Michael A. Smith, MBA, MS-MIS

Objective

To bring to your attention my experience and expertise in leading, developing and managing medium-to-large Internet and Web software projects with a focus on improving internal communication and knowledge sharing, and to provide a foundation for us to discuss how I can help you achieve a marketable, user-friendly experience for your internal and external customers.

Career Highlights

March 2008 – Present Web & Digital/Academic Technologies Manager Nazareth College Rochester, NY
  • Replaced aging Adobe Contribute with Python-based open source Plone web content management system, resulting in greatly reduced costs for maintenance and licensing
  • Demonstrated and established Django web framework as the choice agile web development tool for low-overhead iterative projects; resulting in projects implemented in days, rather than months
  • Received letter of appreciation from Faculty Elections Committee for handling of a project to develop a secure online election tool
  • Presented on Django development at HighEdWeb conference in 2009
  • Coordinate and liaise between Marketing and IT, providing a layer of diplomacy and communication to enhance project and product management
  • Prepare, gather requirements, plan, document, and implement software to fulfill the needs of faculty, students, and staff
  • Supplement existing software with training, documentation and bug fixes
  • Support eLearning initiatives such as online course delivery and next generation classroom tools
  • Lead and direct a team of four made up of a Web developer, an Educational Technology Specialist, a Co-op and an Intern
January 2007 – March 2008 Private consultant Rochester, NY
  • For LANXESS Corporation: Continue to maintain Web sites and provide consultations on technical issues
  • For Robert Half Technology:
    • Using Perl and ASP.Net, planned, implemented and delivered a database-driven Web application to generate dynamic PDF documents for customers
    • Documented preexisting idiosyncratic IIS4 / Windows Server 2000 configuration and software
    • Provided a detailed plan to improve security, reduce bandwidth costs, and improve response time to customers by over 40% by refactoring existing code
July 2003 – January 2007 Web Portfolio Manager LANXESS Corporation Pittsburgh, PA
  • Worked while completing Master's Degrees from July '03 – April '04 (Please see Education)
  • Managed the Software Development Life Cycle for six Web sites
  • All sites were W3C standards and accessibility 2.0 compliant using HTML 4.01 Strict
  • Used Flash, ActionScript, JavaScript following Web design best practices keeping separation of concerns between JavaScript, CSS, and HTML
  • Participated in hiring decisions, mentored and trained, and led teams of up to five people
  • Wrote over 1000 pages of documentation
  • Championed a usability study and corrected problem areas it brought to light
  • Refactored static Web sites from DreamWeaver and Contribute content management into data-driven content management systems in Java and ColdFusion
  • Used Oracle RDBMS and XML with XSLT to implement features of the CMS
  • Instituted an iterative quality assurance model assisted by Subversion RCS
  • Managed IIS6 and Windows 2003 virtual server deployments using Windows PowerShell, Perl, and Python
  • Tracked site analytics using WebTrends
  • Specified target Google searches and brought sites within the top five of the specification
  • Ensured sites worked perfectly on Internet Explorer 5.5 and above, Mozilla Firefox, Opera
  • Committed to Web design best practice of “graceful degrading” allowing sites to work even when the end user disabled JavaScript, used a screen reader or browsed from a cellular phone or PDA
July 2002 – July 2004 (Please see Education)
July 2001 – June 2002 Senior Programmer BrainTrain, Incorporated Richmond, VA
  • Wrote cognitive rehabilitation software in Visual Basic 6
  • Wrote interactive game-like front-end modules
  • Wrote report generator algorithms to grade users and track improvement areas

Education

July 2003 – April 2004 MBA and MS-MIS Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA
  • Thesis: Open Standards in Desktop Software
  • Special Projects: Tracking Knowledge Warehousing on UseNet (using Python, Gentoo Linux, and OpenBSD)
  • Relevant coursework in Knowledge Management, C and C++, Systems Analysis and Design, and Project Management
  • Taught a four hour, two session seminar on Web design
September 1997 – April 2001 BS Physics, Minors in Japanese Language and East Asian History and Economics College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA

Personal Development

Winter 2011 – Present Plone
  • Accepted as core developer in January 2011
  • Contributed bug fixes and user interface improvements in Python, CSS, Javascript and HTML.
  • Contributed unit tests and integration test improvements in Python.
Winter 2005 – Present Gentoo Linux
  • Over a thousand lines of bug fixes and feature improvements accepted by developers in charge
  • Contributions accepted to ddclient using Perl
  • Contributions accepted to revdep-rebuild using BASH and requiring a strong understanding of UNIX administration
  • Recognized moderator and technical contributor to #gentoo technical support forum on irc.freenode.net
June 2006 – Present Concertmaster/Assistant Concertmaster Greece and Brighton Symphony Orchestras
Exercising leadership, diplomacy and organizational skills

Skills

Operating Systems
BSD, Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, Linux, UNIX, Windows
Programming
C++, C#, ColdFusion, Java, Perl, Php, Python, Visual Basic
Web
ASP, ASP.NET, HTML, XML, XSLT, CSS, JavaScript, Flash
IDEs
DreamWeaver, Contribute, Eclipse/WebSphere, Visual Studio, Xcode
RCS
Subversion, BZR, CVS, Microsoft VSS
Shells
Bash, POSIX Sh, Windows Batch, Windows PowerShell
Frameworks & Apps
Active Collab, Django, Google Analytics, Plone, WebTrends
Web Servers
IIS4-6, Apache, NGinx, LightHttpd
Graphics
Adobe Fireworks, Adobe Photoshop, Inkscape, The Gimp
Office
Microsoft Office, WordPerfect, OpenOffice, Lotus Notes
Bug Trackers
Altiris Helpdesk, Bugzilla, Trac
DB
Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL
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Used at home
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Used at school
*
Used at work