Executive Profile

Business-savvy, results-driven leader with a proven, cross-industry record aligning and driving technology to meet strategic business objectives and vision. Strong customer focus and ability to quickly ascertain and translate needs into fully functional, high-quality, cost-efficient solutions. Superb team builder and leader skilled at cultivating and sustaining solid relationships with management, vendors, and clients.

Management Expertise:

-          Project Lifecycle Management

-          Staff Training & Development

-          Technology & Business Alignment

-          Strategic Planning

-          Turnaround/Change Initiatives

-          Technical Team Building

Technology Expertise:

-          Information Architecture / SQL Guru

-          Inter-/Intra-net (Web) Development

-          High-Performance Transactional Systems

-          Systems Design & Architecture

-          Data Warehousing

-          Executive Information Systems (EIS)

Technical Profile

Thorough hands-on skills facilitate better communication with technical staff and allow for greater understanding of opportunities for using technology to improve business processes.

Project Management:

Agile Development; Extreme Programming (XP); Capability Maturity Model (CMM); Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF); Portfolio Management

High Availability:

Single Point of Failure Analysis and Correction; ASP.NET Session State Management; Load Balancing Clustering; Application Clustering (SQL Server Clustering); RAID

Databases:

MS SQL Server versions 2005, 2000, 7.0, and 6.5; ETL (Extraction, Transformation, and Loading); Sybase versions 10 - 11.5; MSDE (Microsoft Data Engine); IBM DB2 for MVS; MS Access 2.0 – 2007

Languages:

SQL; C#; VB.NET; ASP.NET; JavaScript; VBScript; HTML; DHTML; XML; ASP; Visual Basic; VBA; SAS; APL; ULTIM; Pascal; C

Applications:

MS Project 2000-2007; Visio 2000-2007; Visual Studio 6.0 - 2008; Visual InterDev; Visual SourceSafe; Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, Access) 4.0 - 2007; Internet Information Server (IIS) 4 – 6; MS Exchange 5.5 - 2003

Professional Experience

WorldDoc § Las Vegas, NV § 2006 – 2009

Health Management Services (SaaS) Provider

DIRECTOR OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Completely rebuilt the technology division, implementing processes and controls, defining and aligning a technology vision in line with the business vision, and introducing specialization/focus. With the proper foundation, grew the team from 5 people to 18. Developed a strategy to allow us to gradually phase out older technology without pausing future development. Instituted a firm configuration management process and with it a tool for implementing changes that recorded who did what when, and allowed for rapid rollbacks.

Represented Information Technology both internally, for alignment, budgeting, and day-to-day operations, and externally to clients, prospects, and investors.

Areas of key contribution include:

Organizational Change:

§      Made information technology a true partner with the business by aligning strategy and encouraging entrepreneurship.

§      Made technical development a partner with clinical design in product development.

§      Split the development group into software and database engineering teams. Added a Quality Assurance team/process.

Configuration Management:

§      Moved from an adhoc code-promotion process to a documented systematic process using an internally developed application with strict access controls.

§      Moved from two and half environments to five (development, QA, client test, staging, and production) to improve quality and increase stability.

Platform Selection:

§      In a collaborative decision, moved from a VB script/ASP platform to C# and ASP.NET 2.0.

Cost Savings & Avoidance:

§      Reduced hosting charges while improving capabilities by changing vendors.

§      Acquired Microsoft Certified Partnership to reducing software licensing costs 95%.

§      Reduced recruiting costs 80 % by increasing referrals.

Software Development:

§      Focused on developing a cross-product application platform that allowed an ever-increasing amount of code reuse and ensured consistency.

Database Development:

§      Introduced requirements for capturing audit trails for all updates of health data and client configurations.

Technical Development:

§      Introduced software, database, process, and documentation standards to increase consistency and promote code-reuse across developers.

MGM MIRAGE § Las Vegas, NV § 2005 – 2006

International hotel/gaming/resort leader

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

Focused on integration efforts in several areas. On a people and process level, Introduced standardization and documentation, facilitating growing the team, and sharing resources with other teams. From a software perspective, Oversaw the integration of the company’s custom HR applications to include the recently purchased properties of the Mandalay Resort Group. Also oversaw the development of a new central charging system using Microsoft BizTalk 2004 that enabled cross-property charging across numerous point-of-sale and property-management systems and utilizing a common credit-card charging system.

