Professional Summary

I’m a technology officer, architect and software engineer with over three decades of experience specializing in the design and construction of mission critical, high-performance parallel and distributed systems.

In addition to providing architectural guidance, software design engineering, and technology trending analysis to Fortune 500 companies, I spent six years at Microsoft Corporation. As a principal member the Distributed Systems Group working on Microsoft Windows Server, I designed and developed core algorithms used by the Microsoft Active Directory service and shipped Microsoft Windows 2000 Server.

After leaving Microsoft Corporation, I founded Six After where I focused on research and leading very specialized teams through strategic and high-profile engagements for Fortune 500 customers. My engagements paid particular attention to performance and scalability remediation of mission-critical and performance-sensitive workloads.

My current applied research topics include the design of algorithms in the areas of high-performance computing, adaptive autonomous agents for parallel and distributed systems, event streaming, behavioral and social sciences, and data science.

My classical areas of interest include cryptology (cryptography and cryptanalysis) and recreational mathematics.

Skills and Technology Summary

  • Extensive experience with designing and building parallel and distributed systems.
  • Extensive experience with containerizing workloads for Kubernetes in a variety of programming languages.
  • Extensive experience with migrating parallel and distributed systems from on-premises to public cloud environments.
  • Extensive experience with software supply chain security and related technologies.
  • Extensive experience with performance, scalability, long-duration, chaos, and stress testing preparation and analysis.
  • Extensive experience with Production and Site Reliability Engineering and related observability “stack” technologies.
  • Efficient in the Go, Java, Python, and bash (shell) programming languages.
  • Extensive experience with modeling and scalability and performance tuning of relational and non-relational storage technologies such as Apache Cassandra, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and CockroachDB.
  • Extensive experience with the implementation of software architecture patterns and anti-patterns for loosely-coupled parallel and distributed systems.
  • Extensive experience with architecture assessments and guidance, deployment planning, and operational maintenance lifecycle practices for mission-critical systems.
  • Extensive experience with application profiling, debugging, and optimization.
  • Extensive experience with PA-DSS, PCI-DSS, and EMV levels 1, 2, and 3 compliance.
  • Extensive experience with the Agile software development methodology.
  • Extensive experience with designing and building Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Deployment (CD), and Continuous Delivery (CDe) pipelines for mission-critical workloads.
  • Extensive experience with designing, developing and shipping commercial quality mobile applications on the Apple platforms.

Professional Experience

Engagements listed for generically-named clients, i.e. World Leading Insurance Company, were performed under Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) and the engagement description is based solely on publicly available statements.

Texas A&M University

  • Chief Architect, Digital Health
  • April 2022 - Present

Texas A&M University is dedicated to the discovery, development, communication, and application of knowledge in a wide range of academic and professional fields. Its mission of providing the highest quality undergraduate and graduate programs is inseparable from its mission of developing new understandings through research and creativity.

Responsibilities:

  • Design and deliver innovation and research for Digital Health platforms with specific focus on emergency, rural, and military environments.
  • Design and deliver a university-wide data analytics and insights platform for research.

Cubic Transportation Systems

  • Chief Technology Officer - Umo IQ, Chief Architect - Umo Platforms
  • February 2019 - December 2023

Cubic is the leading integrator of payment and information solutions and related services for intelligent travel applications in the transportation industry. We deliver integrated systems for transportation and traffic management, providing tools for travelers to choose the smartest and easiest way to travel and pay for their journeys, while enabling transportation authorities and agencies to manage demand across the entire transportation network – all in real-time.

Responsibilities:

  • Technical design and construction of the multi-tenant, Software-as-a Service (SaaS) Umo platform portfolio to meet the demand of a global market.
  • Health and business continuity for all Umo-branded SaaS platforms globally.
  • Compliance with Information Security Management System (ISMS) and PCI standards
  • Responsible for vulnerability incident response.
  • Form, design, and lead architecture, software, and Production Engineering and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) teams to deliver mission-critical, internet-scale, multi-tenant SaaS platforms globally in support of Cubic’s overall portfolio direction.
  • Responsible for leading the Umo IQ organizational and technological transformation globally so we are better positioned to compete.
  • Responsible for designing and leading the Technology pillars across production engineering, solution engineering, enterprise architecture, and systems operations to ensure alignment with business directives.
  • Responsible for the profit and loss of the business unit.

BBVA Compass

  • Principal Architect
  • September 2018 - February 2019

BBVA Compass is a global bank and ranks among the top 25 largest U.S. commercial banks based on deposit market share.

Responsibilities:

  • Form, design, and lead a software engineering team focused on CIO-directed strategic initiatives.
  • Migrate and modernize on-premise hosted mission-critical and customer-facing workloads to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Platform as a Service (PasS) and container technologies.
  • Function as team lead, principal software engineer, and contributing member of the core software engineering team in the design and construction of a Continuous Delivery (CDe) pipeline used by mission-critical workloads.
  • Establish an Enterprise Architecture Program and governance structure.

Vix Technology

  • Global Head of Engineering and Architecture, Chief Architect
  • February 2016 - August 2018

Vix Technology delivers Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) automated fare collection (AFC) and payment systems for transportation authorities around the world. Our technology enables over 220 transit authorities and operators globally.

