JALEN PICKENS

• 2,000+

  Service/configuration actions governed end to end

• ~200

  C4I/IT initiatives across a managed portfolio

• 250+

  Technical reviews facilitated; contributor across 500+ sessions

• 150+

  Personnel trained on requirements, configuration and governance

• 600+

  Users supported in garrison endpoint, identity and network operations

• 200+

  Users enabled by a four-person greenfield site stand-up

• 15,000+

  Personnel served by the installation planning environment supported

• Diagnostician

  Identify the real source of the problem.

• Strategist

  Establish structure the organization can operate.

• Translator

  Make complexity legible to everyone who must act on it.

1. SScope — Define the actual problem. Clarify boundaries. Identify objectives. Determine what is known and unknown.
2. AAssess — Collect evidence. Identify authoritative sources. Understand stakeholder perspectives. Evaluate dependencies, risk, constraints, and existing systems.
3. FFormalize — Translate ambiguity into structure. Define requirements. Clarify ownership. Establish decision points. Create an executable approach.
4. EExecute & Verify — Implement the approach. Coordinate stakeholders. Monitor progress. Validate results. Adapt when evidence changes.
5. RRecord — Document decisions. Preserve evidence. Capture lessons. Establish continuity. Make the solution transferable.

1. 2024–2026 · Requirements & Configuration Management Team Lead / IT Specialist | Indo-Pacific enterprise

   Enterprise Requirements & Configuration Governance

   Govern a high-volume technology portfolio from incomplete request through technical validation, decision, implementation, acceptance, status accounting, and closure.

   • — Established a required-documentation collection phase and returned incomplete packages before they consumed scarce board capacity.
   • — Strengthened authoritative-source practices, controlled repositories, status accounting, ownership, escalation, acceptance and continuity.
   • — Used aging, stage, owner and dependency reporting to drive training, escalation, prioritization and corrective action.

2. 2021–2024 · IT Specialist / Systems Administrator / Team Leader | Germany & Eastern Europe

   Operational Infrastructure & Systems Delivery

   Deliver and sustain secure endpoint, network, identity and communications capability in garrison and deployed environments.

   • — Established a supportable communications environment from bare site conditions, with controlled baselines and documented ownership.
   • — Sustained secure day-to-day operations across identity, endpoint and network services for a large garrison user base.

3. May–July 2026 · Plans, Analysis & Integration | Installation-level planning environment serving 15,000+ personnel

   Strategic Analysis & Organizational Improvement

   Convert fragmented operational, performance, customer-feedback and planning inputs into decision-ready products and executable improvement plans.

   • — Identified and corrected data-quality inconsistencies before leaders relied on the percentages.
   • — Produced action-oriented recommendations covering content reduction, technical rehearsal, mobile delivery, immediate feedback, dual-language cohesion and visible leadership presence.
   • — Turned an attractive campaign concept into a reviewed, signed-off planning baseline with measurable success criteria and contingency paths.

4. 2026–Present · FamilyOS | Early-stage independent product

   Independent Product & AI Workflow Design

   Translate family needs into a controlled, testable digital product and AI-assisted workflow system.

   • — Created a structured MVP testing environment and a traceable product-development process. No commercial scale or launch results are claimed.

• From Tribal Knowledge to Governed Operations

  An immature requirements and configuration capability moved toward a documented, repeatable operation that could be transferred to follow-on personnel.

• Reconstructing Ground Truth

  When the enterprise tool of record could no longer be depended upon, ground truth was rebuilt from authoritative technical sources rather than assumed from local records.

• Building an Operational SOP in One Month

  Entering an unfamiliar organization, learning quickly, and formalizing an undocumented process into documentation the organization adopted.

• From Campaign Idea to Executable Plan

  Converted a low-cost customer-feedback concept into a reviewed, decision-ready implementation package connecting business need, stakeholders, scope, schedule, resources, risk, measures, and contingency paths.

Selected work has been generalized to protect operational, customer, technical, and security-sensitive information.

Configuration Management

CI lifecycle, configuration identification, baselines, status accounting, change control, post-change verification, functional configuration audits, RTM, CMDB-aligned repositories.

Asset & Hardware Lifecycle

Bills of materials, compatibility, staging, deployment, repair, inventory, custody, refresh, transfer, turn-in and disposition.

ITSM & Enterprise Tools

ServiceNow, Remedy, AESMP, incident and request lifecycle, technical review board / change control board / working group governance, release and change enablement.

Systems & Networks

Windows, Active Directory, Microsoft 365, Configuration Manager (SCCM), Intune, routers, switches, encryption devices, fiber and video teleconferencing across multiple classified and coalition enclaves.

Cybersecurity

RMF, STIGs, vulnerability scanning, SCAP, patch and vulnerability remediation, audit readiness.

Data

SharePoint, Excel, Power BI, SOPs, lifecycle trackers and decision dashboards.

• — B.S., Computer Networks and Cybersecurity — University of Maryland Global Campus, conferred December 2025.
• — M.S., Information Technology (Project Management) — University of Maryland Global Campus, in progress, expected December 2027.
• — Applied virtual-lab domains: Linux administration, cloud services, Windows endpoint management, security testing, cloud security and integrated cybersecurity analysis.

• — PMP (2026)
• — ITIL Foundation v5 (2026)
• — CompTIA SecurityX (2023)
• — Security+ (2021)
• — Cloud+ (2024)