Areas of key contribution include:

Process Improvement:

§      Standardized and documented numerous processes including the promotion of code to production and level 3 support.

Security:

§      Redesigned existing logic that sent a URL via email to encypt key values in the querystring to prevent tampering to see other data.

Database Development:

§      Introduced the use of source control for database changes to increase consistency and reliability of changes.

Software Architecture:

§      Furthered an SOA initiative by abstracting charging (both room charging and credit card charging) in a new service-oriented solution built using BizTalk 2004, web services, C# and VB.NET.

Various Firms and Clients § 2003 - 2004

SENIOR TECHNOLOGY CONSULTANT

In various opportunities, consulted on technical processes and architecture as well as specific technologies, established and led a new eight-member development team, provided mission-critical database support, and developed web applications in both ASP and ASP.NET. Clients have included small private firms to two global Fortune-200 financial companies.

Areas of key contribution include:

Organizational Change:

§      Established a new team and new processes for handling third-tier support requests that had previously been handled on an ad-hoc basis by application development.

Platform Selection:

§      Led the adoption of .NET in a company that had been on the fence for years. Helped establish a corporate framework to facilitate code reuse.

Support Automation:

§      Implemented NetIQ alerts to notify support team of issues requiring attention before customers noticed / reported the issues.

Team Building:

§      Developed the eight new hires assigned to me into a high performance, self-sufficient team that integrated well with both other support and development groups.

Testing and Analysis:

§      Managed a two month project involving collection of thousands of measurements at branches throughout the nation and extensive analysis of the data.

Database Administration:

§      Provided mission-critical database support including identifying performance bottlenecks, conducting a security audit, setting up backup procedures, and restoring after a loss.

Software Development:

§      Led migration of an Access 2000 database application to Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and ASP.NET using T-SQL and C#.

Technical Auditing:

§      Conducted thorough audits of the supported applications to identify the weaknesses in code, design, and process responsible for most support calls. The code reviewed included Microsoft SQL, C#, and VBscript ASP.

Chase Credit Systems § North Hollywood, CA § 2001 – 2003

Application service provider designing comprehensive IT solutions for credit reporting agencies

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

Pinpointed limitations of existing credit reporting systems and proposed new product that would meet/exceed business goals and reverse several years of customer, revenue, and profit decline. Directed team of 14 in fulfillment of product development objectives and goals; served as chief architect for new systems development and systems administrator with full responsibility for configuring and deploying all development and production servers.

Areas of key contribution include:

Organizational Change:

§      Transformed company to new application service provider (ASP) business model, halting long-term financial losses and customer attrition, renewing competitiveness in the marketplace, and repositioning firm as key industry player.

Process Improvement:

§      Implemented a standardized development process for improved project delivery using SEI’s CMM and Microsoft’s Soultion Framework. This involved building the needed development, quality assurance, and staging server platforms and managing the configurations involved.

Staff Revitalization:

§      Transformed the 14 developers from a passive under-performing group using outdated technology, into a high-performance team utilizing current tools and Rapid Application Development (RAD) methodology to exceed expectations. Only needed to remove three developers in the process.

Software Development:

§      Conceptualized, architected, and delivered leading-edge, web-based credit reporting system within 12 months of hire that significantly increased product functionality, optimized quality, and enabled company to recapture lost customers and revenue. Personally developed most of the OLTP database design and code in Microsoft SQL Server 2000, as well as a considerable amount of the C# code for the ASP.NET websites.

Cost Savings & Avoidance:

§      Drove reduction in operational costs for both customers and Chase by decreasing need for dedicated lines and cutting maintenance expenses. Lowered licensing costs and increased benefits by securing Microsoft Certified Partner status.

Technology Planning:

§      Designed the new system with reliability and scalability as primary goals, leading to including middle- and web- tiers with load-balanced server farms.

