Brent Wedge

Background

About

I am a rural-born Western New Yorker who was raised to believe in community-driven ideals, central to any united, synergistic neighborhood. While I still hold these ideals close, I have since uprooted into a more urban, yet familiar home in Buffalo, NY. Since graduating with a B.S. in Financial Analysis, I have honed my strengths in strategic thinking to become an individual who is driven by a highly analytical, methodical, logical, thought process that allows me to develop unique solutions to challenges faced in diverse commercial settings. I have a natural curiosity to understand the mechanics behind a process, and the qualities that make one (or more) choice(s) more ideal than other related techniques. To satisfy that curiosity, I have developed the ability clean, analyze, & transform publically available datasets into meaningful information, which I then use to answer any questions of curiosity.

Work Experience

Creditor Relations Analyst,
Oct, 2020 - Present
I utilize my analytical & ideation skills to build or maintain new/existing relationships with first party creditors & collection agencies with whom we share clients. I use any opportunity I have to expand my education with essential computer science knowledge. Additionally, I am constantly making efforts to expand my technical skillset with relevant skills that are needed to become a Developer by implementing process improvements that generate department-wide efficiency gains in lacking areas.
- Create interactive reports revealing optimal production levels that can be uniquely achieved by each external agency partner
- Transform data trends into savings for our clients
- Match external data shared with us against client profiles in Salesforce to reconcile missing, incorrect, or outdated field values
- Write User Defined Functions & Macros using VBA in Excel to streamline team workflow
- Pioneered a new relationship with both Citibank & US Bank that greatly increased efficiency
- Developed fuzzy matching strategies to increase the number of accounts matched to external partners by roughly 40%
Negotiations Specialist,
Sep, 2019 - Oct, 20201 year 1 month
I developed unique strategies on behalf of my clients to help them re-gain financial freedom from unmanageable amounts of consumer debt. I attempted to negotiate favorable settlements with their creditors, collection agencies, law firms, & debt buyers to satisfy their obligations from predatory, high-interest credit cards & loans to medical bills, divorce, and similar civil situations.
- Leveraged relationships with creditors to negotiate mutually-beneficial to clients and creditors
- Used negotiating techniques to break down the walls of creditors that typically would choose not to negotiate with my firm
- Saved a client over $40,000 by settling their account for 10% of the balance (paid ~$4,000 in total)
- Follow strict compliance policies to ensure each agreement is legally valid and enforceable

Skills

Data Analysis
Power BI

Data Visualizations

Excel VBA & Spreadsheet Formulas

User Defined Functions

Power Query M Code

DAX Formulas & Queries

ETL/ELT Workflow
Python
data analysis

list comprehensions

lambda functions

pandas

numpy

urllib3

various CLI tools
Web Development
HTML 5

CSS

Network Security

Cloud Service Providers

Docker
Shapr3D
3D Design

3D Modeling

Problem Solving

3D Printing

Education

, , The State University of New York at Buffalo
Aug, 2017 - Sep, 2019
3.15
Quantitative Statistics in Management

Business Analytics & Data Science

Investment Management

Advanced Corporate Finance

International Financial Management
, , University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Aug, 2016 - Jun, 2017
3.00
Intermediate Accounting I & II

Management Information Systems

Corporate Finance

Managerial & Cost Accounting

Accounting Information Systems
, , The State University of New York at Albany
Aug, 2013 - Jun, 2015
3.24
Financial Accounting

Managerial Accounting

Exploration of Space

Climate Change

Calculus I

Psychology & Sociology

Information Technology for Business

Improving Business Performance with IT

Volunteer Work

Brother, Alpha Phi Omega, National Service Fraternity
Nov, 2013 - Present
Alpha Phi Omega is the largest national, co-ed community service fraternity in the world. Our chapter (Alpha Delta Eta) reaches out to organizations in the Albany area to create volunteer opportunities for brothers and pledges..
- Co-Chair of Spring '14 Banquet for the Chapter

Interests

GitHub
GitHubgithowdoinpm
Linux
FOSSbashzshshSelf-LearnerJr DeveloperAPIaptsnapdoptimizationautomationGNUscriptingpython3

References

Kali Higgins
I have never come across a mind that constantly not only searches for-but finds-excellence and innovation quite like Brent. He is committed to producing high quality and accurate work that drives holistic change not only departmentally, but organization wide-positivity impacting all peers at any level. In his long list of qualities, the strongest by far from my perspective is his ability to explain complex data process and analysis to an audience at ANY level of knowledge-it is rare to meet someone that talented technologically that can throttle back or forward to any degree to ensure his audience not only understands what they are looking at, but how exactly that data/output was curated, and how that curation will benefit them both short and long term. Brent’s dedication to learning (as well as teaching…my technical abilities were laughable before we joined forces) and commitment to constantly raising the bar for himself makes him a vital asset that anyone would be lucky to have.
Karen Habschied
I had the pleasure of working with Brent from 2019-2021 at Strategic Financial Services. Brent is a total professional who builds strong, genuine and trusting relationships with internal and external business partners. He has a knack for diving into data and/or processes and identifying issues and is always looking for ways to be more efficient and effective to drive results. I thoroughly enjoyed working with Brent and trusted him with any assignments or tasks that were handed to him and he would consistently exceed expectations. Brent is an absolute asset to any organization.
Dan Kolodny
Very rarely do you find someone with equal technical ability and interpersonal skills as you do with Brent. Innovative and inquisitive, Brent challenges status quo but comes with solutions as well. His has improved processes, created efficiency gains and personally makes an impact on everything he works on. Combine this with his high EQ, ability to communicate graciously, create relationships, bring a great energy and you have a unique individual. I have been, and continue to be, impressed by Brent and he would be an asset to any team/organization.