Mario DiNatale
Mario DiNatale
Project Management & Planning | CyberSecurity | IT Operations & Performance Management | Business Process Improvement & Automation | Business Analytics & Intelligence | Contingency Analysis | Vendor Management | Examining and Understanding End-User needs and Solutions Delivery
Recognized technology thought leader and strategist with more than a decade of business building experience, both in developed and developing markets. Champion of “transforming the way business is done” by anticipating the needs of the business and delivering relevant solutions that drive concrete value. Excels in delivering high returns on technology investments, leveraging open source to reduce costs, and known for increasing revenue via new and progressive business models. Valued for strengths in proactive problem solving and for possessing the vision and direction needed to integrate the complex array of systems and people, aligning information systems and business needs into cohesive solutions. An impassioned team leader, who mentors with purpose and understands that strong working relationships create great teams that produce exceptional results.
WORK HISTORY
2014 – Current
Chief Information Officer
Town of Hamden
Recruited to be town’s first CIO, in order to develop and implement corporate IT strategy, long term system maintenance plans, policies and procedures. Initiated and managed project portfolio, working closely with Mayor’s and Finance offices on organization wide process automation and improvement initiatives.
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Enabled highly-informed, data-driven decision making capabilities for the executive office by conceptualizing and implementing a centralized reporting and cross-departmental analysis system that drastically reduces time, effort and resources needed to analyze key constituent services requirements and manage the organization’s operations.
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Proposed $9.7 million in CapEx/OpEx savings through server and desktop virtualization, by eliminating duplicate infrastructure across departments, standardizing equipment purchases, and reducing IT administrative labor and overtime support costs.
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Developed organization’s first IT Cybersecurity policy and business continuity plan that led to the direct prevention of a ransomware extortion of $420,000 with minimal impact to business operations.
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Enhanced incident response time by 85.7% and reduced production issues by 48% utilizing results based metrics to improve organization-wide performance.
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Transformed payroll operations into a completely digital and automated process, reducing production time by 3 days, reducing staff needed to produce it by 3 FTE, and achieving a 76% reduction in OpEx related to payroll production.
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Conceived and led organizational re-branding initiative transforming town’s outmoded image with a modern aesthetic and message.
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Spearheaded implementation of an enterprise wide system that allows constituency to report non-emergency neighborhood issues via mobile application, instantly notifying responsible organizational stakeholders and optimizing services delivery efficiency.
2011 – 2014
Information Technology Manager
Hamden Police Department
Recruited to provide management and technical expertise to a failing 40 million dollar project. Initial designs created by outside consulting firm were insufficient and non-functional, mandating complete re-engineering to provide for town-wide VOIP, video surveillance, and data. Additionally, I was also entrusted to act as project manager to elements of the project not involved with IT Operations as well, ensuring adherence to design specifications and schedules.
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Evaluated current and future technologies in strategic direction planning and budget preparation. Lead purchase planning to support both short and long-term IT initiatives, while cultivating vendor relationships and communicating effectively across the organization to build focused and productive teams.
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Directed the coordination of implementation tasks involving third party vendors to manage cost, schedule, and performance of component projects, while working to ensure the ultimate success and acceptance of the programs.
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Built custom centralized reporting server that achieved 100% user acceptance after redesigning hundreds of report variations into a single set of standardized reports.
2008 – 2011
Senior Network Specialist
Nexgen Solutions
Created, implemented, and administrated strict security protocols for sensitive law enforcement data with an invisible impact on the end users. Designed and implemented robust, highly-available architecture that maximized stability on critical law enforcement infrastructure throughout 40 state and local agencies.
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Consulted with clients to identify key requirements, defined project scopes, developed project plans and schedules, provided leadership to internal teams on projects and daily production issues. Facilitated issues resolution. Prepared and presented timely status reports to senior management.
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Often called upon to act as expert technical liaison to senior clients, as well as local and state officials.
