Alexus Computer Consulting

Awards:
Fulbright Scholar, 1965
National Science Foundation – Small Business Innovation Research, 1988
Dept. of Energy – Small Business Innovation Research, 1988

Education:
Ph. D., Electrical Engineering – Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1971
M. S., Electrical Engineering – University of Illinois, 1967

2001 to 2003            Syntricity, Inc., San Diego, CA

Vice President Technical Operations

Syntricity is a supplier of application software to the semiconductor industry.  Its customers include Intel, Sun Microsystems, Broadcom, Qualcomm and Conexant.  Products are installed on Unix and NT 4.0 web servers at the customer site as Intranet solutions (

), or on Unix servers at the Syntricity data center, which offers an ASP style subscription services.

Developed a large capacity warehouse architecture and deployable warehouse solution to support defect, FBM, lot history, non-lot equipment, and other data storage requirements to support analysis of yield and production forecasts from test data acquired in the semiconductor manufacturing environment.  This system was built on Oracle 8i and 9i commercial RDBMS products.  Implemented a comprehensive set of statistical analysis tools including multivariate regression and confidence level testing to facilitate yield trend and production scheduling for semiconductor manufacturers. Developed a messaging transaction system - "Integration Server" for WIP/MES back-end business processes. Various technologies were incorporated including: RMI, from a JMS input queue and JNDI for naming services.

The design was implemented with Oracle 9.2 loader and schema validation technology, and required user ETL data to be formatted as XML documents. Java 2 SE was the implementation platform language. The web server, based on the Tomcat open source code from the Apache Consortium, was enhanced to provide comprehensive access control according to user class, and included integrated end-user script-based customization (using the open source Python interpreter). XML objects were used extensively to represent web server data structures in the core implementation. High volume datalog insertion (ETL) back-end functionality was implemented for user uploads via FTP. An earlier generation C-coded CGI version was also supported. All products developed were web server solutions, with access via a standard browser. Responsible for creating and managing design teams as well as quality assurance, configuration management, technical hosting operations, and technical documentation groups. Responsible for product functional specifications, source code control, defect tracking, configuration/build management, and application validation.

Responsible for a team of 40 people across four groups that included software engineering, database design, quality assurance and technical operations.  Java 2 was the implementation platform language, and Oracle 8.1.6 was used for the warehouse database.  All products were designed as web server solutions, with access via a standard browser.  Responsible for creating and managing design teams as well as quality assurance, configuration management, technical hosting operations and technical documentation groups.  Detailed understanding of source code control, defect tracking, configuration management and build tracking.

Customers using the hosting subscription center run under contractual Service Level Agreements (SLA).  The ASP hosted service is currently implemented on an E4800 Sun application server running Solaris 8, connected to an Oracle database server (Oracle 8.1.6).  Storage totaling approximately 1 Terabyte is provided through a combination of the EMC Clarion System 1 storage arrays (Raid-5) accessed via fiber channel, and network attached storage using the Network Appliances NetApp devices.  Veritas SANPoint Foundation Suite HA for Solaris is used as the storage management tool

.

2000 to 2001            InfrastructureWorld, San Francisco, CA

Chief Technology Officer

Infrastructureworld, a spin off from Bechtel Enterprises, offered services through a collaborative web site for large-scale construction projects.  Managed development staff of 10, and operational staff of 3 to create, enhance and maintain the live web site.  Responsible for a new web server implementation based on NT4.0 and Windows 2000 technologies, to support authentication through certificates, user access control via authenticated account login, SSL extranet connections and document encryption.  Investigated Public Key/Private Key encryption authentication mechanisms before selecting Windows NT integrated challenge/response authentication as the preferred authentication technique.

