Here is my Resume

• My name is Kent Paul Dolan. I have been a computer programmer since 1961, and I have earned my living at computer programming since 1976. I'm a much better programmer than I am a resume writer, so please bear with me here.

Here are my Goals for a New Job

• I am looking for work doing software development as an individual contributor in a variety of possible slots, on a direct hire full time or indirect hire W2 basis.

• I've worked on the full software developement lifecycle, but prefer the slice from low level design through implementation to unit test and integration.

• I also thrive in a software maintenance setting.

• I would like best a job where I can learn a lot of new programming and application area skills on the job; doing the same old thing is boring.

• I would prefer to be treated as an experienced advisor on software process, even as a non-manager.

These are Skills I Already Have

• These are some Development Environments I Know and Love

• I strongly prefer some flavor of Unix, such as Sun Solaris, HP-UX, FreeBSD, SYSV, BSD, or the new-to-me Linux, but have also worked in MS-DOS, DEC VAX/VMS, IBM mainframe environments, DEC/PDP-11 and others.

• I've worked in Real Time Embedded environments in four different jobs, with pSOS targeting probably my most intense experience there.

• These are some Programming Languages I Know Well

• I would prefer a focus on C++ or Java, but also have heavy experience in C, Fortran77, Pascal, and Perl5.

• There are about twelve dozen programming languages I've learned and used in all, but those above are the ones of them most in demand today.

• I can script in most of the popular scripting languages for Unix, such as Perl5, Korn Shell, Bourne Shell, C Shell, AWK, and sed; and in a few scripting languages (batch, Procomm Command, Procomm Plus Aspect) for MS-DOS, and have no trouble learning new ones.

• These are some Programming Languages I Know Moderately Well

• I've put together a couple of projects using Perl/Tk.

• I've used Ada 83, wish/Tcl/Tk, HTML 1.0, SQL, SNMP, MIB-II, and ASN.1 recently enough to still have useful skills in each.

• I've just begun using Ada 95, and love it. I'm reading Norm Cohen's Ada as a Second Language Ada 95 textbook (which is excellent) to update and improve my Ada skills.

• Here are some Programming Domains I've Addressed

• As a programming hobby, I focus on brute force and heuristic solutions to the Traveling Salesman Problem, and have since 1983. Most recently, I've been restricting my approach to Artificial Intelligence methods such as Genetic Algorithms and Memetic Algorithms, and programming those approaches in Java.

  My largest such effort, about a million and a quarter bytes of Java source code, seems to be lost in a multi-pronged laptop computer failure, though when I can afford it, I'm going to try some data recovery services to see if the hard drive can be read. A version about 1/5th that size survives, but lots of the functionality of the larger version is apparently lost. Sigh. One of the problems with tens of gigabytes sized hard drives is that there isn't any practical way to do backups for the home user.

• In school, I programmed numerical analysis, neural networks, computer system modeling, Analysis of Variance, linear algebra, formal logic direct solutions using multivalue (greater than Boolean) truth table systems, toy operating systems, graph theory research support software, parsers and generators, and other more usual student fare.

• After school, I started out as a computer graphics programmer working on cartographic nautical chart map-making.

• I extended that to research support programming for oceanography and meteorology.

• I built the 3D graphics kernel for the OS of a dedicated CAD/CAM wireframe graphics computer system and display.

• I then carried my CAD/CAM experience to a shipyard and added CIM (computer integrated manufacturing) skills.

• I worked on Unix systems software, was a junior Unix sysadmin, and did support programming for oceanographic research data display while in graduate school.

• I did fancy typesetting software for a commercial presentation graphics product.

• I turned to practical meteorology forecasting workstation development and tropical cyclone database development for a few years.

• I was then involved in three different satellite telephony jobs, Globalstar, Iridium, and SATCOM.

• I was next working on an Internet Thin Server Platform project for connecting the small business enterprise to the internet, providing email, web presence, and a firewall between the small business LAN and the larger Internet WAN.

• Most recently, I worded at the data serving and storing internals of the world's largest online auction, eBay.

Here are some Strengths I Offer an Employer

• I've done all of individual, small team, and large team programming.

• I have university graduate computer science theory training, and am an undergraduate math major, so complex algorithms, data parsing, large system, and embedded or operating system work comes easily.

• I've done many years of computer graphics programming, pretty much topping out at moving 3D wireframe graphic systems internals work. My favorite was a paint program for preschoolers that I did for fun, though.

• I've done project planning and team leadership, but find it tedious compared to hands-on programming.

• I'm competent in Framemaker, Word Perfect, and Microsoft Word, for fancy documentation or other technical writing, but prefer better tools like TeX and LaTeX, or plainer documentation done using text editors like emacs and vim, or documentation in raw HTML, arguably the most useful form for documentation today.

• I've done planning using MS-Project.

• I've implemented systems using various small and large computer database tools.

• I've used CASE and software modelling tools like ADW, Rational Rose, and UML (training only so far in the latter).

These are the Skills I'm Teaching Myself Now

• I've recently read the Nutshell handbooks JAVA in a Nutshell, Web Client Programming with Perl, and Lex and Yacc.

• I've been practicing Java programming during my long spell of unemployment, and have written something approaching two megabytes of Java source code, all of it stand alone applications.

• I was reading for a while off and on John Ousterhout's book Tcl and the Tk Toolkit.