Performance Improvement:

§      Built intranet to strengthen communications and increase project visibility company-wide; improved team member capabilities through continual instruction and training.

Capacity Planning:

§      Analyzed data collected with PerfMon under various stress tests to determine needed hardware growth and determine limiting factors (CPU, memory, or disk).

User Interfaces:

§      The new system had three major user interfaces- a website for the direct customers enabling them to manage their customers, edit credit reports, monitor client activity, and process billing and payments; a website for the customers’ customers enabling them to order and review credit and flood reports, manage their user accounts, and review their billing; and a website for Chase Credit to monitor system-wide activity.

Customer Needs:

§      Increased customer satisfaction by integrating cutting-edge technologies within new credit reporting system that greatly enhanced product quality and availability.

Systems Enhancement:

§      Reduced systems development time 80% and added real-time monitoring feature within new system that facilitated information access and analysis. Added system capabilities for easy future expansion of features and products.

Volume Foods § Encino, CA § 2000 – 2001

Start-up Internet exchange for food manufacturers and distributors

CTO / DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY

Joined start-up enterprise as member of 4-person senior executive team. Tasked with drafting and implementing strategic technology plan, with focus on directing outsourced vendor activities while simultaneously building internal technology team. Consulted with vendor to customize and modify generic platform (SQL 2000 and ASP/VB Script/COM+) to meet industry and client demands. Company folded when primary investor broke the contract.

Areas of key contribution include:

CRM Systems Development:

§      Created internal customer relationship management system that enhanced capabilities of sales team in managing and processing leads.

Vendor/
Project Mgmt:

§      Managed the projects assigned to our external technology provider, providing some technical assistance when needed.

Revenue Growth:

§      Introduced series of alternate plans for range of financial scenarios to resolve cash flow problems and generate additional income through addition of value-added services.

Mvalue.com § Culver City, CA § 2000

Online information exchange service employing “sweepstakes” e-commerce business model

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

Brought on board to materialize company’s business vision through technology/process implementations, build internal development team, and shift technology from largely external to 100% internal function. Constructed testing and development environments, administered production database cluster, and migrated production systems to co-location facility. Teamed in installation and configuration of all servers and ad-serving applications. Trained staff in publishing/load balancing procedures for 40-server web farm. Company folded when unable to secure a third round of financing.

Areas of key contribution include:

Organizational Development:

§      Accomplished transition of technology function from external vendor to in-house development team within 7 weeks of hire; grew team to 6 top-performing professionals.

New Product Development:

§      Directed development group in designing and deploying website product in 2 months; created intranet reporting system that monitored database and protected against fraud.

Wellpoint Health Networks § Newbury Park, CA § 1992 – 2000

$17 billion nationwide industry leader in health insurance products and services

ACTUARIAL SYSTEMS MANAGER (1995 – 2000); ACTUARIAL POSITIONS (1992 – 1995)

Promoted to newly created position in order to boost productivity and quality within technology realm of department. Led team of 4 in developing improvements for both data quality/delivery and overall technology function. Launched initiatives that affected hardware/software/OS, data warehousing, intranet, programming, and support functions.

Areas of key contribution include:

Information Systems:

§      Guided team effort in creating executive information system that represented substantial improvement in management access to critical data.

Data Warehousing:

§      Completed data warehouse implementation within 3 months; designed warehouse to pull data from mainframe systems and HP-UX server into NT server running SQL Server.

Infrastructure:

§      Personally implemented Windows NT Server required by the data warehouse, rolled out Windows NT workstation to all desktops, and handled technical support.

Staff Development:

§      Motivated staff to look at new technologies and develop their skill sets. Reduced turnover 75 percent. Changed focus from request fulfillment to solution delivery.

Reporting:

§      Automated many recurring reports utilizing IIS, ASP (VBscript), and HTML. Developed many findings into executive presentations using Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint.

Quality & Reliability

§      Reduced lag of reported numbers 80% and decreased errors 100%; cut desktop downtime 95% following migration of desktops to NT Workstation.

Software Development:

§      Performed substantial data analysis using SQL, SAS, APL, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Access.

Education & Credentials