Jeffrey Stroud

At the end of February, ITAWi announced the addition of six new board members, including Fessenbecker; Laurie Benson, CEO of Inacom Information Systems, Madison; Rick Janezic, vice president of sales and marketing for Visicom, a division of Ini Global, Inc., Madison; David Lafferty, corporate director of technology services for Plexus Corp., Neenah; John Steindorf, president of Capital Data Inc., Milwaukee; and Jeff Stroud, finance and controls manager for Miller Brewing Co., Milwaukee.

Jeff Stroud , Manager , Finance and Controls, Information Systems Miller Brewing Company
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Jeff and his staff were challenged to take responsibility for managing the IT cash flow and improve the integrity, consistency and transparency of IT financial reporting.Jeff and Scott will discuss the changing role of the IT Finance organization as they assumed more responsibility and what they did to improve the credibility of the financial information they manage.

Jeff Stroud, Manager. Finance and Controls Miller Brewing Company

A change of ownership of Miller Brewing Company several years ago brought the requirement for more rigor in IT finance. Jeff and his staff were challenged to take responsibility for managing the IT cash flow and improve the integrity, consistency and transparency of IT financial reporting. Jeff and Scott will discuss the changing role of the IT Finance organization as they assumed more responsibility and what they did to improve the credibility of the financial information they manage.

Jeff Stroud, Manager.Finance and Controls, Information Systems
...
Jeff and his staff were challenged to take responsibility for managing the IT cash flow and improve the integrity, consistency and transparency of IT financial reporting.Jeff and Scott will discuss the changing role of the IT Finance organization as they assumed more responsibility and what they did to improve the credibility of the financial information they manage.

Jeffrey Stroud

Manager, Information Systems Finance & Controls, Miller Brewing Company

Jeff Stroud is currently the Information Systems Finance & Controls Manager at Miller Brewing Company.Jeff and his team are responsible for: financial reporting; budgeting and forecasting; system plan management; IT vendor management; IT contracts management: and IT policies and procedures.Jeff joined Miller in 1978 and has held a wide variety of IT management responsibilities including IT Technology, Strategy, Systems Development, and Project Management.Jeff has a Bachelors of Science degree in Management from Cardinal Stritch University.

Photo of Jeffrey Stroud
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Jeffrey StroudManager, Information Systems Finance & Controls, Miller Brewing Company Jeff Stroud is currently the Information Systems Finance & Controls Manager at Miller Brewing Company.Jeff and his team are responsible for: financial reporting; budgeting and forecasting; system plan management; IT vendor management; IT contracts management: and IT policies and procedures.Jeff joined Miller in 1978 and has held a wide variety of IT management responsibilities including IT Technology, Strategy, Systems Development, and Project Management.Jeff has a Bachelors of Science degree in Management from Cardinal Stritch University.

Jeff Stroud, Manager. Finance and Controls

Jeffrey Stroud, Miller Brewing Company
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Jeffrey Stroud, Miller Brewing Company Manager, Information Systems Finance & Controls Jeff Stroud is currently the Information Systems Finance & Controls Manager at Miller Brewing Company. Jeff and his team are responsible for: financial reporting budgeting and forecasting; system plan management; IT vendor management; IT contracts management; and IT policies and procedures. Jeff joined Miller in 1978 and has held a wide variety of IT management responsibilities including IT Technology, Strategy, Systems Development, and Project Management.

Jeff has a Bachelors of Science degree in Management from Cardinal Stritch University

A labor-intensive alternative to the DNS server would have been to configure and maintain host files and IP addresses for each PC and laptop accessing the appliance, says Jeff Stroud, network manager for the Redwood City, Calif.-based global maker of heating products like constant-temperature cables.

The DNS server now sits in front of the firewall and tells the user's machine how to reach the servers they need to access.

The Neoteris EmployeeAccess 200 appliance replaced Tyco's old CompuServe service and Check Point Software Technologies VPN client packages.It's geared for traveling users who don't have a laptop or VPN access at their disposal or who work at a Tyco site that doesn't have VPN access to the Tyco Thermal home network.

The remote-access appliance technology is browser-based, so it's less expensive to operate than a dedicated Internet service and doesn't create the management headaches of a client-based VPN architecture, which generally requires regular upgrades and support.
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Tyco was able to recoup its $12,000 up-front investment in the appliance in six months, Stroud says, by getting remote employees--such as those in its new offices in the United States and those who work at parent Tyco Electronics' site in Japan--onto the network.Tyco eliminates the per-hour connection charges of the CompuServe service, plus surcharges for users outside North America.Tyco Electronics is part of the embattled Tyco International conglomerate.

"Having Neoteris available for new acquisition and remote sites has been helpful," Stroud says."Those may need immediate access before their DSL or Internet connections are up."

Browser-based remote access isn't quite the same as being on the home LAN, however."You don't use it all day like you're on the LAN," Stroud says."And you can't expect to have access to everything you can access with the LAN."

The 2.0 beta of the Neoteris software supports just one application per port, so only one of Tyco Thermal's Exchange servers, for instance, could be set up for use with Microsoft Outlook via Neoteris.If a Neoteris user's "home" Exchange server is not the designated one, he or she has to access mail using the more cumbersome Outlook Web Access interface.That limitation was expected to be addressed in the production version of the 2.0 product, which was about to ship last month.

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There were also security differences between Check Point and Microsoft Active Directory that led to an authentication problem, Stroud says.

Users on Windows 2000 and XP machines get Microsoft VPN Server clients for VPN access, and can also use the Neoteris technology if they are at a client office or other site that lacks VPN access.The company's Windows 95 and 98 users have only Neoteris remote access because their OSs aren't secure enough for the VPN, Stroud says.

Tyco Thermal plans to extend the Neoteris platform to support its other client/ server ERP package, International Business Systems' ASW software.The remote-access technology also becomes an extranet of sorts for Tyco Thermal: It may serve as a way to set up secure connections between Tyco Thermal and its business partners who need access to the Tyco network, Stroud says.

On the Job

Stroud's biggest challenge implementing the Neoteris Remote-Access Technology: Convincing users to go with the Microsoft Outlook Web interface (very slow) over a dial-up connection.

Best thing about it: No client software or VPN connectors to maintain and distribute.