Dr



Dr. Bradley P Lehman

Creative and diligent teammate for hire…

(either within 30 miles of Dayton VA 22821, or full-time telecommuting)

17 years professional experience designing and building business and public service applications, including 9 in IVR: VUI designer (Voice User Interface), Visio and database-driven call flows, voice dialogue design, Web applications and modeling, EPOS Firstline Encore and ScriptExpress (IVR tools equivalent to Avaya Dialog Designer or Nortel/Periphonics MPS: Media Processing Server Developer), Nuance speech recognition, voice talent coaching, Audacity. Other background skills aiding IVR design: SQL Server 2000/2005 database integration and design, PL/SQL stored procedures, Oracle, XML, HTML, CSS, ASP (Active Server Pages), JavaScript, data conversions, web development, copy editing, documentation, typing 100 wpm. Harpsichord performance, organ, clavichord, piano, classical recording production, music arrangement and editing, composition, basso continuo improvisation, tuning harpsichords by ear. Conversational proficiency in Spanish and German, and able to read French. Learned some C# and 2.0 in February-April 2008.

This résumé is current as of 14 May 2008.

Also available with project samples:



Objective

Role: Programmer/analyst position designing and developing customer applications, preferably IVR. I do call-flow analysis for interactive self-service and administrative systems. My projects often include customized databases.

I design and build automated phone systems to ask clear, courteous, short questions. The users find them natural and intuitive, like conversation. The systems accomplish important tasks quickly. A caller must not get confused, or stuck in frustratingly worded choices!

My major projects 2000-2008 have been for large corporations, state and local governments, and universities. The user interface is typically telephone touchtone (IVR), speech recognition (VUI), and/or web-based. Communication is typically with a business layer of SQL Server stored procedures and tables, XML web services, or with a legacy mainframe host.

Location: My residence is in Dayton Virginia, about 125 miles from either Washington DC or Richmond. I prefer a mostly-telecommuting arrangement from an office in my house, if possible. This has worked very well full-time from 1999-2008, with internet and phone connections. Daily commuting to Bridgewater, Harrisonburg, or Staunton is also OK. Charlottesville, Winchester, or further are possible once a week, if most of the work can be prepared from home.

Occasional team meetings in a larger office, or business trips to client sites, are fine at milestones in a project and to promote collaborative effort. Travel time should be less than 10% of any typical day or week. I do not waste unnecessary time, money, or gasoline simply moving my body around. Most of the work could already be finished on a computer connection or with telecommunications!

Family time with my wife and two small children is also a very high priority, when off-duty from job hours...and they keep me asking clear questions.

Contact, references, salary requirement: 540-879-3576 (home), bpl@umich.edu

Experience

• Senior Programmer/Analyst: application research and development. Tier Technologies Inc., Auburn AL and Reston VA: 2004-January 2008 layoff (see below for project details). I designed and developed interactive web, IVR, speech-recognition/VUI, FAX, and modem-based systems on various platforms. This included database designs (SQL Server 2000 and 2005), conversions, stored procedures, and implementation.

• Senior Programmer/Analyst: application research and development. EPOS Corp., Auburn AL: 1999-2004...merged into Tier, 2004. I designed and developed interactive web, IVR, speech/VUI, FAX, and modem-based systems mostly on Firstline Encore, and with SQL Server 2000 and Access databases.

• Software architect, researcher, and developer: interactive Web product line, Touch-tone telephone (IVR) products. CMDS Inc., Harrisonburg VA: August 1996-1999. I developed self-service student registration and inquiries, including a public course catalog, generated dynamically from a client/server environment.

• Corporate Webmaster for external site and intranet: content management, design, style standards. CMDS Inc., August 1996-1997.

• Web site consultant and web-author trainer: interim summer positions. Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg VA: June-August 1996 and summer 1999. This included the design of their public Event Calendar database and functions.

• Applications programmer/analyst I. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor MI: summer 1993-June 1996. I developed Oracle RDBMS applications and data warehousing using SQL*Plus, Oracle Forms, Oracle Reports, and Andyne GQL.

• Research assistant. Stearns Collection of Musical Instruments, University of Michigan: September 1990-August 1992. I catalogued musical instruments with dBase IV DBMS; organized tours and instrument displays.

• (Freelance, scarcely paid) I compiled a complete concordance of the words in a hymnal: summer 1992. This concordance is available from Mennonite Publishing House as both a book and a software package. The files and applications were developed with Turbo Pascal 5.0, for DOS and Windows.

• (Freelance, unpaid) I designed the algorithms of a skill-rating system for bridge players: summer 1993, “Lehman Ratings” currently in use worldwide by the OKBridge company.

