CP Coleton Powell

Available for new roles & consulting

Engineering resilient infrastructure, and defending what runs on it.

Security-focused IT infrastructure & operations professional and independent consultant with 7+ years of enterprise experience across manufacturing and distributed organizations. I turn complex technical risk into business-aligned outcomes: collaborating across teams, advising stakeholders, and keeping critical systems running.

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7+ Years enterprise IT
2,500+ Users on AD I designed
250+ Sites supported
95%+ Service satisfaction
01 · Focus

Core competencies

Where security, infrastructure, and operations meet.

Security & Risk

  • Cybersecurity & Incident Response
  • Identity & Access Management: AD / Azure AD / MFA
  • Vulnerability & Exposure Management: Rapid7 InsightVM
  • Endpoint Security / EDR: SentinelOne
  • Network Security & Segmentation: FortiGate, VLANs, VPN
  • Risk Assessment & Compliance
  • Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity

Infrastructure & Delivery

  • Enterprise Infrastructure & Virtualization
  • ITSM & RMM: NinjaOne, osTicket
  • Automation: Python, Bash
  • Sales Engineering & Pre-Sales Technical Support
  • IT Consulting, Stakeholder & Vendor Management
  • SLA-Driven Service Delivery
  • Documentation & Process Improvement
02 · Experience

Professional experience

Independent consulting and enterprise roles spanning security ownership, infrastructure, and service delivery.

Self-Employed

Alton, IL

Mar 2026 – Present

Retained by Alton Steel to support its post-closure wind-down.

Information Technology Consultant

  • Retained by Alton Steel following its closure to keep critical technology operations running through the wind-down, maintaining secure access and continuity of essential business services.
  • Provide hands-on infrastructure administration and troubleshooting across servers, networks, endpoints, and business applications, prioritizing stability and availability for remaining staff.
  • Maintain cybersecurity controls across active systems: endpoint protection, patching, and user access, adjusted as operational needs change.
  • Support data protection and business continuity by running backup operations and keeping business records, shared files, and essential applications reliably accessible.
  • Deliver white-glove onsite support, resolving hardware, software, account, and connectivity issues and explaining technical problems in practical terms.
  • Advise stakeholders on technology risk and maintenance priorities; document system conditions and coordinate vendor support to keep critical services operating.

Alton Steel Inc.

Alton, IL

Nov 2023 – Jan 2026

Role ended when the facility ceased operations.

Systems Administrator

  • Served as primary security owner for a multi-million-dollar steel manufacturing environment: endpoint protection, access control enforcement, and incident response across enterprise and industrial systems.
  • Coordinated post-ransomware recovery: ran forensic assessment, rebuilt affected systems, restored critical SQL and manufacturing services, and implemented layered controls (improved monitoring, RBAC enforcement, tighter network segmentation) to prevent recurrence.
  • Administered enterprise security platforms including SentinelOne EDR, Rapid7 InsightVM, Duo MFA, Google Workspace, and Acronis: investigating alerts, tracking exposure and patch coverage, and driving remediation across enterprise assets.
  • Spearheaded and owned a complete network security overhaul, replacing legacy SonicWall infrastructure with Fortinet and Ubiquiti, from requirements and procurement through rack installation, cutover, validation, and ongoing administration.
  • Configured and tuned FortiGate firewall policies, VPNs, VLAN segmentation, and wireless access, balancing risk reduction with plant uptime and usability.
  • Engineered hybrid identity & access management on on-prem Active Directory, enforcing role-based access controls and MFA (Duo) org-wide.
  • Deployed and administered NinjaOne RMM/ITSM: enterprise patch governance, vulnerability remediation workflows, asset inventory, and SLA-driven delivery.
  • Contributed to the virtualization migration from VMware to Scale Computing, reducing attack surface and operational cost while improving resilience; supported after-hours operations across Windows Server, storage, backup, and disaster recovery.
  • Built Python & Bash automation to streamline security operations and enforce consistent configuration standards at scale.
  • Produced security documentation and operational reporting: platform health checks, remediation tracking, asset inventories, network diagrams, incident records, SOPs, and stakeholder updates.

Prairie Farms Dairy

Edwardsville, IL

Jan 2021 – Nov 2023

Lead Help Desk Technician

Jan 2022 – Nov 2023

  • Led a team of 4 supporting 2,500+ users across 250+ distributed locations, lifting service satisfaction past 95% through structured SLA management and QA.
  • Designed and deployed an enterprise Active Directory domain for 2,500+ users: centralized identity governance, group policy, and access controls foundational to security posture.
  • Supported Microsoft 365 E3, Active Directory, Cisco LAN/WAN and wireless, and enterprise applications, diagnosing access, policy, DNS/DHCP, connectivity, and integration issues.
  • Implemented osTicket ITSM across locations, standardizing incident and request management with audit-ready records.
  • Reduced helpdesk ticket volume 20% via SOPs, end-user training, and a structured knowledge base.
  • Partnered with leadership and technical teams through acquisitions, site integrations, and major infrastructure changes, aligning IT service delivery with business objectives.

