"Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better."
-- author John Updike
Work history: Gulf Coast Internet Company
From June 1995 to March 1998, I worked for an early Internet
service provider.
As Network Engineering team leader, I was responsible for system
and network administration of a large network
of computer equipment and management of technical employees.
Having started with GCIC when it had eight employees, and grown
with it to a size of more than 30 employees and $2 million in annual
revenues, I had to fill many roles at the company. The two most
important facets were: learning technologies that were new
to the company and turning them into formalized, repeatable processes;
and as business grew, training employees under my supervision or on
other teams to handle more responsibilities.
Leadership and communication
- Supervised technical employees handling system and network administration,
domain name registration, software installation and configuration,
and dedicated Internet connectivity installation and support.
- Directed software development projects, providing design guidelines,
supervision of developers, code review and integration
with the company's body of custom software.
- Represented company at trade shows, newspaper interviews
and formal presentations.
- Assisted with authoring Internet/intranet Web server content for
company promotion, software documentation and internal
process documentation.
- Developed and conducted regular series of Internet classes, including
an introductory Internet seminar and an introductory Web authoring
seminar.
- Developed and conducted internal training seminars on topics such
as domain name registration, TCP/IP addressing and routing,
and backbone routing with BGP4 and OSPF.
- CTM, 1997, Toastmasters.
Network engineering
- Maintained local Ethernet networks.
- Maintained large telephone-line rotaries for dial-up Internet access
including channelized T1s and ISDN PRIs.
- Maintained wide-area TCP/IP networks including routers,
modem servers, POTS, ISDN, 56Kbps, switched 56Kpbs,
fractional and full T1 lines, modems and CSU/DSUs.
- Managed IP address space and routing for dozens of Class C networks,
including static routing, RIP, OSPF, BGP4 across redundant
external connectivity, and SWIP assignment.
- Implemented OSPF in six-city network with multiple OSPF Areas,
on Cisco and Livingston routers, as well
as Unix-based routers running gated.
- Provided technical support for WAN connectivity customers,
including dedicated and bandwidth-on-demand.
- Attended intensive InterOp seminars in IPv6 and BGP4+OSPF.
- Extensive experience in the installation, configuration and
administration of networking hardware including
Cisco routers and modem servers,
Livingston modem/ISDN servers,
Xylogics Annex modem servers,
Ascend Max modem/ISDN servers,
Gandalf ISDN servers,
Adtran CSU/DSUs,
and various brands of modems.
- Member, 1994 - 1998, Internet Society.
System administration
- Operating systems: Unix, including BSDI's BSD/OS,
Sun Microsystem's SunOS, FreeBSD and Linux.
- Maintained dozens of Unix servers at company and customer sites stretching
from New Orleans, Louisiana, to Tallahassee, Florida.
- Installed and configured dedicated Internet/intranet servers for routing,
firewalling, e-mail, DNS and Web service.
- Managed Domain Name Service for hundreds of domains.
- Maintained dozens of virtual World Wide Web servers and assisted
with authoring content.
- Completed vendor training for administration of Trusted Information
Systems' Gauntlet firewall.
Software development
- Languages: wrote extensively in C, C++, Perl and Bourne/C shell scripting.
- Operating systems: Unix, primarily BSD/OS.
- Designed Web database application utilizing a suite of custom
Perl CGI scripts and DBM databases for a defense contractor;
capabilities included parts inventory searching and ordering,
user authentication and authorization, and forms-based site
administration; provided bulk of software development and
coordinated other project team members.
- Designed C++ network management library utilizing the C++ Standard Template
Library (STL) to provide a uniform
programming interface for handling various models of modem servers,
as well as many tools for network monitoring and modem usage data
reporting utilizing the library.
- Wrote generic and single-purpose CGI scripts for customer use.
- Wrote extensive HTML documentation for software.
