My Background

Introduction

I first became interested in computers when I was 12.  My family had gone over to Rusty's, a friend of my father's, where I noticed a computer sitting on a desk.  One thing led to another and before long, I was spending Saturdays with Rusty while he mentored me on the TRS-80 Model III and Basic.  Rusty also gave me his Byte magazines when he finished them.  I devoured those great articles!  That Christmas, my parents gave me a Sinclair ZX-81.  What a great little machine... Sure, it only had 512 bytes of memory, but I learned to how to write really tight code.  At this point, Rusty and I started learning Z80 assembly language.

During the summer before my sophomore year in high school, I audited a FORTRAN programming class at Ball State University.  Rusty and I also continued to work together, off and on, while my busy high school schedule (college prep classes, marching band, concert band, jazz band, speech team, wrestling, track) allowed.  In fact, my excellence in high school, along with my exceptional PSAT and SAT scores, earned me a nomination from (then Senator) Dan Quayle to attend West Point.

Ultimately, I decided to pursue a computer engineering degree at a more prestigious school -- Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.  Unfortunately, the financial burden on my parents forced me to transfer to the much less expensive Ball State after my sophomore year.  BSU didn't have an engineering program, so I joined both the Physics and Computer Science programs and struck out on my own financially.  In an amazing stroke of luck, I landed a full-time, night computer operator job at Best-Ever dairy.  For the next three years, I carried a full class load (12-18 credit hours) during the day and worked full-time (40-50 hours a week) in the evening.  At this point, I was getting severely burnt out.  I re-evaluated my double major and decided that I could graduate sooner if I focused on my remaining Physics classes.  In one final semester, I graduated from Ball State with a B.S. in Physics and a 3.0 GPA.

After graduation, I continued my career at a small consulting firm in Indianapolis.  In addition to my programming assignments, I took it upon myself to step-up as our much-needed system administrator.  I earned several of my Microsoft certifications while at Quest.  In fact, my four digit MCP ID (9120) shows the value I saw in certifications when they were first introduced by Microsoft.

Over the next few years, I focused on becoming a better programmer.  I learned how: to efficiently program SQL statements, to apply OOA/D to a concrete implementation, and to participate in SDLC and RAD methodologies.  I also continued to earn various certifications from Microsoft and Sun.

After feeling comfortable learning new technology, I realized I had a penchant for leading developers.  I easily moved into team leadership roles by mentoring and encouraging my teammates.  Teams led and managed by me were frequently praised as top producers through bonus incentives and public recognition.

In 1999, I decided to strike out on my own.  As an independent consultant, I quickly learned that being in business for myself demanded a lot more of me than just programming.  Still, I loved the challenges!

I soon decided to focus my skill sets on Sun's Java and J2EE technologies over those from Microsoft.  I showed that I had a knack for seeing the big picture while working on the Liberty Mutual online auto quotes system as an e-commerce architect.

My 13 years of solid technical and project management experience backs up my focus on Java and J2EE so that I can offer the best solutions for building large-systems in a technically diverse Web Services environment.  Take a look at my resume to see what I've done and at my references to see how others think of me.

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