• Applications programmer/analyst. Goshen College, Goshen IN: May 1986-August 1989. Designing, programming, and supporting Oracle RDBMS applications on a VAX system: I was lead developer of relational data models, conversions, and all user applications for the administrative offices of Admissions, Housing, Alumni Relations, Registrar, Accounting, and telephone billing.

Principles of effective work – personal mission statement

While my technical skills are fine and always changing, I prefer to emphasize my effective principles. I have been required to learn new toolkits, business procedures, and connectivity in almost every project, developing innovative cross-tool solutions. In many of these I interfaced new and old systems: doing data conversions and closely analyzing the business rules on both sides, to build improvements into either the databases or the user interfaces.

With training, examples, and an opportunity for on-the-job real world use, I pick up new environments and tools quickly to be able to build solutions in them. I thrive on flexibility, pattern insights, modification of in-progress models, and team cooperation with different skill sets. My principles include:

|Carefully elicit what the customer really needs, |As with a bridge game, or accompanying music on |Be able to communicate the system, and understand |

|from the untrained user's perspective. |keyboard: success comes as much by being a |the problem, at all levels of detail...or none. |

|Design a business process and user interface to |capable, reliable, communicative, nurturing, |Without being patronizing, an effective end-user |

|serve that need in the most natural, intuitive, |flexible partner as by raw skill. |solution should be mostly graspable by a child: |

|and flexible way while remaining cost-effective. |Train the client to understand and troubleshoot |elegant, attractive, and transparent. Don't create|

|Learn new systems quickly, and be able to see it |most of their own product intelligently, since |unnecessary problems that make the user |

|somebody else's way to understand what they're |they own it. |apprehensive or confused. |

|asking for. |Test the system thoroughly and proactively during |Being able to get to something resourcefully is |

|Catalyze the best work from colleagues; lots of |all stages of development; expect the unexpected, |almost as important as knowing it ahead of time. |

|people already have good ideas, or can be |and ask all the silly but plausible questions. |To get a task done well, focus on nurturing talent|

|convinced to develop them. |Excellent work sells itself by example and by |and understanding. |

|Work diligently, accurately, intelligently, and |clear presentation, not by hype. |There are at least three workable solutions to |

|creatively...giving plenty of time to prototyping |If something goes badly, acknowledge it politely |most problems; find five, and know how to get to a|

|and revision processes. |once and move on; if something goes well, |best one with the available resources and |

|Build and use reusable parts from similar |acknowledge it politely once and move on. |requirements. |

|projects, wherever practical: examples that have |Somebody is always going to know better; let them.|Interdisciplinary perspective into a concept is |

|already been successfully tested. | |valuable; recognize appropriate patterns wherever |

| | |they exist. |

My professional accomplishments – highlights since 2000

• Designed and developed two current VUI/IVR (speech recognition telephony) applications for the state government of Illinois: childcare support (2003) and food stamps renewals (2006-7).

• Designed and developed the current web-based system for Dean Foods to restock its products weekly in more than 1000 supermarkets.

• Designed and developed the current delivery-tracking IVR system for Nestle Waters delivery in North America.

• Developed the current IVR system to administer Medicaid inquiries in the state of Utah. (Unfortunately, since it was turned over to their own staff's maintenance, some of the phrase recordings apparently got truncated, corrupted, and resequenced...making those selections unintelligible. I've reported the problem and they're working on it.)

• Music: I discovered Bach's special harpsichord-tuning method, wrote a major scholarly paper about this research (published 2005), produced three CDs, did university guest lectures, and created a web site () to promote these resources worldwide.

• Developed and maintained parts of the current IVR systems for state government administration of unemployment benefits: Colorado, Virginia, Arkansas, and Vermont.

• Developed a web-based application and maintained IVR systems that provide course registration functions to colleges and universities (each interfaced with Datatel's "Colleague" software).

• Developed standardized auxiliary features (web, fax, e-mail, message queueing, and transaction inquiry) for the proprietary product line "FirstLine Encore" (principally an IVR implementation platform).

• Supported and customized parts of the HR systems for Tier, Footstar, Walt Disney World, and several other clients.

• Music: I played more than a dozen harpsichord and organ concerts as a soloist and ensemble player. Most recently (19 February 2008) I collaborated with three other musicians to perform concerts and record a CD from Thomas Jefferson's sheet music collection at Monticello.

• Gave SQL database development assistance to other teammates on their projects.

• Eight years of scripting, testing, and troubleshooting applications in the proprietary scripting language of EPOS and Tier (FirstLine Encore, ScriptExpress/ScriptWrite), with various host and database connections.