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Mentored staff in methodology and best practice in project management and project planningleading to increasingly shortened project deployment times and decreased project implementation costs.
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Led development team in leveraging an open-source solution to cut costs and reduce development time in creating a state-wide encrypted communication and file-sharing system for law enforcement personnel.
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Proactively tested and deployed Network Intrusion Detection systems with customized signatures, on both the network edge and inside the network core to provide real-time threat detection on network infrastructure carrying sensitive data.
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Successfully introduced additional revenue stream for network services, utilizing existing resources at no additional costs to the company, which led to me directly administrating and supporting a mixed IT infrastructure for countless state and local agencies in Connecticut. Daily responsibilities required being hands on with Cisco networking equipment, Microsoft Exchange and SQL, (both in administration and disaster recovery situations), Active Directory and Group Policy administration, VmWare Vsphere, and Dell Equalogic and EMC SANs.
Dec 2007 – 2008
Network Specialist
Nexgen Solutions
Hired to overhaul network architecture for IT systems comprised of operations, customer support, and proprietary tools; and also to assist on new network deployments. Reliably delivered software and services to client base, while minimizing network deployment costs.
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Designed and carefully executed new network architectures and virtualized solutions at several agencies with ancient and sometimes failing infrastructure without downtime or data loss.
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Created internal knowledge-base for the company and wrote several technical articles for it to assist in more efficient exchange of information within the company and improved efficiency of training new personnel.
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Customized an open-source network monitoring application into a proprietary automated network management solution spanning 40+ geographically unique locations and 1000+ servers, capable of automatically addressing software and network issues autonomously with the ability to notify key personnel automatically via sms and email. Solution slashed countless dollars spent on employee overtime expenses and eliminated support calls almost entirely.
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Delivered superior customer service experience when required and was successful in changing the cultures of several hostile client environments to foster a better working relationship.
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Performed Cisco IPSEC VPN configuration to 40+ remote locations to facilitate server monitoring, storage management and server performance tuning.
2006 – 2007
Regional Systems Specialist
BURTEK (Acquired by Honeywell in 2007)
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Conceptualized, developed, and taught a networking class for lower-tier technicians and direct distributors that was adopted company-wide and was taught in 3 countries. The class was directly responsible for improved problem handling at lower levels, a marked decrease in ticket escalation, and an increase in sales for IP based products.
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Streamlined electronic device repair process utilizing industry standard client/server imaging technologies to reduce turnaround time from a month to often less than a day.
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Managed entire East Coast operations of equipment customization, repair, return, and rma tracking.
2002 – 2006
Support Team Leader
The Factory
Sacred Heart University formed a partnership with Dell and created a new IT support team for the university and I immediately embraced the challenge to create a new IT organization from the ground up. Started as a Technician in the first year, working to manage the 40 person team my next 3 years. Major activities included end user support, new technology deployments, and asset tracking.
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Implemented a ticket tracking system to track and assign workloads fairly and effectively.
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Proficiently administrated daily operation of Windows servers and systems for 4000+ end users.
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Performed extensive software and hardware troubleshooting on a daily basis, with absolutely perfect client satisfaction on every review.
EDUCATION & ENRICHMENT
2016
Member, InfraGard
FBI
2016
Member, Fairfield/Westchester
Society for Information Management
2014
CAA, Focus on Predictive Analytics
The Alpha Group Center for Crime and Intelligence Analysis
2010
Member, Executive Board
Microsoft IT Advisory Council
2007
MS, Network Security/Cryptography (i.p)
Sacred Heart University
2006
BS, Computer Science
Sacred Heart University
TESTIMONIALS
SSA Martin McBride
Federal Bureau of Investigation
We see businesses with much bigger budgets that are unable to handle incidents as quickly and technically as Mario… Based on my 15+ years of experience working cyber crime in the State, I’m happy to report that Mario is better than any IT security folks working for any Town or PD in the State of Connecticut.
