Meet HPE Master ASE and Aruba Expert, Steven Hawkins, Jr. with Kindred Healthcare

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Steven Michael Hawkins, Jr.

Name: Steven Michael Hawkins, Jr

Employer: Kindred Healthcare

Title/Role: Senior Network Engineer

Location: Louisville, Kentucky

LinkedIn Profile:  Steven Hawkins

Certifications:

Aruba Certfied Design Expert (ACDX) V6.4
HPE Master ASE - FlexNetwork Solutions V2
Aruba Certified Mobility Professional (ACMP) V6.3
HP ASE - FlexNetwork Integrator V1
HPE ASE - Data Center Network Integrator V1
HP ATP - FlexNetwork Solutions V3
ClearPass Sales Specialist (CPSS) [2017]

How did you get started? 

“God blessed me, simply put! I can’t attribute it to myself. I have a natural drive for learning technology – I built my first ISP when I was 14 and was running my own ISP by 16. How did I ‘keep’ my role, and continue improving? Hard work, serving others, and increasing my skills through learning what’s needed both on-the-fly and studying hard.”

What is your favorite HPE technology? 

“Aruba Instant – because it’s just so easy to use and very versatile.  Simple to deploy and powerful in its ability to deliver business success.”

Any interesting customer stories you would like to share? 

“I used my knowledge of networking to troubleshoot an HPE WAN situation where everything was Layer-2 extended between many sites, and intermittently, sites would not be able to communicate with each other. By using HPE switch mirror ports and Wireshark, I was able to determine that ARP packets were being dropped by the WAN provider. In order to immediately fix the issue – I assisted the customer in setting up Layer-3 routing between their sites. The root cause of this issue was later verified by the WAN provider as a bug in their non-HPE networking equipment – where frames under a certain size would be dropped.”

What are the benefits of being a Master ASE and Aruba Expert?

“Having both an HPE & Aruba certs allows me to be an expert in both wired & wireless networking – I can easily troubleshoot any network issue at all.  Beyond that, and bragging rights, having access to the Master ASE VIP support line is a huge asset. It speeds up resolving challenging support calls by getting me to a high-level support engineer more quickly. ”

Any tips for those interested in HPE certifications? 

“Definitely take the recommended classes, and read the materials a couple of times. Study hard, and you can pass too!”

 As an HPE Master ASE or Aruba Expert, you will be recognized as having reached the pinnacle in HPE Certifications. Customers will rely on you to bring rich technical skills to design and implement their most complex solutions. You’ll also see personal and business rewards while being able to network and share with one of the most exclusive teams in the industry.

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