Notable Projects
Here's a quick list of some past projects.
Prelude
The company runs a platform to support research organizations performing clinical trials on medicine and medical devices. In late 2021, the organization was bought out by an investment group. The incoming CEO was faced with the challenge of replacing the outgoing founding technical officers, while stabilizing the existing aging platform. When brought on board, I established a three-phase technical vision for the organization to align with the company's goals.
Accomplishments
- The first was to stabilize the platform and hardware at a colocation facility. Seventy-eight servers were updated and consolidated onto the VMware platform which allowed the contract negotiation of a lift- and-shift cloud-based solution. The result avoided the massive expense of replacing aging hardware. Process improvements also replaced manual tasks. As an example, an upgrade to a single server would take three hours. New automations allowed us to upgrade all production systems within an hour.
- The second was to recruit new talent and train the existing technical team in both proper Agile development methodology and CI/CD process. I worked on mentoring and coaching the staff while establishing the culture of continuous improvement in all aspects of our work.
- The final phase consisted of rearchitecting the existing platform into a microservice, cloud-based solution. Identifying feature sets that could be separated, the Java platform was rewritten using Node, React and Mongo as a backed database. Our CI/CD pipeline allowed the QA team to have immediate access to code as it was merged into the micro-service fabric.
Distributive
A start-up building software for online sales using a decision engine to intelligently distribute online leads. This totally remote company needed assistance to create the vision of their innovation. I was brought on board to work with the founders and CTO to establish the infrastructure necessary for the project. During this short engagement, I worked with the CTO to design and develop cloud-based solutions in AWS. In addition, I created presentations for investors and new customers.
ClutchAnalytics
During 2014, the company was attempting to build online sales for the insurance industry. As the company was failing both in process and deliverables many staff members walked out. As a favor to a friend, I came on board to help revive the company. I was able to grow the team from four junior developers to a staff of 48 including Tech Support, QA, UX, DevOps, SEO/SEM and System Architects.
Accomplishments
- Leading the team, we created not only the online customer acquisition system, but also developed insurance rating systems, agency portals, mobile apps and more.
- Online sales grew from $0 to $23 Million in written premium within its fourth year.
- Established and maintained PCI Certification for the company’s online systems.
- Coached and mentored team members on their respective responsibilities.
- Contracted negotiations with vendors and prospective customers.
Pegasystems
The company builds business process management (BPM) systems and serves a global list of A+ clients. As a team member of the Global Consulting Customer Support Group, I was tasked to troubleshoot with customers either stuck in the business process evaluation or unable to produce deliverables.
Accomplishments
- Traveled to sites across the US, Canada, and Europe, with difficult or at-risk projects to resolve the issues. Working with the business and the technical teams: it was my role to find solutions.
- Designed User Experience (UX) for customers who needed software that was both engaging and compelling.
- Coached/trained on site development teams (both junior and senior members), on delivering solutions.
- Example customers: Vodafone, Her Majesties Revenue & Customs (HMRRC), Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), Chase Bank, MasterCard, Mass Mutual, US Patent Office and others.
Unisys Corporation
As a global technology company, Unisys offers consulting, systems integration and infrastructure services in several vertical markets. Currently, Unisys is the primary subcontractor for IBM Corporation's contract with the State of Texas server consolidation plan.
Accomplishments
- The Director of Operations needed assistance with the management of a 15,000 square foot server room and the servers being installed within it. I was brought on board as a Project Manager Lead to oversee five other Project Managers and support the Director.
- I developed a process and application that collects data from the networking, facilities and change management division. The data is consolidated, processed and presented in a graphical format that allows the directors to review the usage for electricity, UPS availability, network connectivity, floor space usage and air conditioning capacity.
- A stalled project to inventory all the agency servers throughout the State was assigned to me to move it to production. Working with BMC Remedy developers, scheduling managers, field personnel, contract managers, network administrators and Javascript developers, I helped the development of an application to run on hand held scanning devices used for the inventory process. This includes a training class and setting up the support staff for the field personnel. The Motorola MC70 use the Sprint data network to establish a VPN connection to the Austin data center and exchange asset assignment information for the inventory process.