IT Help Desk Associate

Jan 2021 – Jan 2022

  • Delivered Tier 1 and Tier 2 support across Microsoft 365, Active Directory, Cisco networking, endpoints, and business applications in a high-volume environment.
  • Handled identity and endpoint operations: account provisioning, access changes, device staging, and software deployment.
  • Assisted in the design and documentation of AD infrastructure, shaping identity and access foundations later scaled across the enterprise.
  • Supported onboarding, training, and process standardization to accelerate team capability and consistency.
  • Documented symptoms, logs, resolutions, and escalation details, contributing SOPs, visual aids, and knowledge articles.

QPSI

Edwardsville, IL

Jun 2017 – Jan 2021

Network Engineer

2019 – Jan 2021

  • Supported Cisco-based LAN/WAN and wireless infrastructure across office and production environments, maintaining secure, reliable connectivity for switches, routers, and access points.
  • Troubleshot availability, performance, and access issues using interface, port, VLAN, DHCP/DNS, reachability, and physical-layer checks, escalating carrier and vendor problems with complete diagnostics.
  • Staged, installed, and validated network equipment: firmware and configuration readiness, rack placement, power, cabling, labeling, and post-change checks.
  • Maintained network diagrams, device inventories, configuration notes, and troubleshooting procedures to support consistent execution and operational handoff.

Cloud Specialist Intern

Jun 2017 – 2019

  • Provided cloud, endpoint, and infrastructure support across Windows systems, business applications, on-prem services, and basic Cisco connectivity.
  • Digitized and migrated 20 years of QA documentation to cloud and on-prem systems, improving data governance, accessibility, and compliance posture.
  • Redesigned data-handling workflows with leadership, cutting retrieval time and establishing compliant retention practices.
03 · Approach

How I work

Translating technical risk into business-aligned outcomes.

01

Security first

Every system is something to defend. Layered controls, identity governance, and incident readiness are built into operations, not bolted on afterward.

02

Business aligned

I translate complex technical risk into language stakeholders, clients, and vendors act on: the same skill behind consulting engagements, pre-sales discovery, and solution design.

03

People & process

Work shoulder-to-shoulder with teams, standardize with SOPs and ITSM, and remove noise so the work scales without sacrificing service quality.

04 · Lab

Lab & Research

Self-hosted infrastructure where I prototype, break, and harden: security and AI in practice.

Local LLM Infrastructure

  • Dedicated hardware running large language model inference entirely on-premises: prompts, data, and telemetry never leave the network.
  • Air-gapped by design, with no external API dependency and no reliance on third-party model providers.
  • Proves out data sovereignty: sensitive workloads stay fully under local control without giving up modern AI capability.

AI-Assisted Log Analysis

  • Feeds structured log and alert output into a local AI pipeline that summarizes anomalies and groups related events.
  • Cuts through alert noise so genuine signals surface faster, replacing manual log-trawling with at-a-glance summaries.
  • Shortens the path from raw telemetry to an actionable picture, accelerating triage and response.

Automated Threat Intelligence

  • Pulls from public IOC feeds, then enriches and correlates indicators into prioritized, analyst-ready summaries.
  • Simulates real SOC threat-intel workflows end to end: collection, enrichment, and reporting.
  • Turns raw feeds into context, surfacing what's worth acting on instead of a flood of indicators.

Network Segmentation Lab

  • Isolated VLANs, firewall policy, and managed switching carve the environment into distinct trust zones.
  • Built on zero-trust principles: nothing is trusted by default, and every crossing between zones is policy-controlled.
  • Contains lateral movement and shrinks blast radius, so a compromise in one zone never becomes a foothold everywhere.

Local File Server & Media Stack

  • Headless file and media serving with all traffic routed through an enforced VPN tunnel.
  • Managed remotely over RDP and SSH, with services delivered as isolated, reproducible containers.
  • Demonstrates secure, self-hosted delivery: private storage and streaming without exposing the host.

Monitoring & Automation

  • Dashboards track uptime, performance, and infrastructure health across the environment at a glance.
  • Python and PowerShell scripts automate routine tasks, enforcing consistency and removing manual toil.
  • Surfaces problems before they escalate, keeping the lab observable and largely self-maintaining.
05 · Credentials

Certifications

Supporting both technical depth and hands-on operations.

06 · Contact

Let's build what's next.

Need an IT consultant, a sales engineer, or someone to own security operations and infrastructure? I'd love to connect.

coleton@coletonpowell.com LinkedIn ↗