Walt Lounsbery Expertise and Experience

Walt Lounsbery Skills, Expertise, and Experience

Introduction

This resumé covers the areas of software development, operating systems, and software applications. This is not intended to be a career history, or a false gauge of capability such as "years of experience." Those things can be obtained directly from me as needed. My years of experience have proven time after time that good skills of learning and discovery, and a dedication to delivering great solutions define excellence in software. These characteristics cannot be measured in "years". I have worked for many clients that have spent years and a lot of money building undocumented infrastructure that they can't remember how to maintain. They have years of intimate experience that have failed to keep their applications current or operational.

New Solutions

In the realm of software there are "new solutions" and "legacy software." Just as there are no new businesses, there are very few new software solutions. A business or organization wants something that supports their established way of doing business. And computers have been around so long that nearly all needs have been addressed in one form or another. A broad experience in types of solutions and effective ways to support a business or organization is essential to delivering a great "new solution." A new solution is an opportunity to architect an appropriate application using established best practices and current tools. Done properly, the solution will be documented so that it can be efficiently maintained.

Read the Background section of this resumé for some examples of my solution delivery. My design approach is cost-driven and pragmatic. If the needs are totally satisfied with packaged software at a good price, I'll recommend that. I will do the research to make sure all the alternatives are on the table. If something is available that can be readily customized for the requirements, it will get priority. Sometimes an application must be custom designed. In that case cost and schedule are still very important. If any project is estimated to take more than a week or two, it must have appropriate tracking and estimation procedures in place so that everyone is comfortable on the road to delivery. It is also important to test software during development and to agree on acceptance testing.

Tools

I am focused on delivering great solutions for businesses and organizations by applying Microsoft software. I am a registered Microsoft Partner and a Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) subscriber. This provides the full range of Microsoft products for evaluation or application to any specific need. I have a substantial development setup that includes:

Several development servers running Windows 2003.
Client workstations running Windows XP, Windows XP Tablet Edition, Vista Ultimate, and Vista Home edition.
Various database applications, including versions of Access, SQL Server, and Oracle.
Virtual machine capability to run any Microsoft operating system and many UNIX or LINUX operating systems.
All machines protected by backup power systems and file backups.
Visual Studio Professional Team Edition
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Microsoft SharePoint Server Enterprise
Microsoft Project Server

It is very important to deliver a solution that fits the business, not make the business fit the solution. Information technology is proven to enable lean, effective, profitable businesses. Today it is possible to deliver great solutions across a broad scale and reach with Web technologies, at a very reasonable price point. Where performance and complex screen presentations are needed, .NET provides a wealth of tools for great workstation applications. I use the following technologies to deliver solutions:

Microsoft .NET, including all versions up to 3.5
Microsoft ASP.NET, including Microsoft AJAX and SilverLight
Microsoft Windows Forms and Windows Presentation Foundation
Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation
Microsoft Internet Information Server
Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle Database
Microsoft Office, including Office 2007 and Office 2003

Legacy Application Maintenance

"Legacy application maintenance" are the three dirty words of Information Technology. It is common for businesses to create custom applications that endure over time, but they have become unmaintainable or obsolete. Usually their functions need to be transitioned to a more suitable solution or they need to be upgraded "in place" so that the business can continue to function. I enjoy bringing understanding and new life to these old applications. I have developed custom tools and methods to effectively decipher these neglected applications and provide appropriate upgrades. These techniques help me quickly resolve some common legacy application maintenance situations:

Upgrade Microsoft Access applications to SQL Server (handles larger datasets, highly performant, better security, easier backup of critical data)
Upgrade Visual Basic applications to .NET (VB applications may not run on newer workstations, .NET provides better security, database, and Web capability, it is difficult and expensive to get good VB components and programmers, upgrade can be done incrementally)
Upgrade Microsoft ASP Websites to ASP.NET (ASP.NET Websites are 10-20 times more performant, more reliable, more capable, and few coders can deal with legacy ASP now)
Upgrade service applications, sometimes written in Visual Basic (Visual Basic does not work on current 64 bit server environments, has poor performance and security, even C++ services may be written to obsolete Windows APIs or use bad components)

Partnerships

Registered Microsoft Partner
Web Hosting or Domain Services: Go Daddy.com and DiscountASP.net
Amazon Web Services and Amazon Associate

Although I focus on the Microsoft platforms and tool sets, I use a broad palette of tools, services, and components to provide great solutions. There are too many vendors to list, however another Seattle firm deserves special mention for providing great infrastructure services for Web applications. That partner is Amazon. Amazon provides an outstanding and very cost-effective set of infrastructure Web services, besides their well-known business as a Web retailer. I value these Amazon services for scaling Web applications:

Amazon E-Commerce Service
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (servers on demand)
Amazon Flexible Payments Service
Amazon Simple Storage Service (storage on demand)
Amazon Simple Queue Service (reliable connections for distributed systems)

Amazon also has a warehousing/shipping service that is useful for small businesses.

