Grandpa Ham – Grandpa Can do IT!

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE SUMMARY

Full life cycle competence in object-oriented software engineering based on a unique combination of information technology, financial management, academic, and leadership experience. An experienced analyst, designer, and developer with a clear understanding of business process as well as software architecture. Experienced in CMMI compliant process definition and SCAMPI assessment. Experienced in Business Process Reengineering and software requirements development using a scenario-driven model based approach that provides complete traceability from Subject Matter Expert defined requirements through code implementation in a well defined Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). A capable instructor, mentor, and catalyst for innovative solutions in a variety of IT environments. Comfortable working in wide variety of CASE tools, programming languages, and modeling notations. Current emphasis on systems engineering support to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for emergency systems interoperability using OASIS and NIEM standards based web-services in a SOA Environment.

CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY

July 2007 – Present, Independent IT Consultant

October 2010 – Present. Systems Architect, Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS-PMO). Under contract through Eye Street Software Corporation (July 2007 – September 2012), CACI, Inc. (October 2012 – September 2013), and Arc Aspicio (September 2013 to present) to provide program support to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Providing expertise in the IPAWS Aggregator middleware known as IPAWS – Open Platform for Emergency Networks (IPAWS-OPEN). Duties include:

• Exhaustive system testing of current and newly developed interfaces from the perspective of an external system developer interaction with the IPAWS SOA suite. Providing support to the OT&E activities being conducted by the joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC).
• Developing and maintaining Java client reference application that connects to IPAWS-OPEN as a test driver and as an aid to external developers needing connectivity. Using that activity to provide feedback on usability and possible defects to the IPAWS-OPEN developers working under separate contract.
• Orchestration and documentation of end-to-end testing in support of the Cellular Mobile Alerting Service (CMAS) testing from alert originator, through IPAWS-OPEN to Cell Carriers for broadcast to cellular mobile devices.
• Acting as ombudsman, technical support, and training provider to external developers of alert origination software as those developers build for Integration with IPAWS. Conducting monthly developer training and system status webinars for external developers and other interested parties.
• Providing technical and presentation support to the IPAWS Program Office at demonstrations and exhibitions such as NAB and IAEM.
• Supporting furtherance of Standards as representative of the IPAWS-Program Offices for IPAWS related standards from the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM), and the partnership between the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) and the International Association for Wireless Telecommunications Industry (CTIA) for CMAS standards. Continuing personal membership (was a founding member in 2003) in the OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee that builds XML Standards of interest to IPAWS and FEMA.

October 2008 – September 2010. Systems Architect, Disaster Management Program Office (DM-PMO). Under contract through Eye Street Software Corporation to provide program support to FEMA. Duties included:

• Requirements development and testing supporting in transition of the former Disaster Management – Open Platform for Emergency Networks (DM-OPEN) capability into a SOA based platform for standards based emergency messaging across FEMA.
• Transition support for DM-OPEN to IPAWS as the base technology for its Alert Aggregator.
• Systems Engineering Life Cycle Documentation and Federal Enterprise Architecture compliance management for the DM PMO.
• Response to stakeholder inquiries concerning DM-OPEN and related data standards.
• Assistance to programmers connecting to DM-OPEN Interfaces.
• Liaison with the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), as well as other standards organizations and Federal programs that affect, or are affected by, the Disaster Management Program.
• Liaison from the DM to National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) for matters related to the Disaster management Program.

July 2007 – October 2008. Process Consultant on contract to the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles in support of a major cross-agency Business Process Reengineering effort. Helped a variety of different analysis teams put together coherent scenario driven requirements within a model that will drive a future-state SOA and will provide full life cycle traceability from initial requirements through code and test. Primary author of internal documentation covering the entire life cycle from initial requirements development through design and implementation. Served as process mentor, Enterprise Architect tool expert, and in-house trainer of object-oriented analysis and design techniques that were customized for the DMV systems redesign environment.

