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Matthew Sidner

IT and GIS Professional

Career

Dec 2021 – Present
Esri Australia (Australia)
Enterprise Support Analyst – Lead Instructor

I joined Esri Australia in 2021 and entered with no background in GIS technology. Over the next two years I’ve learned extensively the deployment, management, and optimization of ArcGIS Enterprise (primarily 10.8 to current). I’ve also learned a lot about ArcGIS Online, as well as configuring and maintaining Distributed collaborations between Enterprise environments. I’ve done a fair amount in Survey123 as well. I’m one of the Linux people with the Enterprise team, so if there’s suspicion that a case might be an environment issue I tend to be chosen.

With reference to the clients I’ve assisted while at Esri Australia, I can say that I’ve interacted with organizations as small as a sole proprietor and as large as a number of federal government agencies and everything in between.

On the instruction side of things at Esri Australia, I primarily teach the ArcGIS Enterprise Administration Workflows course. This course is focused on the more complex environment management and operation within ArcGIS Enterprise, and is the most complex of the three suggested courses for new GIS Admins.

Certifications:

Dec 2018 to Dec 2021
Frontier Networks (Australia)
Level 3 Technical Support/Junior Network Engineer

Frontier Networks is where I got my foot in the door in Australia after having received work rights while waiting for my Permanent Residency. I’ll be forever appreciative that they were willing to bring me on.

During my time at Frontier Networks I took my previous telecommunications experience from AT&T in the US and learned the differences between there and Australia. I also learned significantly about the core infrastructure within an ISP environment. During my tenure I started out as a Level 1 Support Analyst, held the position of Customer Experience Manager for a time, until the role was made redundant, and I returned after a few months away as their Level 3 Support.

The average day to day at Frontier was normally assisting end users with basic connectivity issues or assisting field personnel with installations via phone. I also did troubleshooting and maintenance in the organization’s Unifi network, Huawei GPON and VDSL headend equipment, and NBN remote troubleshooting.

While I was there I worked to provide guidance and suggestions on process automation and methods of increasing efficiency. When I departed Frontier Networks it looked as though they were heading in that direction.

June 2017 to June 2018
Freelance and Globetrotting
(USA and Australia)

After I was made redundant from AT&T in June of 2017, I was still in the early stages of my relationship with my now wife. We spent this time deciding if we were going to get married, and if so, which country we were going to live in (she being Australian). I had received my redundancy payment from AT&T so was not obligated to work for a period, and I decided to make the most of it, introducing her to the US and learning more about Australia myself. In the end, we chose to make Australia our home. I now hold Citizenship here in Australia, and don’t regret taking this year off to make good choices and enjoy some quiet time.

June 2000 to June 2018
AT&T (USA)
Network Manager

I first started my career with AT&T in 2000 during the introduction of ADSL as a broadband service. I was one of the original ADSL technicians for AT&T (Then SBC), and was educated at Telcordia in Chicago on the technology. We were delivering the innovative and blisteringly fast new technology at 6mbps. During my ADSL years I worked on project teams delivering live demos on local news channels, supported major event data lines, as well as provided ADSL on several Presidential visits to Ohio.

As time and technology evolved, I found myself upskilling into Special Services. This group is responsible for high speed business lines as well as fibre links. Anything from a T1 (E-line in Australia) to Optical Carrier was part of the job. During this time I spent a significant amount of time working on cell towers, critical data links to police stations, emergency call centres, and even one of the state’s Emergency Management facilities. It was a complex and interesting time to be working, and I thrived on self educating as well as attending courses when I could.

In 2013 I decided to make the switch to the management side of the house and took over a team of 20 of my former peers. It was a bit of a transition, but we all got through it just fine. During my tenure as a Network Manager I was in control of the Columbus Ohio downtown (CBD) exchange. This area regularly needed facilities rehabilitated, as well as held our most important and critical customers, private as well as government.

My time at AT&T came to an end during a significant reduction in the workforce. The face of the business was changing from a telecommunications only model to an entertainment model. As technicians retired, they were not replaced, and the same held true for management. When I received the notification that I was being made redundant, I decided 17 years was a good run, and I needed a bit of a break from the day in and day out.

Certifications:
Too numerous to list here, but if it was a part of the telecommunications network, aside from RF (cell transmitters), I worked on it. I did also get my Six Sigma Yellow belt from AT&T.