Business Systems Solutions for the 21^st Century

Professional Experience

February1997 to Present

National Railroad Passenger Corporation (AMTRAK)

Philadelphia, PA

Consultant

Designed and implemented a configuration management system for Tandem NSK and Sun Solaris development environments for the Penn Station Central Control (PSCC) a joint project by AMTRAK and Long Island Railroad.  This included defining the process and procedures for configuration management.

Provided development support for NonStop and train tracking functions.

Provided quality assurance and  production support services to PSCC system releases.

June 1996 to February1997

Electronic Payment Services, Inc.

Wilmington, DE

Consultant

Reviewed operations environment for Electronic Payment Services Tandem based file transfer system.  System is used for exchanging ATM and POS transaction information with MAC network member banks.   Developed a Customer Expectations System (CES) to track file transfer performance.

March 1994 to October 1995

Tandem Computers at Tandem Telecom Network Solutions (TTNS)

Omaha, Nebraska

Consultant

Worked at TTNS in Omaha as a Test Specialist and eventually as Test Authority.  Performed the following functions:

Identified, created and executed tests for all aspects of the TTNS products.  Wrote every type of test document: strategies, plans, schedules, cases, procedures and scripts.  Most of these needed customer review and signoff.

Designed, developed and tested a conversion application for Cellnet.  This application allowed for zero downtime conversion of ACN/LR to ACN/DFM with significant database changes.  I went to England for eight weeks of lab installation and to train Cellnet’s production installation team.

Designed, wrote, installed, tested and made extensive use of a Test-database management application written in TAL and TACL.  This application allowed for test-database management and bit twiddling file contents.

Acted as Test Authority for the ACN/MX and HLR products.  I was responsible for training new testers as testers, giving classes in the applications (in some cases to the client), identifying what needed to be tested and how.  Each tester took technical direction from me regarding test content and system and tool usage.

Participated in formal inspections; acting as leader and inspector.

Trained the Technical Publications and Training staff in ACN/MX.

October 1992 to March 1994

Tandem Computers at John Deere & Company

Moline, IL

Consultant

Worked for Tandem TIES at John Deere's Parts Distribution Center as a contract analyst/programmer.  Performed the following functions: implementation planning, software development, change management, problem management, technical support, technical writing, operations support and systems management.  Wrote software in three languages, developed a problem management processes and wrote the manual, did other technical writing, provided technical support, testing support and developed and gave training classes.

Worked with team leaders and management to develop and plan integration and functional testing, implementation, training, problem management and change management  for LINCS.

Developed and wrote an SQL application to manage LINCS cross reference information, such as screen names to servers and servers to tables.  Developed and wrote a productivity tool to provide multiple logical terminals per physical 6530 terminal.  Developed and wrote numerous programs and TACL macros to manage the application and system environment.

Created a problem management process approved by Deere, Tandem and Tandem's subcontractors (EDS and CBSI).  Configured and installed DSM/PM (a Tandem product) to automate much of the problem management process.  Wrote the Problem Management Manual.  Held more than five problem management training classes ranging from two to seven hours in length.

Organized system operations for the four processor CLX and twelve processor Cyclone used for LINCS testing.  Established automated procedures to facilitate operations.  Organized and maintained documentation.  Performed SYSGENs.  Supported users..  Managed system security.

Provided the following support for the CBSI team responsible for testing LINCS depot functions:

·         DBA for five copies of the application and numerous auxiliary files and tables.

·         Technical support for Tandem subsystems plus communications.

·         System operations setup and support.

·         Liaison to other groups; two other TIES teams, EDS and John Deere.

 

1991 to 1992

Independent Consultant         

San Francisco Bay Area

Consultant

Designed and implemented a TBond and S&P500 futures trading package in C on a Mac IIcx.  This application tested trading systems, and allowed real-time trading using satellite reception (one meter dish) of tick data for the passive Bonneville data feed.

1978 to 1991

Tandem Computers, Inc.

Cupertino, CA

Wrote, with a staff of two, in TAL, Tandem's first major network application; bringing a level of automation to the support function.  Today this application runs on all major network nodes and is in use by the following Tandem departments: Support (field, regional and home office), Development (hardware, software and release control), QA, and internal MIS groups.

Did home office support of customers plus supporting regional and local support analysts.  Did international on site customer visits and managed these accounts to solve and fix problems and leave customers happy with Tandem and the local support staff.

Started a Support training department (staff of 2) to supplement training provided by Education.  Analysts needed a proprietary in depth knowledge of Tandem's software and hardware, especially in the areas of operating system, message system, file system and device debugging.  Initially did the in depth OS training.

Started a Software Supportability and Quality department (staff of 1) to aid Development with the production of more supportable products.  This new department focused on Tandem's next major product line.  R&D for this project involved more than one hundred people.

Rebuilt the network support application.  The team consisted of two support personnel, two developers, two QA people, and two technical writers.  Gathered requirements, designed for reengineering of the application, wrote new manuals, trained new QA personnel, established improved testing methodologies, put a two person support team in place, and created improved release procedures.  Organized and met with representatives from the diverse user community; actively soliciting suggestions and new requirements.

Additional activities included:

·         Created and instructed a class for beginner programmers.

·         Created and instructed a MUMPS orientation class for the support department.

·         Did numerous support orientations; some at sales and analyst training classes.

·         Modified the command interpreter and spooler manager (COMINTSP and PERUSESP).

·         Became one of three Tandem experts in the MUMPS language.

1975 to 1978

Computer Consoles Inc.

 Rochester, NY

Designed their major new product (interesting database challenge), headed the update subsystem software development team (staff of 5) which used DEC assembler, did the QA (staff of 1), trained field analysts and did on-site pre and post sales customer visits.  The application was sanctioned by AT&T for use in their telephone companies (pre-divestiture).  It is an integrated hardware/software turnkey system for telephone company directory assistance.  The package ran in a multiprocessor environment where any terminal might talk to any processor which might talk to multiple database copies.

1970 to 1975

Rochester General Hospital

Rochester, NY

Replaced an off-line clinical laboratory system with full automation using assembler and FORTRAN.  Created an on-line admissions package that included ER.  Wrote interfaces for  equipment and terminals in ER, Admitting, nursing stations, and laboratories.  Modified the DEC10 (KI10) operating system to add interprocess communication.  Did computer selection, requirements gathering, application design, coding, implementation, training, documentation, and operations management .Worked with an outside consultant to create needed hardware interfaces.  Worked with  Admissions, Chemistry, Hematology, Emergency, Nursing, Accounting, and Medical records.

1969 to 1970

University of Virginia Computer Science Center

Charlottesville, Va.

Installed, maintained and upgraded an HP time share basic system (paper tape and assembler language) for the engineering department.  Twelve teletypes (two dialups) had simultaneous access to basic on a drum system.  Additionally did program development on the B5500 in ALGOL and FORTRAN for the Computer Science department.

Education

1965 to 1969

Randolph-Macon College

Ashland, Va.

Earned a BS in Mathematics

Technical Experience

Platforms

TANDEM, Appleís Mac IIcx, IBM PC/AT, DEC10, PDP40, IBM1800, IBM1130, HP2116, and BURROUGHS B5500

Computer Languages

TAL(Tandem), C, PASCAL, MUMPS, FORTRAN, ALGOL, ADA, BASIC, COBOL, SeeView and the assembler of a number of computers.  Also have some OOP experience (Small Talk and Think C).