Each business client was hosted as a separate virtual web site with secure access to content that described the client’s projects offered for bid.  Functionality included insurance and financing RFP’s, document management, and project collaboration.  In addition, each web site offered integration of multimedia content for promotion of client projects, including steaming video and audio content.  Implemented a secure data access system using native NT operating system authentication services.  All documents and files were transmitted via 128-BIT SSL using server side certificates for server authentication to the client browser.  Automatic virus scanning and cleaning was implemented for all documents and files uploaded by users to the web server.  The operational web server site was implemented with a two-tier server configuration using Raid (redundant) storage.

1999 to 2000            CareerPath.com, Los Angeles, CA

Senior Vice President, Technology

Management of Operations and Development teams.  Lead the company’s Web site re-architecture project, providing higher levels of Web server and Oracle database performance.  Implementation of methodologies for project management, code review, quality assurance, and defect tracking.  Managed the operations group (40) supporting the production Web site, encompassing wide area networking, Unix administration, Oracle DBA support, HTML authoring and quality assurance teams.  Managed the software development staff (25) which created new technology infrastructure and dynamic page content using Java middle tier servlets, Java Beans, JSP presentation components, and Oracle technology.  Object oriented programming techniques were applied through use case analysis.

Created a feed management system, written using server-side Java parsing technology, to processes Web job postings harvested from Web spider technology.  Later enhancements included development of a Content Management system (using XML page representation), vertical affiliate co-branding system, transparent registration and login across a federation of partnership Web sites, and a comprehensive on-line reports server.

1999              Charles Schwab Online Trading, Phoenix, AZ

Independent Consultant

This project involved disaster recovery cold site planning for the Charles Schwab Online Web Trading facility.  The web capability was capable of handling 200,000+ concurrent users, and was implemented with 300 load-sharing IBM gateway servers working behind eight Cisco Catalyst 7500 routers.  The traffic was distributed across the front line servers and routed to an ensemble of 200 middle tier servers, which manage the business objects and execute the trades.  In the third tier, customer financial and demographic data was maintained on a group of seven IBM mainframes running DB2. A design was formulated that gives the Schwab organization a contingency backup system in the event of catastrophic failure of the main site.

1997 to 1999            Platinum Software Corp., Irvine, CA

(Re-named as Epicor Software Corp)

Vice President, Development

Reported to the President until 7/1/98, then reporting to the Executive VP of Product/Marketing.  Member of the Executive Committee (top 8 executives in Platinum).

Managed a team of about 100 contributors working on Windows NT-based Client-Server systems.  The Department was organized into five functional groups each headed by a Director-level manager, and includes ERP application development, technology/tools development, Windows/DOS legacy systems, QA and documentation teams.

This scope of the development effort encompassed the Platinum ERP client-server product suites, which include financial and distribution applications.  These applications, based on Microsoft SQL Server technology, are implemented within a two-tier tool set, and involved 500 tables and more than 2000 stored procedures.  Responsibilities also included all ERP integration tools and application content.  The ERP integration suite allows remote transaction integration of customer relationship management, sales force automation, distribution, manufacturing, and financial applications, as well as OLAP business intelligence reporting via client-side components and Microsoft DSS.

Direct management of teams deploying MS Message Queue, MS Transaction Server, MS SQL Server 6.5 and 7.0, NT 4.0, XML, and business object technology.  Successfully launched a high volume test group to establish performance of the client-server products under stress, and to determine their scalability.  Built an architectural team to design and implement 3 tier, thin-client framework, using Java business objects running on an application server. Established effective methodologies for fostering cooperation in development projects requiring the participation of geographically remote design and development teams.

Developed a pure Java client-server system to support an end user form builder application. The objective of this project was to demonstrate an application server-centric 3-tier architecture. Application servers are dispensers of services, and a Java compilation service was the central technology being demonstrated. The pilot development showed building block to support a broad variety business object models, forms architectures, and rules engines. (JDK 1.1)

A full-functionality GUI in Java was also developed, along with a Java-based Customization Workbench, built, using the form class metaphor, which is familiar to users of Visual Café, JBuilder, or J++ 6.0. The Java Swing classes were used in the implementation.

