had a huge IT office with wrap-around work bench and data and power outlets every 5 feet; a nice, fast PC; a Mac for a while; and had a lot of freedoms that made the daily grind not just bearable, but anticipated.


So, there is a little bit about me, and as I said, I will be writing out some of my projects and thoughts as time goes on.  And if anyone wants to read about me, or my tech life, then proceed..