Ryan Magovern
Analyst, Department of Defense
Mario DiNatale is a proactive and highly motivated individual that possesses exceptional capabilities as well as strong conceptual knowledge within the IT/CS field. His ability to bridge the gap between the public and private sector has proven invaluable to our organization on numerous occasions. Utilizing innovative and open source alternatives, he has helped keep us on track and within budget. He is a reliable, punctual, and detail oriented person that consistently accomplishes his tasks on time. I would highly recommend Mr. DiNatale for any security or IT related needs.
Brett Bradanini
CEO, MediaLynx
Mario has demonstrated the skills government and businesses need to achieve sustainable success. He was vital in the growth of my company by consulting MediaLynx on my software development team. Mario is disciplined, meticulous individual who understands risk and how to mitigate it. I can say this assuredly based on our working relationship.
Lynn M. Souza
CEO, Connect Computer
Mario is a highly organized, goal oriented, and hard working IT Professional…It has been honor to work with him on numerous projects.
Chief Edward Lennon Jr.
East Haven Police Department
Mario has been an invaluable asset to our department and has always responded to our needs in a highly technical and expeditious fashion.
Michael Galdieri
Director of Community Development, RecruitiFi
Mario is a consummate professional … There are few that I have worked with that bring the intangible attributes of enthusiasm and pride in craftsmanship that Mario does. He is an asset to any organization he works with or for.
Jeffrey Hanson
Owner, LIVEit.Fit
I got to not only work with Mario but also gain an immense amount of knowledge from him in the process. He is a man of trust and loyalty, who did whatever he could to satisfy me as a potential client while also becoming a good friend I can count on to this day.
Gerard Roy
Sumo Logic
I have known Mario for many years and he has always been on the bleeding edge of technology. Staying ahead of the curve as a thought leader, Mario leverages his expertise to help organizations he’s working with accomplish their IT goals faster, while reducing costs and becoming more secure.
Deputy Chief Mike Doody
North Branford Police Department
Mario DiNatale has worked for the North Branford Department for the last several years as the IT consultant… He is a great asset to our organization and we would be in trouble without his knowledge and experience.
Michael W. Iezzi
United Office Furniture
Mario is also an individual I know I can count on in a crisis. In several instances when I had a software or hardware emergency, Mario made my company a priority and resolved the issues quickly. Due to his fast customer service, my company experienced little-to-no downtime.
[Redacted]
National Security Agency
Mario and his technical expertise, in my opinion, have proven to be more valuable to our nation’s defense capabilities than any precision guided munition.
RJ Metzger
Server and Virtualization Specialist, Stratosphere Networks
Mario is an excellent executive and technologist. He combines all the traits of a technology manager and a forward looking technology expert.
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BIO
Born to blue collar, immigrant parents in a suburb of New Haven, CT, legend has it that Mario was born with a screwdriver in his hand and started voiding warranties shortly thereafter. Raised on a steady diet of New Haven “Apizza” and hacker conventions, he decided to pursue a degree in computer science (much to his parent’s apprehension). On the day he left for college, his father told him that he didn’t know if there was any money in “computers”, handed him a shovel and told him that if that whole “computer thing” didn’t pan out, this shovel would still be here waiting for him.
Mario DiNatale then went on to garner a reputation as one of today’s most prolific technology visionaries, while simultaneously distinguishing himself as a charismatic and versatile CIO/CTO, in both the public and private sectors.
Today Mario acts as a Mentor and Adviser to numerous startups. Even while acting in an executive capacity, Mario still remains regularly engaged as a trusted Cybersecurity Adviser to a multitude of Governments, Fortune 50 Corporations, Law Enforcement and Intelligence Agencies, as well as an ad-hoc member to cybersecurity “Red-Teams” when called upon.
Spare time activities include building Lego sets with his daughters, Brazilian jiu-jitsu and Astronomy… And he still has that shovel his father handed him all those years ago.