• I always have a strong concern for the easy usability of end-user interfaces. A finished system must be elegant and intuitively obvious.

• Several Nuance voice-design classes in 2005 helped to convince me that voice prompting is a good focus for me. So have several books on the subject of cognitive psychology in speech applications. It is a fascinating challenge. I enjoy designing sequences of words that will be clear to senior citizens, non-native English speakers, non-computer users, children, and any distressed or distracted adult callers. I read children's books aloud to my own children every night, paying attention to vocabulary and sentence structures. A good VUI/IVR design must consider these things. Every word needs a reason.

• One of my 10-minute videos demonstrates my harpsichord-tuning principles with the simplest possible captions and the fewest words. I have boiled down the gist of my 50-page academic paper to this short film.

My programming history and style

Old languages and SQL

I have been doing SQL database programming, hands-on coding of queries and procedures, since 1986. One of my work-study jobs as a college student was as a data-entry clerk of information about prospective students and applicants. That was into an antiquated file-based system with simple (but poorly designed) entry screens and BASIC batch processing. At graduation they hired me as one of a two-man team to convert that spotty mess into a better-designed relational system using Oracle 3, doing the data modeling to match the desired business processes, and redoing all the reporting, batches, and entry screens. We spent three years (1986-9) carefully rewriting the entire administrative system for the college. I had already done quite a bit of BASIC programming through high school (1978-82) and college (82-86), and I took PASCAL courses during my job, for further professional development.

Overlapping the end of my graduate work in music, from 1993-6 I went back to SQL programming again to pay the bills. This was in an Oracle environment moving toward client/server applications and data warehousing: large data sets refreshed daily from mainframes into relational tables for reporting and decision-making purposes. I worked on graphical querying environments for the users, did some data-entry screens for stand-alone Oracle projects, and met several times a month as a member of the DBA and power developers' groups to discuss designs and optimizations. We built some fairly complex views and calculations to reorganize data, drilling down by different levels of abstraction. Those strategies and programming optimizations (indexing, use of EXISTS clauses instead of IN clauses, efficient normalization, etc.) continue to be useful even when the flashy add-ons around the SQL layer are perpetually changing in Oracle's, Microsoft's, and other competing packages.

Into the web

When HTML and the web started to blossom in 1994, I began to work in that as well, developing many static web sites. I moved to Virginia in 1996 to marry my wife, and took a job as a web applications programmer. I developed database-driven (SQL Server) systems for university/college administration, again using my previous content experience in that area. In autumn 1998 we took one semester off and led a university trip to Ireland. Part of my job there was to write, edit, and post the group's blog for the students' families and friends back home (and done with direct HTML coding and FTP uploads, since this was long before any blogging or wiki tools). Upon returning to my programming job, I was assigned to upgrade the touchtone telephone application for university course registration. I discovered that I especially enjoyed the challenges of that environment.

Web into telephony

In 1999 I moved on to a job that would allow me to continue developing touchtone telephone projects and interactive web systems. The web projects at first were in a proprietary environment, and then we switched to use classic ASP (Active Server Pages) for better standardization. I developed the standard models for other programmers on the team to use, with reusable bits of JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheets, and functions for other repetitive web programming tasks. It is much easier to copy and then change a tested and working model, than to restart every project from scratch. I built the standard FAXing components for the company's core product, and a standard (resellable) web interface for another core product that did wholesale-order transmissions.

The telephony projects were in a proprietary scripting language called ScriptWrite. It was a powerful and typical programming language with buffers, stacks, subroutines, operators, conditionals, loops, and functions around the telephony commands such as DIAL, ANSWER, SPEAK, or INPUT. We also had a GUI and object-oriented environment called ScriptExpress to generate, document, and debug ScriptWrite code. It did very well at abstracting repetitive code blocks into reusable packaged components, and a well-organized system of resource files. The graphical interface could be printed out itself as part of the documentation of call flows.

Because of the interactive and unpredictable nature of telephony applications, many objects and commands had error branches and configurable behaviors for timeouts, busy signals, invalid response, dropped transfer, network unresponsiveness, etc. The telephony commands themselves required close control of pauses and continuations in the output, the reuse of carefully-worded phrase recordings, and the design of intuitively-clear user interfaces (asking the right types of questions the first time so the caller won't be confused or frustrated). As an expert harpsichordist (where control of timing and delivery is "everything"), I especially enjoy handling these types of timing issues in communication. That contributes to my skill at IVR design, development, and testing. I am much more interested in the user perspective toward the system than the nuts-and-bolts technology at the wires and switches. I love to build things in which the timing has to be just right, and in which all the odd exceptions get handled and tested properly for reasonable behavior. Badly-designed telephony user interfaces (other people's!) annoy me as a customer, because I know how to do them correctly.

