Looking for a job

Robert Laster

@robertlaster

Message

IT & Hosting Operations Leader | Observability • AI Automation • ITSM | Sr. Manager / Director | Remote-First

United States

Message

IT and hosting operations leader with 25+ years in infrastructure and 15+ years in healthcare technology. Leads 4 teams running a HIPAA-regulated, AWS-hosted EHR platform serving almost 1,000 ambulatory care clients. Built an automation-first operation: AI-driven workflows returning 150–200 engineering hours a month, more than tripled monitoring coverage, and an AI adoption strategy putting the CEO’s automation mandate into practice. Proven at turning observability, ITSM, and incident discipline into measurable reliability gains with remote, distributed teams.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

Manager, Hosting Operations

Current

NextGen Healthcare

Apr 2025 - Present (1 year 6 months)

Lead 4 teams and 15+ engineers running a HIPAA-regulated, AWS-hosted EHR platform for 1,000+ ambulatory care clients. Drove AI adoption, automation, and observability improvements, cutting MTTR by 80% and tripling monitoring coverage.

Dynatrace AWS ServiceNow Jira Salesforce Confluence AI Automation MCP Codex Snowflake Power BI ITIL Incident Management SLA MTTR Reduction Observability Alerting Run Books Windows Server SQL Server Linux

Senior Technical Account Manager

NextGen Healthcare

Dec 2023 - Apr 2025 (1 year 4 months)

Technical lead for a portfolio of hosted clients, owning day-to-day and roadmap issues. Drove improvements through daily health checks, performance analysis, and case trending, and led interim Alerts & Monitoring team.

Technical Account Management Performance Analysis Case Trend Analysis Major Incident Management Change Management Documentation Process Improvement

Senior Technical Advisor

NextGen Healthcare

Aug 2022 - Dec 2023 (1 year 4 months)

Senior escalation authority for hosting upgrades across SQL Server, Windows, and application layers. Improved upgrade reliability by standardizing documentation and process, and served as subject-matter expert on the product suite.

SQL Server Windows Server Upgrade Management Escalation Management Documentation Process Improvement Subject Matter Expert

Manager, Client Technology

Allscripts

Oct 2017 - Jul 2022 (4 years 9 months)

Managed teams delivering implementations, upgrades, and steady-state operations for a private-cloud healthcare hosting environment. Reduced support ticket volume by 60%+ and implemented observability tools.

LogicMonitor SentryOne ServiceNow Windows Server SQL Server Oracle Cisco UCS Cisco Hyperflex Azure Problem Management Change Management Customer Satisfaction

Manager, COE DBA Hosting Operations

McKesson

Jun 2016 - Oct 2017 (1 year 4 months)

Led local and globally distributed teams across database, OS, Active Directory, and upgrade operations for healthcare clients nationwide. Strengthened Active Directory security and RBAC practices.

Database Operations Active Directory RBAC Change Management Team Leadership Healthcare

Supervisor, DBA & Hosting Upgrades

McKesson

Sep 2015 - Jun 2016 (9 months)

Supervised the DBA and upgrades team, covering on-call, delegation, coaching, and performance management. Primary escalation point for complex upgrades and partnered with corporate security on ISRM compliance.

Team Supervision On Call Management Escalation Management Upgrade Management ISRM Security

Technical Team Leader

McKesson

Aug 2013 - Sep 2015 (2 years 1 month)

Technical lead for a new hosted Windows/SQL Server environment, building its operating processes from the ground up. Led root cause analysis for data center incidents.

Windows Server SQL Server Process Development Root Cause Analysis Incident Management