- Once all inventory data from the field is collected, a web based data cleanup application was made. I created a service based Web application consisting of a MySQL database as the back-end using Hibernate wired with the Spring Framework. The front end is an AJAX system developed with the Google Web Toolkit.
Dragonfly Software Designs
Dragonfly Software Designs provides quality software development, design and management for the Quirk Group. Dragonfly designs and programs software for the insurance industry utilizing cutting edge technologies.
Accomplishments
- The company's founder had an idea to build a completely open source system that would allow business managers define and deploy lines of business without the aid of a programmer. I was brought on board as a Product Manager to build an appliance which would allow a non-technical person to deploy a web based application with the need of a web programmer. In addition, I was tasked with hiring the software developers to support the product.
- Using XML the business manager can define the business objects for the line of business. A second XML document is used to define the presentation. Business rules are defined using a domain specific language in Drools. These documents are then uploaded to the appliance which will ingest the files and create interactive web based applications for the line of business. The browser communicates to the server via an AJAX application based on the Google Web Toolkit.
- To support the appliance and the development of the lines of business, in XML, I created an Eclipse Plug-in based on the Eclipse Modeling Framework. Business managers never see the actual XML documents. Instead they are presented with a custom editor. Deploying the line of business is done by a click of a button.
St. Edwards University Professional Education Center
The center is a technology and business development center, which provides unique training programs to Information Technology and Management professionals. The center had a detailed Java curriculum ranging from introduction to Java to advanced Java programming techniques. I was one of the associate instructors for the Java and Enterprise Edition Java courses offered to their clients. In addition, I taugh XML, Object-Oriented Analysis & Design principles with the Unified Process and Unified Modeling Language classes.
The State of Texas, Office Of The Governor
The Office of the Governor is a state agency with 15 divisions. The office is responsible for supporting the Governor perform their constitutional and statutory duties during their term in office.
Accomplishments
- During the session the Legislative Office is overloaded with more than 5,800 bills to review and quickly provide recommendations favoring the Governor’s agenda. Up to 25,000 actions can happen to the bills during the 6-month session. I managed the development team to create the Legislative Information System of Texas. This knowledge management system facilitates the analysis process by eliminating the paper process and providing proper review, approval, and alert notifications. The custom application was nominated by the Governor’s Office for a Lotus Beacon award in the Fall of 2000.
- The Information Systems department has a small staff tasked with supporting a large office. The staff was looking for assistance with their communication and collaboration platforms. I led the team of administrators who performed a migration and provided administrative support for the messaging system. The results provided a stable messaging platform that could meet the growing needs of the organization.
Texas Department of Transportation
The Department of Transportation is the largest state agency, comprised of 26 divisions and 25 state districts responsible for highway development.
Accomplishments
- A growing concern within the Information Systems Division regarding numerous document management initiatives within the department without a coordinated agency-wide approach defined, began a project to set standards and define procedures. Finding that the results of the project produced a complex, multi-layered process, the organization needed a way to insure compliance. I developed the web based application to guide personnel through a pre-defined interview model collecting data regarding the document in question. The results produced profiles which defined the document’s unique management requirements and the enterprise document management standards.
- Despite time limitations the Legislative Affairs office is called upon to obtain, analyze, and respond to request for information regarding the potential impact on proposed legislation. Facing special challenges, such as communication to a massive group of people located throughout the state, the 25 division agency needed to insure all if its people had the most current information. I led the team of programmers and administrator who developed the Legislative Tracking System. It solved the distribution problem while eliminating the delays and costs of the previous paper based system. The results were an agency estimated cost savings of $155,000.00 and a nomination for the 1998 National Association of State Information Resource Executives awards.
US Army Medical Command
The United States Army Medical Command is located at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington D.C. and Brooke Army Medical Center in Ft. Sam Houston, Texas.
Accomplishments
- Trying to improve communication and collaboration across the command structure, the Army Medical Command decided to deploy a collaboration platform. Capitalizing on the existing infrastructure, I led a team of administrators and developers to design and deploy a centrally managed Lotus Notes global network consisting of 28 servers located in Europe, the US mainland, the Hawaiian islands, and Korea. The results gained national recognition from Lotus Development Corp. in the form of a Beacon award. The project also was featured in VAR Business magazine, a national publication.