Resume of Sr. Software Manager

Title
Sr. Software Manager

Primary Skills
APL, C#, C++, DB2, SQL, Oracle, Java

Location
US-MI-Portage (will consider relocating)

Posted
Mar-20-07

Summary

Twenty-five years experience providing creative software development and support for professionals engaged in quantitative analysis and decision making. My innovations and interpersonal skills have often been significant factors in the success of my employers.

Experience

1980-1986, I. P. Sharp Associates, Inc.

In 1980 I was hired by the Canadian APL timesharing company I. P. Sharp Associates as a software consultant. I learned the Sharp APL programming language on-the-job and provided programming and support to a range of business professionals, including business managers at Xerox Corporation, Bausch & Lomb and Sybron. Based on my experience working on a business system for Bausch & Lomb that used the I. P. Sharp database product MABRA, I wrote a white paper in 1981 describing proposed extensions that would add relational-like features to what was at the time a simple flat-table data manager. My proposals were approved and implemented and I was promoted to MABRA Product Manager.

As MABRA Product Manager I developed a number of additions to the product, such as a 360 assembler language interface that allowed MABRA to read and write IMS data. My most significant innovation, though, was a facility to capture user input for automation of repetitive tasks. It was, as far as I am aware, the first time that macro recording had been provided as part of an end-user software product. Based on this new feature, as well as the relational-like features I had proposed earlier, the MABRA product was sold as an in-house installation to Philips headquarters in Eindhoven, Netherlands. From 1982 to 1986 I maintained and extended the use of MABRA at Philips where it was used by business managers for decision support. I spent one-fourth of my time in Eindhoven during this period and was involved in negotiations at the highest level of Philips management. The most conspicuous use of MABRA at Philips was the preparation of a successful bid for installation of a national telephone system for Indonesia, a project that took 2 years and required the detailed specification of hundreds of thousands of hardware items.

1986-1990, Wheaton Systems

In 1986 I. P. Sharp Associates was sold to Reuters and I went to work for a 10-person APL software company, Wheaton Systems, located in the Chicago area. The company developed and sold budgeting and cost accounting products for hospital financial consultants using 80286/80386 generation STSC APL*PLUS for DOS. When I started with them, the company was having serious problems with program errors in new releases. I wrote code to compare the old and new releases that listed changes for review prior to release, which essentially solved the problem.

My most significant innovation, though, was the implementation of a scripting language that allowed customers to import data from their mainframe reports into Wheaton Systems software. It was a challenge to write a scripting language in APL that could run on early generations of personal computers and I had to write a small part of it in assembler language. I faced a lot of resistance from the more senior programmers who doubted that it could be done, but I was able to make it work and it became an important factor in the success of the company. End-users were able to use the scripting feature to import data from their mainframe systems with only telephone support. The scripting feature I developed was a significant factor in the owner's being able to conclude a highly profitable sale of the business in 1990.

1990 -- present, Lingo Allegro U.S.A., Inc.

In 1990 I joined with an APL programmer I had worked with at I. P. Sharp Associates to form Lingo Allegro U.S.A., Inc. Building on my partner's experience consulting solo for Morgan Stanley, American Airlines, FMC Corporation and others, we grew to 8 APL programmers by 1998. Most of our work was Sharp APL maintenance programming for Upjohn Pharmaceuticals in Kalamazoo, Michigan (now part of Pfizer), though our company innovated financial planning software at Upjohn that has since been converted to Visual Basic .NET and that we still support with one programmer working part-time.

From 1990 to 2001 I worked for a variety of clients, including:

• Supporting STSC APL*PLUS programs for actuarial professionals, developing actuarial reports integrating WordPerfect with Lotus 1-2-3, and migrating mainframe RPG software to PC FOCUS for an actuarial firm.
• Migrating defined benefit software from STSC APL*PLUS for DOS to the Windows version for an actuarial company in Canada.
• Development of an Internet insurance application prototype for Allianz Insurance, Switzerland, using Javascript and server-side Dyalog APL running under Lotus Domino.
• Dyalog APL maintenance programming for a graphical building construction specification application.
• Development of an automated competitor intelligence platform for an online travel business using Dyalog APL and HTML.
• Development of marketing and sales support applications for Xerox Corporation using Microsoft Access and Java/Oracle JDB.
• Enhancement of Dyalog APL graphics applications used in commodities trading.
• Dyalog APL for UNIX support including C++ graphics support.
• DOS to Windows migration support for various clients.

My most significant work during this period, though, was the enhancement and maintenance over a period of 4 years of a software product developed by Sachs Group, a Chicago-area company that specialized in providing demographic and statistical support for healthcare providers. The product, which is still in use, provides end-user reporting that goes well beyond what most products offer in terms of power and ease of use. By leveraging Dyalog APL for Windows to manage complex caching of partial results and to provide extensive semantic validation of queries, the product was able to support a level of rapid end-user statistical reporting on large volumes of data that most software could not provide on PCs available at the time. The company was sold to the Dutch conglomerate VNU and is now called Solucient (http://www.solucient.com).

In 2002 I moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan to become more personally involved with managing Lingo Allegro work at Upjohn. In 2004 Upjohn was bought by Pfizer who decided to decommission the Sharp APL software applications we supported. Our systems were deeply embedded in the operations of the pharmaceutical plant, Pfizer's largest manufacturing facility, and conversion to Pfizer's company-wide standardized software was no easy task. It involved temporary interfaces that, for example, generated transaction records from systems that were not transaction-oriented. The difficulty was compounded by the fact that Pfizer imposed significant cost reductions at the same time. Managing reductions in our personnel along with increased responsibilities and increased work was certainly the most significant professional challenge I have faced. My employees knew they were being phased out and this created a morale problem. It required deft handling of relations with my employees, the client and with Accenture who were leading the project. Besides the technical challenges involved, I'm very proud of the fact that I was able to manage the human factors successfully. Our customers in Kalamazoo praised us for our excellent performance in such difficult circumstances.

1997 -- present, Education Activities

In 1997 I became interested in the problem of teaching APL. I wrote a paper for the 1998 ACM APL conference on the subject and then developed a program written in J for teaching APL to beginners that was used successfully in Germany and in Russia. My particular interest was in the design of a sequence of real-world problems that would provide a phased introduction to the features of the language.

In 2005 I moved to Maldives to be with my fiancée who was working there as a physician, and went to work for a private school, Cyryx Computer Training Centre, as Course Director. I was responsible for developing course curricula and also taught communication skills, IT management and economics. I also developed a C# program which the school uses for authoring and presenting computerized tutorials.

Education

Case Western Reserve University School of Law, J.D.
Hiram College, B.A. English Literature

Certifications
Admitted to the Bar in Ohio and Illinois
Certificate in Data Processing, Institute for Certification of Computer Professionals


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