Experience

I first started writing software almost forty years ago and have been successful at creating and deploying unique, scalable, multi-zoned, and fault tolerant web and database systems. I have founded a number of successful start-up companies and published 13 patents.

For the last six years I have been building a vendor neutral cloud platform that allows the company I founded in 2001 to support highly critical and high-demand systems used by organizations such as the American Red Cross and over 200 other organizations primarily in the Nonprofit space.

The platform embraces a full stack of open source solutions including: WordPress, Django, Apache, CloudFlare, MySQL, Tungsten Replication, Nagios, and Mercurial. The platform supports integrated, real time database and application replication, back-in-time snapshots, backups, and recovery.

The platform also provides unique one touch migration from server to server and vendor to vendor. We currently work with: Storm on Demand, LiquidWeb, Amazon, Rackspace, Digital Ocean, ChunkHost, and Zayo Group, though our system is not really tied to any particular vendor.

A key focus of this work is maintainability, automation, fault-tolerance, and scalability. In the last six years we have grown from 14 Linux based servers in one location to over 120 today in at least six locations around the nation with zero increase in the number of IT personnel thanks to the level of automation and monitoring the platform provides.

Chief Technology Officer & Founder
Digital Cheetah Solutions, Inc., Austin, TX.

January 2005 — Present Digital Cheetah, LLC was incorporated in Jan. 2005 to reflect the maturing of the company. I chose a new President so that I could focus purely on the current and future technology requirements of the company.

For the last six years I have been building a vendor neutral cloud platform that allows Digital Cheetah to support highly critical and high-demand systems used by organizations such as the American Red Cross and over 200 other organizations primarily in the Nonprofit space.

Before this I wrote (primarily in Perl and Unix shell scripts) the development, deployment, and application platform used in all of our web and database applications, including all of the core runtime, database, caching, load balancing, testing, backup, data integration, and other systems software for the company. I also developed the innovative languages (UWE, MP, MP Objects) and tools used to build all of the applications.

President, CTO, & Founder
Digital Cheetah, LLC, Austin, TX.

2001 — 2005 (4 years) I founded Digital Cheetah, LLC in August 2001, to provide mid-sized businesses and organizations with web and database solutions that are affordable, easy to maintain, and highly functional. I created a new system, the UWE (Universal Web Engine), that still powers all of our clients’ sites today. Played a key role in all new client prospects and solutions. Managed internal and external finances and funding.

CTO & Founder Green Cheetah Inc.
Green Cheetah, Inc., Austin, TX.

2000 — 2001 (1 year) Green Cheetah was created to develop key software systems for e-commerce, specifically a Java based JDBC middleware layer that permits significant performance and scalability improvements for Enterprise Database Systems. Developed the first product called the FastSQL Server. Two patents were filed in October 2000 related to this work. The ideas were subsequently licensed by the venture-funded company Iron Grid, Inc. and were turned into products. A derivative of this work, initially designed and written by me, has been hugely successful in the open source community and downloaded over 35,000 times at p6spy.com.

CTO & VP Development
Garden.com, Inc, Austin, TX.

1995 — 2000 (5 years) Designed and built the entire Garden.com e-commerce infrastructure, including: the development language SAGE (written in C), build and deployment environments, initial applications, multi-layer caching system, Oracle design and OCI interfaces, links to Net Gravity/Double Click, Verity search interfaces, load balancing, fault tolerant subsystems, narrow casting, personalization, customer service applications, email system, credit-card billing interface, and monitoring. Also, managed the team of three programmers who built subsequent applications and components.

Chief Programmer
Trilogy, Austin, TX.

April 1994 — November 1995 (1 year 8 months) Wrote the DCE Client/Server backbone for SalesBUILDER at Trilogy. Also revamped their company wide system build and testing process across eight different platforms. Wrote the DCE Multi-Server (100+ servers) middleware for Internet based configuration software at pcOrder. Wrote the Enterprise Engine version of Trilogy’s Configuration engine.

Chief Programmer for System Object Model
IBM, Austin, TX.

1990 — 1994 (4 years) Wrote the System Object Model (SOM) 1.0 and 2.0 CORBA IDL Compiler/Toolkit and was the primary driving force behind all of the SOM development for four years. Developed the build, release, and test environment used by 90+ developers in the Object Enabling Products Division.

R&D Manager
Infospec Computers, Ltd., Leeds, England.

1988 — 1990 (2 years) Wrote a 4GL development environment and an SQL visual interface. Managed four developers and was in charge of the technology strategy for the company.

Software Engineer
GEC Software, Ltd., London, England.

June 1984 — September 1985 (1 year 4 months) Wrote Netspy, a TCP/P network monitor, and its associated compiler.