Responsibilities:

  • Manage business units globally across software engineering, hardware engineering, and enterprise architecture disciplines.
  • Principal software engineer and contributing member of the core software engineering team.
  • Develop, design, code, and test software solutions by studying information needs, conferring with users, studying systems flow, work processes, and investigating problems areas following a regimented software development life cycle.
  • Form, design, and lead our core product software and hardware engineering teams.
  • Determine operational feasibility by evaluating analysis, problem definition, requirements, solution development, and effective solution strategy and make improvements.
  • Designed and delivered Vix’s strategic transit platform, Vix Pulse—a high-performance, secure, reliable, and highly available * Automated Fare Collection (AFC) and open payments platform. The initial product offering shipped in 2018 to customers globally.
  • Chair of Enterprise Architecture Program delivering the design and implementation of company-wide next-generation Enterprise Architecture (EA).
  • Co-Chaired Vix Cybersecurity Council delivering enterprise-wide Information Security Management System (ISMS) and ISO 27001 compliance.
  • Design and deliver full DevOps automation for Vix Pulse operational environments. See my BUSRide magazine interview
  • Ensure the successful delivery of Americas Customer Projects, building a sustainable System Integration (SI) engineering and DevOps team to operate, support, and maintain the delivered solution.

ipvive

  • Chief Technology Officer, Chief Architect
  • October 2013 - February 2016

Ipvive’s Emotionally Intelligent Operating System (ei-OS) adds automatic summarization and association with guided learning through novel deep machine learning algorithms to uniquely understand people (emotional + rationale) and deepen relationships, instantly.

Responsibilities:

  • Principal software engineer and contributing member of the core software engineering team.
  • Design and implement core engineering discipline for the core technology in collaboration with our core research team.
  • Co-authored patent: System and Method for Layered, Vector Cluster Pattern with Trim (LVCPT).

Capax Global

  • Principal Architect, Principal Software Engineer
  • November 2007 – April 2015

Capax Global is a leading professional services firm.

Responsibilities:

  • Lead and function as a principal contributing member of highly specialized technical teams through strategic and high-profile engagements for Fortune 500 customers with particular attention to performance and scalability remediation of troubled systems.

Notable customer engagements:

  • Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia: Successfully architected and advised on analytics streaming solution receiving industrial control systems data from thousands of pumping stations in the Persian Gulf.
  • Christie’s, London, New York, Hong Kong: Successfully lead, architected, and implemented the reengineering effort of Christie’s mission-critical auction platform.
  • JP Morgan Chase, New York, London: Successfully lead, architected, and implemented the reengineering effort of JP Morgan Chase’s property management and accounting platform.
  • Crane & Co., Massachusetts: Successfully led, architected, and implemented the reengineering effort of the retail website for Crane & Co (http://crane.com).
  • Deloitte, Chicago, IL: Successfully led, architected, and implemented Deloitte’s critical entity search and compliance system, which is used globally. Led a multi-year performance and scalability effort to remediate several mission-critical systems.

Renkara Media Group

  • Principal Architect, Principal Software Engineer
  • August 2008 – August 2010

Renkara Media Group was one of the very few vendors to offer applications in the Apple App Store on opening day. Renkara has delivered over 450 well-received applications, including the AccelaStudy line of language education products that surpassed 12 million customers worldwide.

Responsibilities:

  • Design and deliver mobile applications focused on the educational market.

Six After, Inc

  • Founder
  • October 2005 – Present

Six After is a professional services firm that focuses on parallel and distributed systems research, design, and construction.

Responsibilities:

  • Theoretical and applied research for the design of algorithms in the areas of high-performance computing (HPC), deep machine learning, event stream processing, and adaptive autonomous agents for parallel and distributed systems.

JPMorgan Chase

  • Principal Architect, Principal Software Engineer
  • January 2003 – October 2005

J.P. Morgan is a global leader in financial services, offering solutions to the world’s most important corporations, governments, and institutions in more than 100 countries.

Responsibilities:

  • Design and develop a business-to-business secure, scalable, and reliable parallel and distributed system for the dynamic allocation of single-use credit account numbers.

Ixio Corporation

  • Principal Architect, Principal Software Engineer
  • June 2000 – January 2003

Responsibilities:

  • Principal software engineer and contributing member of the core software engineering team.
  • Analyze technology trends and define technology strategy.
  • Design and develop loosely coupled, secure, scalable, and fault tolerant distributed systems for the legal market.
  • Led architectural and engineering teams for all phases of the product lifecycle.
  • Design and develop the abstract durable storage model to ensure flexible and efficient storage of system metadata and application domain data.
  • Ensure efficient resource utilization and correct migration of all software systems to achieve scalability targets.
  • Ensure the successful product acceptance in Japan. The two-year engineering effort successfully launched in Tokyo and was a combined effort requiring engineering from Nippon Telephone and Telegraph (NTT-DoCoMo), Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei), and Hewlett Packard of Japan.
  • Implement mathematical models to ensure sufficient hardware resourcing to support production and disaster recovery traffic volumes.
  • Establish technology and industry association relationships with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C), and Microsoft Corporation.

Microsoft Corporation

  • Program Manager Distributed System, Software Engineer
  • July 1995 – June 2000

Microsoft Corporation is a global technology company that develops, licenses, and supports software, services, devices, and solutions, known for its flagship products like Windows, Office, and Azure cloud services.

Responsibilities:

  • Shipped Microsoft Windows Server 2000 and the Microsoft Active Directory Service.
  • Design and implement core areas of the Microsoft Active Directory Service including, multi-master replication, propagation dampening, back-sync detection, leader election, automatic topology generation, distributed resource allocation, consensus, and conflict resolution algorithms.
  • Represented Microsoft in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in the Common Authentication Technology group for the Kerberos Network Authentication and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI).
  • Responsible for security integration between the Microsoft Active Directory Service and line-of-business systems; specifically, in the area of the Kerberos Network Authentication protocol, cryptography, durable storage schema, and the Security Support Provider Interface (SSPI).
  • Research and development of distributed transaction-processing algorithms targeted for global snapshot and distributed lock management.
  • Identify technology trends across Microsoft product groups and recommend and coordinate inter-product consolidation efforts.
  • Design and develop directory-enabled application frameworks.