February 2001 – Sept 2007, Battelle Memorial Institute

January 2004 – 2007. External Systems Integration Coordinator, Disaster Management Interoperability Services (DMIS). DMIS offers a Government sponsored interoperability services backbone designed to facilitate the exchange of emergency information between emergency management organizations across a wide spectrum of government and private industry to include the automated input of Non-Weather Emergency messages (NWEM) for broadcast on National Weather Service Radio. Responsible for:

• Demonstrating and explaining both the technical and functional capabilities of the interoperability service.
• Defining and/or refining requirements for interoperability, helping to specify those capabilities in SOAP/XML Schema and WSDL formats.
• Liaison and outreach from the team to both commercial and government software developers, including coordination and oversight of multi-vendor interoperability demonstrations and related activities. The primary point of contact between outside developers and the inside team that is building and operating the interoperability interfaces.
• Participation in Emergency management XML standards development activity, particularly the OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee. Helped develop and implement the OASIS sponsored Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) and the message routing solution called Distribution Element – the first of many schemas to be implemented as part of the Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL).

August2003 – March 2005. Software Process Coordinator. Member of three person engineering process group responsible for shepherding Battelle Information Technology Services (ITS) through process improvement activities leading to positive CMMI assessment. Formally trained in both the CMMI Model and in SCAMPI assessment. Duties included process mentoring, progress monitoring, and participation in formal assessment activities. The DMIS project (and Battelle ITS) earned it formal CMMI level 2 rating in February 2005.

February 2001 – January 2004. DMIS Design Lead. DMIS is a collaborative effort among government and responder agencies to provide cross-organization sharing of disaster and/or disaster planning information connected to natural disasters, accidents, civil or political incidents, terrorist or criminal incidents, and other significant designated events. DMIS became operational in August 2002 and is now installed in more than 1000 locations covering all 50 states. Duties with DMIS have included:

• Direction, mentoring, and methodology support of modeling, design, and implementation of DMIS.
• Alignment of DMIS Architecture with FEA requirements
• Mapping of DMIS processes to DOD C4ISR architecture requirements

April 2000 – February 2001, Edifecs, Inc.

April 2000 – February 2001. Business Collaboration Architect. Major contributor to the development of a consistently applied object-oriented methodology for the design and maintenance of business-to-business transactions in an architectural framework independent from restrictive implementation protocols. Functional designs built using this framework can be implemented using multiple protocols (e.g., EDI, XML, CORBA, RMI using Java Message Beans) without significant redesign. Proved the methodology in the development of Partner Interface Protocols (PIPs) for RosettaNet, a trading partner consortium representing the IT and electronic components industry. Also defined use cases that incorporate RosettaNet PIPs within implementations of the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) Model. These use cases are the basis for a SCOR related pilot project to enhance automated purchasing interactions between Intel and Siemens.

May 1994 – April 2000, Battelle Memorial Institute

October 1999 – April 2000. Consulting support for the Army Director of Information Systems for Command, Control, Communications, and Computers (DISC4). Supervised development of the Army Standard Reference Model for object-oriented systems analysis and design. This model provides a logical “business object” architecture as the basis for requirements analysis and systems design in the development of Army command and control systems.

September 1998 – April 2000. Consulting support for the Army Systems Engineering Office (ASEO), Fort Monmouth, NJ. Provided “honest broker” evaluation of information engineering issues related to the Joint Technical Architecture – Army (JTA-A), particularly in the area of data standardization, IDEF0 modeling, IDEF1X modeling, and how they relate to object-oriented systems analysis and design issues. Developed a paper, titled “It all Starts with a Mission: A Practical Process for Accomplishing Seamless Interoperability,” that provides a clear methodology for defining project scope and value-added metrics within a distributed component environment.

August 1997 – June 1999. Support of DoD Health Affairs Requirements. Lead design team developing middleware component designs for a CORBA-based distributed architecture. Built designs for interoperability connections between disparate software applications included in the Military Health System (MHS). Employed Rational Rose for object modeling and RequisitePro for requirements traceability.

