Infrastructure • Executive Leadership
Scaling an Enterprise — Veterans United Home Loans
Veterans United grew from roughly 60 employees to more than 2,500 during my time there, and infrastructure had to keep pace with almost nothing in place to support it. I was brought in to build that function from the ground up.
I grew the Infrastructure Services organization from essentially one technician to more than 60 technology professionals, managing an $8M technology budget and $3M payroll, and built the systems and processes that let the rest of the company keep growing without technology becoming the bottleneck.
Outcome
- Connected 48 offices nationwide and virtualized 1,200 servers with 600 VDI environments
- Rolled out Microsoft 365 at enterprise scale
- Maintained 99.9 percent infrastructure uptime and a 4.95 out of 5 internal satisfaction rating
Cybersecurity • Business Continuity
Recovering a Business — Alexander Produce
Alexander Produce, a roughly $50M produce business, was hit by a ransomware attack heading into peak season — the point in the year when an extended outage could have been catastrophic.
I joined incident response, led the recovery effort, and restored 100 percent of business data within about 10 days, protecting peak-season operations and helping prevent substantial financial loss. Once the immediate crisis was resolved, the work continued into cybersecurity maturity and compliance, including federal produce-traceability requirements.
Outcome
- Restored 100 percent of business data within roughly 10 days
- Helped prevent more than $500K in potential losses
- Built lasting cybersecurity and compliance improvements after recovery
Automation • Systems Integration
Automating Growth — Patriot Fire Protection
Patriot Fire Protection was growing revenue faster than it could grow headcount, and manual work across HR, CRM, field service, and inspection systems was becoming the limiting factor.
I integrated and automated the organization's core business systems — HR, Microsoft 365, CRM, field service, and inspection platforms — eliminating more than 120 hours of manual work every week and putting identity and access management on a modern footing.
Outcome
- Automated more than 120 hours of weekly manual work
- Supported growth from roughly $4.5M to $10M in revenue without proportional headcount growth
- Implemented SSO and MFA across SaaS platforms
Education • Ministry • Modernization
Modernizing a Ministry and School — Eagle's Landing
Eagle's Landing First Baptist Church and Christian Academy needed technology leadership for a combined church and K-12 environment carrying years of technical debt, serving roughly 1,000 students and a large combined church and school staff.
My responsibilities went well beyond conventional IT — infrastructure, cybersecurity, devices, networking, communications, cloud services, emergency operations, and organizational technology strategy. I developed a five-year technology roadmap and modernized the environment while balancing ministry, education, security, and budget.
Outcome
- Migrated 300+ devices and 12 servers to modern cloud infrastructure
- Built an ITIL-aligned helpdesk achieving 93 percent same-day resolution
- Designed a comprehensive cybersecurity program including network segmentation and MDM
Enterprise Technology • Nonprofit Ministry
Technology for Global Mission — Come and See
Come and See is a nonprofit ministry supporting the global reach and accessibility of The Chosen. As Director of Technology, I'm responsible for the organization's broader technology ecosystem — infrastructure, cybersecurity, identity, SaaS platforms, business systems, and vendor management — working alongside separate teams that own the core digital product and data and analytics.
That means keeping a global, fast-moving nonprofit's technology operations secure, well-governed, and able to scale, while coordinating closely with internal engineering teams and external development partners.
Focus areas
- Enterprise infrastructure, cybersecurity, and identity
- SaaS and vendor governance across the technology ecosystem
- Cross-team coordination with engineering and development partners
AI Strategy • Governance & Adoption
Operationalizing Enterprise AI — Come and See
As generative AI became a serious organizational capability, Come and See needed a way to adopt it without gambling data security or organizational trust. I built that framework from scratch.
I established the organization's AI governance program, including a registry of approved tools and a policy and risk-review process for evaluating new ones. I led evaluation and procurement of Claude for Nonprofits Enterprise, negotiated nonprofit licensing, and planned a 35-seat enterprise deployment, then led training and enablement to help staff find practical, safe ways to use it. I've also used LLMs and AI-assisted development directly to build internal tools and automations.
Outcome
- Built an organization-wide AI governance framework and tool registry
- Negotiated and deployed Claude for Nonprofits Enterprise for 35 seats
- Delivered AI training and enablement across the organization
Thadd Lapsley