So Brian I am going to give you the response that makes you competent AND helps you obtain new employment in this space, since it appears that is what you're after.
First off, trying to synergize your goals and then distill your response, it appears that you're going for the OpenStack Equivalent to a SharePoint Architect. Now, some will protest the comparison, but what I mean by this is that you are looking to develop what would commonly be considered Solution Engineer/Sr. Systems Engineer skills. In the SharePoint world as well as in firms who model their Architect Practice after IBM's Organizational Model, this would be considered a Technical Solutions Architect [or more commonly Systems Architect] or IT Architect I. Essentially, it is a Sr. Systems Engineer that has foundational architect training who can extend strategy, model a current and future state view, has the engineering skill to build/lead the build effort and can operate the solution as an administrator, focused on tweaking performance for up to the first 90 days. This will require some basic project management skills as well, which more than likely you have developed as apart of your 15 years of experience.
This actually a good thing because this [regardless of title] is level most often targeted. I can be a bit unfortunate because you will be challenged to fully develop expertise across all of those disciplines, and as a result, struggle to strengthen your skills across that breadth of domains. Still, this is your reality, and be aware that working for an enterprise will be different than working for a vendor, or consulting company, so you will have to modify your expectations and focus accordingly.
I mention all of the above as guidance for what I am about to recommend, which given what I have described, will not seem as much like overkill with that outlook as a background:
Pursue the RedHat Training & Certification. Mirantis seems to have better feedback from candidates about the rigor of the course, but keep in mind that many recruiters still don't know what they are really looking for, so they skew towards the familiar brands.
Here's a link to a really inexpensive RHCSA-OpenStack Prep course :
http://intellipaat.com/openstack-training/ (http://intellipaat.com/openstack-trai...)
Puppet Fundamentals training would be a great option as the 2nd step.
When the CCC Professional Cloud Developer & Professional Cloud Solution Architect Courses become available next month
https://www.itpreneurs.com/course-calendar/cloud-developer/ (https://www.itpreneurs.com/course-cal...)
https://www.itpreneurs.com/course/professional-cloud-solutions-architect/ (https://www.itpreneurs.com/course/pro...)
It is vendor agnostic and covers pretty much all of the high level issues you would need to address that which is necessary to design a cloud infrastructure.
I would also encourage reviewing the AWS Certified Solution Architect training material as well. Much of the Architecture defined in OpenStack is based upon concepts borrowed from AWS. Additionally, many of the Cloud professionals you come in contact with have their ... (more)
I have managed to push off our house closing to the end of the month, but if I do not have a job by the end of next week I will be another homeless veteran and my kids will be on the streets. We have nothing, will lose over $3,000 in earnest money, and our lease is ending. Openstack isn't working