Wendell Odom - Instructor Profile

Wendell Odom
Title: Staff

Wendell has over 25 years experience in the networking industry, with the majority his work experience being related in some way to transferring hands-on skills. He is one of the most prolific and best-selling networking authors, including the Cisco Press titles for CCENT, CCNA, QoS, and CCIE (written) exam (www.ciscopress.com/wendellodom). Wendell has been a systems engineer for both IBM and Cisco, an instructor, course developer, systems programmer/network engineer, and consultant.

Certifications

CCIE #1624: R&S
CCCSI #94005
BS Information and Computer Science, Georgia Tech

Work Experience

2/2001 - Present Lacidar Unlimited, Inc

Essentially self-employed. Writing books for Cisco Press, including all editions of their CCNA Exam Certification Guide series, as well as the QoS Exam Certification Guide and CCIE R/S Written Exam Certification Guide.

2001 - present Skyline Advanced Technology Services

Various roles and work levels, from full time instructor/consultant, CTO, and part time contract instructor. Amount of time varied based on how much time I spent writing books. Included teaching courses on MPLS, QoS, content switching, plus CCIE and CCNA bootcamps.

1999 - 2001 Cisco Systems

Enterprise Sales Engineer for two large accounts, including Delta Air Lines. Typical pre-sales engineer job, working with customers to identify opportunities to use Cisco products to solve business needs, select products, and gain consensus for various projects.

1993 - 1999 Lacidar Unlimited, Inc.

Essentially self-employed, teaching Cisco authorized classes for one of the original Cisco Learning Partners (Protocol Interface, 1994-1996) and Skyline ATS (1997-1999). Spent 50% of my time consulting, including large network designs, troubleshooting, and developing standard router/switch configurations for later roll-out. Taught routing, switching, SNA, CIP, and ATM classes.

1989 - 1993 IBM

Provided free post-sales support for large/key IBM customers in the Southeastern US. Work included high-availability design reviews, hundreds of network design sessions, presentations at customer conferences, TCP/IP network designs, support for TCP/IP products on all IBM platforms, support for Netview/6000 SNMP manager, and training of pre and post sales SEs for emerging IBM networking products.

1981 - 1989 IBM

Installed, configured, supported, and performed troubleshooting for components of a large SNA network used for IBM sales and product tracking inside IBM. Supported VTAM, NCP, Netview, as well as FEPs.