• I was reading off and on the 1300 page (what a thrill) Oracle8 The Complete Reference to learn Oracle, SQLPLUS, and PL/SQL (none very difficult, so far) to upgrade my existing SQL and database skills.

• I was reading off and on the gang-of-four's Design Patterns book, to upgrade my system architecting skills.

• I was for a while reading Norm Cohen's excellent Ada as a Second Language for Ada 95.

• Now, shifted over from MS-Windows to Linux, most of my casual reading is Debian Linux self-documentation.

This is the Stuff I'd Like to Learn in a New Job

• I'm interested in learning web programming at the human interface and database levels, putting Java and Oracle to practice, adding more network programming skills, and extending my SNMP programming experience, probably not all in the same job.

• After I get Oracle in hand, my next intention is to learn in practice the Universal Modeling Language, parts of which (Grady Booch's part) I've already used before they were unified; I've had a week of formal training in UML, but no chance to use it yet.

Do You Want Further Information?

• I have a more formal resume, and over 20 pages of detailed skills listings, for those into such stuff; just ask.

• My resume and jobsearch kit recently moved online; this and other documents are available at URL http://www.well.com/user/xanthian/resume.html

• My mixed, but mostly contract, programmer's work history looks like splatter painting, with lots of little pieces and lots of big gaps, but below are a few of the bigger jobs in minimal detail.

Here is my Work History

• I've been long term unemployed (several years), and have used that time to practice Java programming and Artificial Intelligence skills.

• I was last working as a direct hire at eBay, doing build scripting, wide span bug fixes in a tender base of existing C++/Solaris code, and occasionally write process improvement whitepapers to reduce my frustration levels.

• I worked directly on the IBM/Whistle Communications InterJet II and Web Connections projects, providing software for proprietary hardware run under FreeBSD to give a small business LAN a Thin Server Platform with email, firewall, and web presence/access between it and the Internet WAN.

• I contracted indirectly to Honeywell on an upgrade of SATCOM, an aircraft to satellite to ground cockpit and cabin phone system.

• I contracted indirectly to Motorola on IRIDIUM (R.I.P.), a satellite mediated cell phone system, doing SNMP agents for the groundstations and formal test and integration work for the whole system.

• I worked directly for Qualcomm on Globalstar, another satellite mediated cell phone system, doing planning, design, prototype programming, and simulations for satellite to satellite handoffs of ongoing phone calls.

• I contracted indirectly to the US Navy's Fleet Numerical Meteorological and Oceanographic Center, doing maintenance, development, and porting work on a tropical cyclone forecasters' automated assistant workstation, and data communications work and database work for worldwide transport and storage of its needed data.

• I contracted directly to Advanced Decision Systems to design a software METAFONT symbol clone of their corporate logo, for use in LaTeK as part of a letterhead also designed by me, to save them the expense and time of using preprinted letterhead paper, and also worked to clean up their TeK and LaTeK font file configurations and access mechanisms on their various Unix systems.

• I worked directly for Software Publishing Corporation on their Harvard Graphics 3.0 product for MS-DOS, mostly on typesetting text.

• I freelanced for an OEM, name forgotten, to implement and add arithmetic data compression capability to their network communications path for a PC clone product to emulate a fancy expensive Honeywell workstation product.

• I worked directly for Old Dominion University, and for one of its research affiliates, doing Unix systems administration and systems programming, doing oceanographic research 3D graphics and data base support programming, teaching introduction to computing classes for undergraduate liberal arts majors, and tutoring undergraduate and graduate computer science students.

• I freelanced for a county mental health agency, analysing and automating their billing and patient history records and training their clerical employes to use the new system.

• I worked directly for Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company as a CAD/CAM programmer, CIM Research graphics support programmer, job shop scheduling research programmer and vendor vetter, and mainframe conversion and software and data porting planner, mentor, and administrator.

• I worked directly for Vector Automation Incorporated putting embedded 3D graphics capabilities into their CAD/CAM workstation product's operating system.

• I worked directly for the US Department of Commerce, NOAA, doing hydrography; hydrographic data cleanup and data display programming; meteorlogical research "in the field, quick look" data cleanup and display programming and operator human interface programming and programming management; cartographic data validation programming and computer hardware acquisition; cartographic data selection and softcopy/hardcopy graphics display programming, hardware and software and database system requirements planning, specification, acquisition, technical development management, and software development; and computer graphics programming language development and international standardization. I also drove ships as a commissioned officer.

• I worked as a "reader", tutoring students and grading their homework and tests for an Ordinary Differential Equations class.

• I worked directly for the US Navy as a Polaris Missile Technician First Class, and Fleet Ballistic Missile Submarine crew member, doing missile handling, missile, launch equipment, and test equipment electronics hardware maintenance, planning, scheduling, and small team supervision.

• I worked as a manual laborer and forklift operator in the warehouse of a plastic toy company.

• I worked cleaning tourist cabins at Glacier Park's Swiftcurrent Motor Lodge.

Do You Want to Contact Me?

• I can best be contacted by email for most purposes except time critical ones; write me at xanthian_kpd@yahoo.com, which I check every day or three, or xanthian@well.com, my more permanent email address (since 1988), but harder for me to reach when I'm between jobs.

• [I have no current phone, but contacted via email, I can return calls by appointment to toll-free or collect-call numbers.]

• I receive surface mail as Kent Paul Dolan, 2 North Central Avenue, Suite 170, Box 234, Phoenix, AZ 85004.

Drop a line or call me if interested. Thanks.