James Lawrence

President/Founder

Power Automedia

CEO of Digital Media company in the Automotive Aftermarket.

Chief Executive Officer

Happy Companies

In the new era of work, building effective teams is more important than ever to organizational performance. Happy enhances organizational culture, communication and manager effectiveness at scale – making your people your competitive advantage. Happy is a coaching platform that uses behavioral science & AI to build a user manual for your entire team in less than 10 minutes.

CEO & Cofounder

Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA)

As SEMA's Chairman of the board, I worked with the SEMA Board of Directors, provide leadership to the SEMA's CEO and SEMA Executive Management team, and helped lead the SEMA Association toward the future. SEMA is the #1 automotive aftermarket association in the world representing more than $50B of revenue.

SEMA Chairman of the Board

SpeedVideo

CEO of subscription-based Live Streaming Motorsports Network. Sold to FloSports in 2021.

Select Council Leadership, FLN/Young Executives Network (YEN) at SEMA. Responsible for helping lead the Young Executive Network/FLN within SEMA along with the select council and Chairman.

Select Council Leadership, SEMA Future Leader Network

ProMedia Publishing LLC

Founder of event production/media business. Also I was responsible for charting the strategic direction for the company, new business development, acquisitions, financial operations, marketing including digital, print, radio, TV; and also oversaw media/publishing/content.

MotorTrend Group

As an editor for the Ford Media Group within Petersen Publishing (now TEN/Discovery/Motor Trend). I planned, coordinated, and developed a wide array of content.

Editor

I believe in PEOPLE.. and believe a great TEAM is the most important competitive advantage.

🌟 I'm focused on reinventing the future of work and how technology and people can work together to improve organizational culture. 🌟

I'm currently the Cofounder of Happy, a coaching platform that enhances organizational culture, communication and manager effectiveness at scale – making people a true competitive advantage. Happy uses behavioral science & AI to build a user manual for your entire team in less than 10 minutes.

💌 Want to chat? Send me a message or reach out to me at james@happycompanies.com

My journey to leadership wasn't straightforward. Early in my career, I learned the hard way that authority doesn't come from a title; it comes from genuinely understanding and connecting with your team. 

I've got an interesting background:
-launched four startups
-former CEO of Power Automedia
-former Chairman of the Specialty Equipment Manufacturing Association
-Earned two national championships in auto racing
-Earned two youth football championships as a head coach

I'm married to my amazing wife Melissa, and father to three kids–Bradley, Jordan and Taylor. 

When I'm not leading our team at Happy or spending time with my family, you'll find me:

-coaching youth football
-driving a race car faster than 200 mph
-diving into one of my favorite books, which range from "The Hard Thing About Hard Things" by Ben Horowitz to "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey.

I love public speaking on topics like innovation, leadership, organizational culture, and technology. 

I believe the cornerstone of every successful organization is its people. 

My mission is to unlock the power of human connection and happiness at work, using disruptive technology and innovative thinking. I love the process of creating things and collaborating with entrepreneurs, executives, and visionaries to solve real problems and improve the quality of work relationships.

Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co.

Citrix | VMWare | Azure
• Deployed, managed, and supported Windows Server 2019 and 2022 on Citrix VAD 7 1912 LTSR CU6 and 2203 CU4 in on-premises in VMware ESXi 7.0 and Azure Cloud hosted.
• Update and support for Provisioning Services, 65 vDisk; supporting 4,000 users 
• Leveraging eG Enterprise monitoring solution to manage end user experience performance, application performance or failures and track 600 server resources for CPU, storage, and memory utilization.
• Manage service provider and support 65 affiliate companies for their third level incidents and requests.
• Business application deployments and upgrades for user published applications process through change management ServiceNow system and committee review. 
• Collaborating with vendors and application developers in testing and migrating business request for their applications from Windows 2012 to Windows 2019 and 2022
• Monthly Microsoft server patching, Rapid7 scanning and vulnerability remediation

System Engineer

Zions Bancorporation

Citrix | VMWare | Azure
• Managed, built, and supported CVAD 7.16 and 2203 CU2 in on-premise, and Citrix and Azure Cloud environments
• Provided Level 3 support for user access on Windows 10 VDI and Citrix XenApp server desktop 
• Provisioning and server hardening for guest Windows server 2016 and 2019 server in VMWare ESXi 7.0
• Monitored 400 servers CPU, memory, storage, and user capacity using Nimbus monitoring solution; utilizing self-healing features throttle down any resource intensive application or process.
• Used PowerShell report and user statistic extraction on Citrix site
• Managed XenApp server capacity planning and builds in coordination with vendors and project managers and delivered resources to offshore and on-premises clients
• Built and managed project story boards in Azure DevOps working in an Agile methodology meeting with the Scrum Master to for daily sprints to provide status updates
• Documented support knowledgebase articles and mentored first and second level support teams assessing and remediating end user issues.

Pacific Life

Citrix | VMware | Azure 
• Deployed XenApp server builds for business groups and their required applications.
• Managed, deployed and remediated server updates.
• Provider User third-level incident support for Helpdesk.

Infrastructure Management:
• Ensured system availability using LogicMonitor and Splunk system to remediating alerts.
• Provided system updates for Storefront 3.16 (web portals) – Citrix and RDS Licensing – XenApp and XenDesktop Controllers.
• Performed XenServer Hypervisor upgrades and management of workloads.
• Working experience of Dell PowerEdge M1000e Chassis Management Controller.
• Involved in enterprise change management process for server farm changes and updates 
Citrix XenDesktop:
• Deployed new VDI users and their required applications to various business units.
• Updated and managed desktop controller and guest agents on end devices.
• Developed, deployed and tested new versions of applications and application updates with
other technology groups.
• Worked independently and with vendors to apply Citrix NetScaler VPX upgrades and security patches
• Tested and deployed Citrix FAS to Azure IDP access

RSA Authentication Manager:
• Managed and applied appliance updates as vendors required.
• Reported user inventory for IT Compliance monthly.
• Maintained user licensing and processed new orders.
• Developed, tested and deployed new versions: SecureID Access.

ThinPrint eZeep Cloud Printing:
• Developed, planned and deployed cloud printing technology for mobile user’s printing 
• Ensured availability mobile printing and maintained software updates

Microsoft Azure Backend Development: 
• Developed and tested Microsoft Hybrid Print with technology and onsite Microsoft engineer.
• Created and tested Microsoft Application Proxy for technology groups with Microsoft engineer. 
• Worked with inter technology groups to test and deploy Azure multi-factor with SaaS 
applications.

New Century Mortgage

Citrix | Data Center Server Engineer | Escalation Support
• Support and implement Citrix 6.5 Presentation Server platform for 6,000 users
• Managed and provision new server hardware upgrades, failures and repairs | NOC Engineer unitizing HP OpenView to monitor network appliances and servers. Report and document status incidents.
• Managed and supported software installations deployed on Citrix Presentation servers
• Provided third level support for the desktop team, all business unites and application developers

Systems Engineer

Professional administrator of IT systems offering twenty years’ experience with the core functions in the Citrix platform & Windows Server Administration and Engineering.


Technical Support Escalation - Project Oriented - Business Workflow Planning & Understanding - Productivity Improvement - Windows Server Installation Configuration | Capacity Planning - Citrix Cloud Platform - Training & Mentoring - Patching and Updates

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The Battle

James Lawrence

Randy R.

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