Created a prototype OLAP decision support analysis system. The Platinum Info Report pack contained OLAP cubes specific to the Platinum ERA financial, distribution and manufacturing data. OLAP cubes were implemented on top of core Platinum applications to enable multi-dimensional analysis on key business drivers such as sales activity. Reports contained in the Info Report Pack were designed to leverage graphical, WYSIWYG reporting and analysis capabilities of Crystal Info, a third party reporting package, including: presentation-quality formatting, charts, graphs, drill-down, top “N” analysis, search, sort and criteria selection.

1994 to 1996            Quixote Corp., Chicago, IL

Vice President, Technology (Reporting to the President of Legal Technologies, Inc.)

Legal Technologies, a subsidiary of the Quixote Corp., was formed as a consortium of four companies operating in the legal vertical market to address law office automation, and related legal services.

Formulated opinions and strategies for technology-related products being considered for acquisition or development by the company.  Assisted the corporate legal counsel in the interpretation of patent claims for the purpose of defending or initiating lawsuits.  Participated in negotiations with plaintiffs to bring about resolution of legal conflicts.

Managed teams developing Windows client-server database applications for the legal/judicial markets.  These products involved MFC C++ and Visual Basic 4.0, NT/SQL Server and Btrieve technology.

Development of video deposition applications.  Encoding of VHS tapes from video depositions into MPEG using Real Magic encoders.  Annotation of video to allow rapid search of content and synchronization of video to the written transcript.  The user was provided with the ability to jump to a specific page and line in the written transcript with automated tracking to the correct location in the displayed video.  Similarly, the rolling video stream would automatically scroll the text display.

1989 to 1992            Fibronics International, Lowell, MA

General Manager, Spartacus subsidiary

Successfully developed software products for TCP/IP and Unix-related networking applications. These products performed routing and bridging functions for Internet packets, at data rates of up to 100Mbps across FDDI fiber networks. Technology involved embedded C-coded Intel RISC CPU’s and Motorola 68K series microprocessors. In addition, a suite of Internet-protocol software packages was developed for integration of mainframes with other Fibronics TCP/IP LAN and WAN products.  Networking software developed for mainframe computers included: TCP/IP protocol stack; Network File System (server) package; File Transfer Protocol (FTP) server module; Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP); 3270 terminal emulators; X-windows client functionality.

The NFS application was the result of a nine month development effort involving a team of six software developers. The complete design, including all architectural components, was formulated from Sun Microsystems documentation, and the resulting concept was implemented from scratch in C++. A parallel research study of the competing Andrew File System was also carried out. The NFS product was deployed by several large Fibronics customers.

1982 to 1988            Numerix Corporation, Newton, MA

President/CEO

Founder and CEO of a high-technology computer company with 130 employees.  Led the company from its startup in May 1982 through rapid growth.  Revenues grew from $0 to $10M in three years.

Supervised a software and hardware development team of 50 people, and a total employee headcount of 130.  Lead contract negotiations with vendors, partners and investors.  Intimately involved with product engineering, quality assurance and field reliability problems.

1975 to 1981            CNR, Inc., Newton, MA

Vice President

Managed software and hardware design teams for defense-related projects.  These included: real-time data acquisition using microprocessor systems, real-time communications channel simulators, embedded Intel and Motorola microprocessor systems, designs for the application of the Global Positioning System to air traffic control, synchronization of the DOD world-wide communication system using atomic clocks to facilitate the distribution of a high-precision time reference.

1972 to 1975   Univ. of Auckland - New Zealand

Asst. Prof., EE

Performed teaching and graduate research responsibilities for electrical engineering and computer science.  Taught graduate level courses on control systems, communication systems, microprocessors and integrated circuit design.  Taught undergraduate courses involving electromagnetic theory, electronic circuit design and mathematics