Aug 1997 – Built the Uniform Modeling Language expression of the data registry metamodel included in the DRAFT ANSI X3.285:1997 Data Engineering – Metamodel for the Management of Shareable Data. The model is an object-oriented translation, using Rational Rose, of the standard’s Chen notation E-R diagrams and business rules that was included as an appendix in the finalized standard.

August 1995 – Aug 1997. Support of DoD Health Affairs Requirements. Technical lead in developing the Functional Area Model – Object for MHS systems based on concurrently developing information and process models. Using that object model for the development of the Computer-Based Patient Record and other object-oriented MHS initiatives. Translated IDEF1X and IDEF0 models developed in IE:Advantage, ER-Win, and BP-Win case tools into objectmodels using the Paradigm+ case tool.

May 1994 – August 1995. Information engineering support to the Defense Information Systems Agency. Developed Migration Strategy and Integration Planning for Information Management Functional Area systems for the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), Enterprise Integration. Reviewed current DoD systems for overlapping functionality. Modeled a formal strategy to integrate that functionality into a single set of interoperable standard systems.

May 1993 – May 1994, SETA Corporation

May 1993 – May 1994, Senior Information Engineer. Information engineering support to the Defense Information Systems Agency. Designed and re-engineered data models using IDEF1x Notation with Design/IDEF and IE:Advantage on contract with the Defense Information Systems Agency, Chief Information Officer (DISA CIO). Helped develop data standardization submission process methods for DISA. Built a Microsoft Windows based C++ application to interface with output from the IE:Advantage CASE tool, allowing DoD Data model standardization submission packages to be built automatically from data stored in the IE:Advantage model repository.

May 1973 – May 1993, U.S. Marine Corps

July 1991-May 1993, Defense Finance and Accounting Service, Systems Testing Officer. Managed functional system testing and problem resolution team during installation and first year operation of a large scale networked mainframe accounting system requiring world wide access encompassing six different IBM mainframe locations and approximately 2000 terminals world wide. Designed problem tracking methodology to enable a coordinated response and rapid solution to all customer support requirements during implementation. Developed a database which interconnected with electronic mail to ensure timely response and to gather appropriate statistical history on problem trends, solution response rate, user training needs, etc. Presented methodologies and instructions for resolving problem issues in separate meetings in North Carolina, California, and Missouri.

June 1988 – July 1991, Comptroller , Marine Corps Air Station, Iwakuni, Japan. Chief Financial Officer for a major Marine Corps installation in mainland Japan. Responsible for disbursing, accounting, budgeting, internal auditing, and overall resource allocation. Supervised a cross-cultural staff of 30 Japanese civilians, 25 U.S. Military and 15 U.S. Civilians. Developed several internal information and decision support systems in areas relating to travel, bill processing, and labor cost management. Developed, supervised and presented, in part, an instructional program designed to improve management and control costs at the user level through the implementation of a standardized methodology for reconciling computer generated supply requisition and financial status information.

April 1985 – May 1988, Senior Lecturer in Computer Science, U. S. Naval Academy. Taught a variety of courses, from entry level structured programming to senior level courses in Information Systems and Database Organization, in an Computer Science Accreditation Board (CSAB) accredited Computer Science curriculum. Evaluated as part of the faculty during initial professional accreditation review by the CSAB. Acted as course coordinator, responsible for content and overall control, of the senior level course in Database Organization.

August 1983 – March 1985, Student, Naval Postgraduate School. Masters Thesis Title: “An Evaluation of Industrial Funding for Non-deployable Marine Corps ADP Assets”; a paper which explored the economic trade offs and command and control effects of converting mission funded (i.e. directly funded by Congress) ADP activities to a commercial style charge-back system where a variety of Marine Corps and other “customers” would be charged based on resource usage.

April 1980- July 1983, Data Systems Budget Officer, Headquarters , U. S. Marine Corps. Prepared budget documentation for all Marine Corps data processing related funding. Coordinated and acted as primary speaker in defense of budget requests at Department of Defense and Navy Comptroller budget hearings. Provided backup documentation for Congressional hearings.