Special Projects

I am available to perform independent project audits. My specialty is estimating time and effort for conversions and new development for projects with 7 coders or less involving Microsoft technologies.
I am available for consultation on Microsoft Office Live Websites. I am familiar with all the Microsoft Live services.
I have experience with Microsoft Media Center on Vista. I am available for projects deploying software for the Media Center console.
I have experience with Microsoft Windows Home Server. I am available for projects that create Websites or add-ins for that platform.
I have established innovations in simulation software and engineering data. I'd like to do more if the right project comes along.
Do you have software but no User's Guide? Do you need a simple Operator's Manual or a comprehensive Design Document? I write code and English.

Background

I've been dedicated to delivering great Web solutions since 1995. At that time I produced a Website for the Chatham Country School District in Georgia, one of the first educational Websites for a non-college school system. Due to the emerging nature of the Internet at the time, I produced this project by pitching it to the Assistant Superintendent for Technology, arranging free hosting for the District's Website, building the Website, creating the content, and assisting the Assistant Superintendent in publicizing the Website on the local news. I also gave a presentation on the Dsitrict Website for a State education conference on Technology in Education. I coordinated with local network providers and the Savannah newspaper to put together free sponsored Internet access for the District (A tough sell since the newspaper didn't have real Internet access in its office at the time! That project did not get done.).

I have worked a number of consulting and direct positions since then that have involved Websites. I created a Cold Fusion Website for the U.S. Postal Service that was a hub for tracking energy use and utility billing for about 35,000 facilities owned by the USPS. I also designed the database for the system, which had about 100 tables in Microsoft SQL Server. I worked with a provider of hospital and healthcare portals, HealthVision, in delivering Websites based on Microsoft Site Server and SQL Server. I was the Defect Resolution Manager for HealthVision Websites. I assisted the J.C. Penney Internet Store Group in upgrading their large-scale Web farm after a disasterous holiday season, performing rewrites of their checkout functions to improve performance (the next holiday season was a much happier experience for them). I hired on with Lennox International (air conditioning firm) as Project Lead of the ECommerce Group. My main responsibility was to rebuild the team after the prior group left en mass to start a Web consulting firm, leaving no documentation behind. Lennox DaveNet used Microsoft ASP, SQL Server, and interfaced to SAP for order operations. I led the implementation of several Website overhauls, a marketing leads system, an order system, and major improvements in Website reliability.

In recent years I have created backoffice Web applications for handling mortgage paperwork for a small legal firm, as well as working with Centex Home Equity Corporation maintaining their Web-based backend systems that supported their mortgage broker operations. In both of those cases the operational environment was ASP.NET and Microsoft SQL Server. Centex also had significant ASP legacy applications. I overhauled the Retail Store Management Website for Sprint, including addition of a stock pricing module that saw extreme load during the Sprint-Nextel merger as all retail stores repriced their inventory. The Retail Store Website used ASP.NET, an Oracle database, and connected to the GERS retail mainframe system. I also performed application upgrades from ASP to ASP.NET for the Federation of State Medical Boards, which used Oracle databases.

Although I like working with Web applications, I have also enjoyed challenges with other types of solutions. In 1991 I started a software research project for the General Dynamics Fort Worth Division. The project was called "GEMD" for Generalized Engineering Methods and Data. GEMD established standard engineering data file formats and a software library that could support high speed simulation. The project eventually supported all sorts of engineering work as the Division was bought by Lockheed Aerospace. The software was an integral part of the development of the F-22 and F-35 fighter aircraft, continued support of the F-16, other Lockheed projects, and projects by partner companies such as engine manufacturers. The software library was written in C and was used on nine operating systems, including Windows, UNIX variants, and custom operating systems. I went back to Lockheed on two occasions (year-long contract engagements) to provide enhancements to the system.

More recently, I created a .NET software library to host the Internal Revenue Service Tax Computation Component. The TCC had been built for hosting in Visual Basic programs. The workstation Visual Basic application host had over three-quarters of a million lines of code and the TCC had about 400,000 lines of code. My software allowed the component to be hosted in .NET applications, specifically the Unattended Case Processing Application. This library was created without documentation in less than two months. I also did Visual Basic to .NET upgrades for Conexis, a health accounts management firm, and for the Federation of State Medical Boards.