Ian Kluhsman
25+ years across enterprise systems and full-stack development
Systems engineer and software developer with a track record spanning enterprise datacenter operations, IT managed services, DevOps engineering, and modern web development. Known for leading large-scale infrastructure migrations, building internal toolsets and automation platforms, and translating complex technical work across all levels of an organization.
Skills
Technical breadth, earned in production.
Accumulated across 25 years of enterprise systems work, development, and independent projects — not certifications chased for the sake of them.
Infrastructure & Platforms
Operating Systems
Cloud & DevOps
Development
Databases
AI & LLM
Experience
Where the work came from.
Roles in reverse chronological order. Career began in 1998.
Business Owner
·Technicom CorporationJune 2018 – PresentAurora, CORuns a cell tower leasing business and designed the entire monitoring and compliance stack from scratch — Zabbix, IoT devices, site-to-site VPN, and automated NOTAM reporting for FAA/FCC compliance. Migrated from EC2-hosted Cacti to self-hosted Zabbix, cutting hosting costs ~80%, and containerized custom Prometheus exporters for portable multi-site deployment. Built web dashboards in Nuxt.js, Grafana, and D3.js to surface real-time tower status to non-technical stakeholders.
Enterprise Systems Architect
·SynoptekMay 2014 – June 2018Greenwood Village, COServed as lead DevOps engineer across 30+ active projects and lead migration engineer post-acquisition, deploying self-hosted GitLab with CI/CD, Jenkins, and Slack hooks while migrating all projects from VSS/Subversion. Designed the Synoptek EDGE hardware product enabling rapid MSP customer onboarding without on-site visits, and led the enterprise-wide deployment of Secret Server as sole privileged-access platform, building hundreds of integrations.
Enterprise Systems Architect
·Critigen (CH2M Hill Subsidiary)January 2009 – May 2014Greenwood Village, CODesigned and built MasterList, a proprietary remote access platform covering 5,000+ devices used daily by NOC and ops teams — it survived the Synoptek acquisition. Led simultaneous large-scale migrations: 1,000+ VMs across ESX clusters, 500+ LUNs on EMC VNX2 SAN, 500+ nodes from SolarWinds to Logicmonitor, and multi-tenant data protection infrastructure to a new co-located datacenter.
Enterprise Server Engineer
·CH2M HillApril 2006 – December 2008Englewood, COAuthored 50+ integration connectors in Python, Bash, PowerShell, and Perl that became core MSP infrastructure. Led relocation of Citrix farms (150+ apps, hundreds of virtual desktops), data protection covering 1,200+ nodes, and a Communigate POP3 system with 500+ hosted customers. Earned Citrix Certified Administrator (CCA) certificate.
Network Services Engineer
·CH2M Hill Managed Services (City of Glendale)April 2005 – June 2006Glendale, COSole on-site IT engineer at the City of Glendale municipal complex. Converted the city's IBM AS/400 iSeries 520 mainframe to a hybrid on-premise/MSP platform within one year while maintaining 24x7 on-call coverage for Police Dispatch. Served as technical translator between solutions architects and City leadership including the City Manager and Finance Director.
Service Desk Technician
·MicrosourceMarch 2004 – March 2005Greenwood Village, CODesigned a DSL subscriber provisioning automation system that reduced support call time by 60%. Deployed VMware ESX clustering and Citrix desktop delivery farms in the early days of enterprise virtualization.
Software Developer (Contract)
·Red Rocks Community CollegeAugust 2002 – May 2003Lakewood, COBuilt a telecom-based alumni survey application in Visual Basic .NET and a suite of MS Access CRM applications for three college departments. Consulted on database security, identifying and remediating improperly exposed systems and data.
Hardware Technician
·AMC Cancer Research CenterApril 1998 – February 2001Lakewood, COBegan career here while still in high school. Rebuilt the IT helpdesk portal in MS Access/SQL handling ~20 service calls per day, and managed a campus-wide 300-user Novell & Windows NT/2000 network while upgrading ~15 servers from NT to Windows 2000.
Selected Projects
Things built that mattered.
A cross-section of significant engineering projects across the career — systems that shipped and stayed in use.
Tower Monitoring & FAA/FCC Compliance Platform
Technicom Corporation
End-to-end IoT and monitoring platform for cell tower operations — automated NOTAM reporting, Zabbix, site-to-site VPN, LTE backup, and Prometheus exporters. Reduced hosting costs 80% and achieved 99.9% uptime.
Synoptek EDGE
Synoptek
Hardware-based remote management product enabling rapid MSP service deployment to newly acquired customers, supporting assimilation of multiple acquisitions including EarthLink IT Services and Indusa.
Enterprise DevOps Platform
Synoptek
Built and led a GitLab + Jenkins CI/CD platform serving 30+ active projects. Migrated all projects from legacy SCM, decomposed monoliths into Docker microservices, and trained ops teams in deployment tooling.
MasterList
Critigen (CH2M Hill Subsidiary)
Proprietary remote access and management platform covering 5,000+ devices across datacenters and customer premises. Used daily by NOC and engineering teams; survived the Synoptek acquisition and continued in production.
DSL Subscriber Provisioning Automation
Microsource
Front-end automation system that streamlined DSL subscriber onboarding end-to-end, reducing NOC support call time by 60%.
Education & Certifications
Formal background.
Education
Red Rocks Community College
Associate of Applied Science, Computer Information Systems (MCSE Emphasis)
Smoky Hill High School
High School Diploma
Certifications & Training
Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE)
Service Learning Recognition — volunteer TCP/IP network install, 50 PCs
Citrix Certified Administrator (CCA)
WeCare Customer Service Training for Technical Service Providers
Nuxt.js – Vue.js on Steroids
Outside the terminal
Personal interests.
Whitewater Kayaking
Paddled the entire 277-mile length of the Grand Canyon in a whitewater kayak. Formerly a backcountry skier.
Photography
DSLR, GoPro, and phone — astrophotography, landscape, wildlife, and architectural subjects.
Music
Plays guitar and produces music for personal enjoyment.
Open Source
Authored fsbackup and regularly publishes Prometheus exporters and personal projects to GHCR.
Family & Outdoors
Lives with two red golden retrievers (Belle and Joey). Enjoys Colorado State Parks, camping, and cares for his father at home.
References
References & letters of recommendation available on request.
A full reference list and letters of recommendation — including letters from the Mayor of Glendale, the Director of Grants at RRCC, and others — are available on request. Just reach out.