October 1977 – March 1980, Base Operations Budget Officer, Fourth Marine Division. Aggregated budget documentation, allocated funds, and audited expenditures for the daily operation of 155 separately located Marine Corps Reserve Centers located throughout the United States. Traveled extensively to provide on-site training in local accounting and fiscal control when and wherever needed.

November 1975 – October 1977, Division Budget Officer, First Marine Division. Prepared budget documents, allocated funds, and monitored the expenditures of an operational Marine combat division. Developed and implemented standard procedures for cost center financial management.

EDUCATION

George Mason University, 1993-1998 (33 graduate credits in Information Technology)

Naval Postgraduate School, 1985, MS (with Distinction) in Information Systems

Whitman College, 1973, BA in Economics

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SKILLS

Business Process Re-engineering – Two Birds with One Stone. Business use case driven techniques for identifying redundant and/or improvable processes while also identifying requirements for automated solutions.

Object-oriented Analysis and Design (OOAD): Rational Unified Process (RUP), UML, ICONIX Software Development, ICONIX Requirements Development Process, Use Cases in a variety of formats and styles, Just-in-time Analysis

Process Improvement: CMMI, SCAMPI, ICONIX BPR

Architectures: FEA, C4ISR, Rational 4+1 View, RMODP, Zachmann Framework

CASE Tools: Enterprise Architect, Eclipse, Rational Rose, JBuilder, ER-Win, BP-Win, IE:Advantage

Languages: Java, XML Schema, SQL, C++, C, Ada, Pascal, Visual Basic

Information Engineering: IDEF0, IDEF1X, IDEF1X97, Finkelstein’s IE

Emergency Management Technical Committee, Organization for The Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) – Since establishment in August 2003.

Association for Computing Machinery – Since January 1986.

PRESENTATIONS AND PUBLICATIONS

“EAS Using CAP: IPAWS from End-to-End,” presentation to the Society of Cable Television Engineers (SCTE), CABLE-TEC EXPO, Atlanta, GA, November 17, 2011.

“Leveraging NIEM to Enable EDXL-DE Message Routing,” presentation to the NIEM in Action Track, NIEM National Training Event, Philadelphia, PA, August 24, 2011.

“A Deceptively Simple Approach to an Emergency Data Exchange Language Distribution Element (EDXL-DE) Based Web Service,” presentation to the Incident Preparedness and Response Track, Connectivity Week, Santa Clara, CA, June 11, 2009.

“Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) Distribution, A Crawl, Walk, Run Approach to Implementation” invited presentation to Net Ready Sensors Workshop, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, August 2006.

“Current Initiatives, Technical and Organizational Obstacles, and Opportunities in ICT Interoperability,” panel member for the Workshop on Using Technology to Enhance Crises Management, National Academy Of Sciences, Washington, DC, June 2005.

“Business Collaboration Modeling with Rational Rose, UML, and XML,” presentation to Rational User’s Conference 2000, Philadelphia, PA, July 2000.

“Four Roads to Use Case Discovery: There is a Use (and a Case) for Each One,” CrossTalk: The Journal of Defense Software
Engineering, Volume 11, Number 12, December 1998.

“The CPR Interoperability using Object Oriented Technology (CIOOT) Initiative,” Pre-addendum OOPSLA’98, Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications, October 1998.

“An Integration Architecture for Implementation of the DoD Computer-based Patient Record,” The Second Annual: Role of Distributed Objects In Healthcare, October 1998.

“If Nobody Uses It, It Ain’t a Standard: Thoughts on Re-tooling DoD Data Standardization Efforts,” CrossTalk: The Journal of Defense Software Engineering, Volume 11, Number 6, June 1998 (with Co-author Doug Mann).

“Integration of Divergent Requirements Views, An Object-Oriented Approach,” Proceedings of the Ninth Annual DAMA Symposium, Data Administration Management Association-National Capital Region (DAMA-NCR), June 1996.