Item 4P - MemoITEM 4P
M E M O R A N D U M
November 29, 2022
TO: Shana Yelverton, City Manager
FROM: Stacey Black, Senior Director of Human Resources
SUBJECT: City Council confirmation of the City Manager’s appointment of
William Blair Halbert as the Director of Information Technology.
Action
Requested:
Background
Information:
City Council confirmation of the City Manager’s appointment of
William Blair Halbert as Director of Planning and Development
Services for the City of Southlake.
Chapter 4 of the Southlake Charter requires that “The head of each
department shall be a chief, director, or superintendent who shall be
appointed by the City Manager subject to the approval of the Council
and such chief, director or superintendent shall have supervisory
authority and financial control over his/her department.”
Blair Halbert has over 35 years of experience in information
technology. He has experience designing, implementing and
managing data centers and networks, implementing redundant
technology solutions, and managing technology-related capital
projects. Mr. Halbert has worked for UT Southwestern Medical
Center since 1997, serving as the Senior IR Manager and Network
Engineer 3. In addition, Mr. Halbert is a Cisco Certified Network
Professional (CCNP) and holds a Bachelor of Science degree
in Mechanical Engineering from Texas Tech University.
As the Director of Information Technology, Mr. Halbert will
assume full management and leadership responsibilities for the
Information Technology department. He will manage and supervise
all activities related to the administration of the department,
including minimizing technological security risks, managing the IT
service desk, managing all technology infrastructures,
including network, telephony, hardware and software, and
providing technology solutions for departments.
November 29, 2022 ITEM 4P
Page 2
Mr. Halbert’s appointment brings extensive information technology
experience to the organization and provides no negative budgetary
impact. With your ratification, Mr. Halbert’s appointment is
tentatively scheduled for January 16, 2023.
Financial
Considerations: City Manager Yelverton has extended an offer of employment to Mr.
Killough with a monthly salary of $15,000 plus the standard executive
benefits package.
Strategic Link: Performance Management and Service Delivery: Attract, develop,
and retain a skilled workforce.
Citizen Input/
Board Review: N/A
Legal Review: N/A
Alternatives: N/A
Supporting
Documents: Mr. Halbert’s Resume
Staff
Recommendation: City Council confirmation of the City Manager’s appointment of
William Blair Halbert as Director of Information Technology.
William Blair Halbert
CERTIFICATION
CCNP (Cisco Certified Network Professional, Routing and Switching)
ITIL Foundations (expired)
SKILLS
Cisco Network Architecture
Good teamwork skills
Customer Service
Excellent oral/written communication
Excellent leadership skills
Self-motivated
High staff retention
PROFESSIONAL
19 years managing network engineers
35 years working in computer communications
30 years of experience with Cisco network equipment
UT Southwestern Medical Center
SR IR Manager Network Group (2001-present)
Network Engineer3 (1994-1995,1997-2001)
•Current Projects
o Data Center move off-site
o ACI SDN Data Center implementation planning
o DWDM ring between DR, Campus, and Data Center
o 100Gbps backbone planning
o Building
CMC Plano MOB
Tower addition to CUH (800 beds)
Brain and Cancer Center complex (2 X 12-floor towers)
Joint UTSW and UT Dallas research building planning
Bass office complex move to five off-campus locations
•Yearly Capital projects managed
o Yearly network refresh (4 to 6M per year)
o Yearly Data Center refresh (400K to 1.5M per year)
•Designed and implemented Clement University Hospital network. Ranked #1 in DFW
for the third time by US News and World Report
•Designed and implemented Hospital Data Center supporting 5000 servers and research
compute cluster.
•Led Network Access Control project to secure clinical operation for two hospitals and
20+ remote clinics. Project completed within one year
•Implemented redundant internet connectivity for university and hospital environments
•Deploying redundancy implementations for all clinic buildings
•Responsible for maintaining Campus, WAN, and Internet Networks
o 2 Hospitals
o Over 50 clinics
o Numerous research laboratories which have compute clusters
o 20 and counting WAN-connected clinics
o Plan changes adhering to change management
o Operate/Maintain Enterprise network comprising 2800 switches and 150,000
ethernet ports
o Operate/Maintain Redundant Internet
Multiple 10gig commodity internet
Installing 2X 100gig internet
Multiple 10gig regional state networks, including Internet2
o Operate/Maintain 12+ Palo Alto firewall system
DMZ protected network
Cloud and partner edge
NAC internal firewalling
•Dynamic, rapid-growth campus including:
o Three buildings currently under construction
o One building per year average
o Implementing for profit WAN connected business network
•Data Center Network
o Data Center
o DMZ
o Colocation
o Disaster Recovery
EG&G InterTech
Network Engineer3 (1995-1997)
•Responsible for worldwide corporation network
o Deployment of routers
o Implementation of frame relay with fault tolerance
Superconducting Supercollider – EG&G
Network Engineer3 (1989-1994)
•Three campuses, WAN connected
o High-performance computing requirements
o Computer room networking
o Internet access to DOE and beyond
•Connected State, DOE, and Research network together
Baylor University
Supervisor Network Installations (1984 – 1989)
•Serial/Ethernet/LocalTalk drops campus-wide
•Managed a team of students for installation & troubleshooting
EDUCATION
Baylor University – Computer Engineering, 36 hours post-grad – 1987
Texas Tech University – B. S. Mechanical Engineering – 1984
Teague High School, Teague, Tx