Employee Spotlight: John Padron, Solutions Architect

Welcome back to another installment of our “Thrive Spotlight” blog series.

Our featured Thrive employee is John Padron, Solutions Architect at Thrive. John works closely with the sales team on solving business issues for clients and prospects with Thrive’s deep NextGen technology portfolio.

Security has always been in John’s blood. He spent years as a police officer before entering the technology world. While at Thrive, he is a sought-out Information Security expert for top Florida law enforcement agencies.

John lives in Lakeland, Florida, and enjoys traveling, sampling new cuisine on the weekends and catching the latest Sci-Fi flick.

Hi John! Can you tell us about your background and how you came to Thrive?

I joined Thrive through the acquisition of DSM Technology Consultants in June 2022. I was with DSM for almost ten years, initially starting as a Systems Engineer on the Professional Services team and transitioned to Solution Architect at the end of 2018. Before DSM, I was a System Analyst and Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Local Agency Security Officer (LASO) for the City of Key West and mainly focused on supporting the Police Department. I am also a former Police Officer, having served seven years with the city.

Where did you go to school or get training?

I attended the University of West Florida in Pensacola. I also interned with BellSouth while still in high school. Most of my training was on the job and through self-education. I earned several IT certifications in PC Support, Server Administration, Virtualization, Networking, Security and Cloud Computing.

What do you most enjoy about working for Thrive?

Although we are currently going through our integration with Thrive, the company provides a solid foundation with an encouraging environment for employees to learn, grow and succeed. Everyone has been so helpful and supportive at Thrive.

Any recent exciting projects at Thrive that you can tell us about?

I’m proud of a project we recently did with the Florida Department of Highway Safety. I assisted with the initial hardware deployment and set-up of the environment. It was rewarding to implement a solution that I helped design. We also recently worked on a significant Disaster Recovery project for a South Florida city. Our team performed a three-day DR assessment, and we designed, implemented, and strategized a comprehensive roadmap that will begin soon. City officials are thrilled with Thrive’s elegant technical solution that exceeded requirements while staying under budget!

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