The business of all these areas, integrated

I quickly attained a senior level of expertise in coding and debugging telephony applications in both ScriptExpress and ScriptWrite, writing new projects or upgrading old ones. We moved gradually into Nuance speech recognition alongside the touchtone functions. I was one of several programmers given the most complicated projects and most delicate business relationships with the clients, because of ability to deliver carefully planned and well-documented work. Many of my projects continued to use and refine my SQL skills: making data-driven IVR applications, storage and reporting environments, and building the DTS/SSIS layers to import and export data to other host formats. Most of that was in SQL Server 2000, plus a SQL Server 2005 project in 2007.

I continued to build web-based utilities as administrative parts of these IVR and speech recognition projects. I learned XML and XSL formatting well enough to accomplish assigned tasks: delivering working systems and documentation. My managers also gave me copy-editing tasks on technical documents, and the writing of project estimates for the sales staff. Often I was the one called in by managers and teammates to look at troublesome systems (whether during development or in go-live emergency), and find the elusive bug in design or code, because of my knack of quickly grasping structures and noticing any anomalies. I was also the one tasked with testing other people's Spanish or bilingual applications, and finding where a wrong question or ambiguously-worded phrase was causing user errors.

My steps away from technical orientation, and toward other business value

Some of my team-oriented skills come in through my wife's expertise: she directs an academic department and teaches university courses in conflict resolution and peace studies. Everyone's needs must be respected and served, and in some way that is mutually beneficial to all parties. People state their requirements in different manners, or sometimes fail to state them well; someone has to figure out what is really needed, all around. That has always been one of my own programming skills, too: taking a step out to the big picture to be sure a business process really makes sense, beyond supplying the technical functions that were asked for.

In 2004 and following, in spare time, I have continued a part-time career with music performances and a major academic research paper (published by Oxford University Press in 2005)...and have maintained a web site () to organize and publicize that work. My music work is and has always been more "right-brained" than "left-brained", and I thrive on the conceptual level of projects. I love to build things, try them out, to experiment with different parameters in them, to get to the essence of an idea in best balance. My best computer projects are like that, too: refine the system until its quality is clear and obvious, and until it can meet untrained users where they are.

All of this creative business gradually took me away from the classic computer programming languages, and the newer emerging languages (C, C++, Visual Basic, C#, .NET, AJAX/JavaScript, et al), from simple lack of opportunity to use them day-to-day. We had "much bigger fish to fry" than such a basic level of coding. However, it did give me excellent experience dealing with client requirements, prohibitively difficult security systems (working as a developer/vendor without access to the client's machines!), complicated business rules, basic SQL Server administration, speech recognition glitches, usability, VPN connectivity, and the perpetual need for clear documentation. I am always careful to document all my code changes at several levels (line, object, flowcharts, manuals) to make the business processes clear, and to give a clear versioning trail for myself or other programmers revisiting the project in support.

My best value as a creative programmer/analyst comes from this business experience of integrating disparate parts of projects, extensive testing with clients, clarity of requirements, and the ability to help colleagues do their jobs in support. With wide exposure to different systems I see patterns and concepts. Things I learn in playing music, playing bridge, and playing with my young children inform the way I approach my business as a thoughtful computer programmer.

The present

In January 2008 we had a round of involuntary layoffs, and my department and I were phased out as the parent company was taking its core business in other directions instead of IVR development/support.

I am seeking similar opportunities to continue my expertise, designing/building and testing important systems. If it is IVR, perhaps it would be with a tool like Nortel/Periphonics "MPS Developer", or Avaya's "Dialog Designer"; I believe my application development and troubleshooting skills will transfer quickly to similar environments. Train me! My "dream job" at this point would get me back into direct design and development of touchtone applications (at a conceptual/user level, not the boring technical stuff!). It is a well-tested technology that everyone has on classic and cell phones: systems whose input is a 12-key pad of intelligible choices, and with audio output (carefully organized sound, like music). If not IVR, perhaps my career is moving again into web-based technologies, or database middle layers, or visual interfaces for the very small screens of cell phones. I love to build well-designed menus that get an important job done efficiently.

Independently during the search for a job I am acquiring at least some familiarity and up-to-date experience with 2.0, C#, CSS, XML, the newer SQL Server 2005/2008 components, AJAX, Visual Basic, Ruby, PHP, and newer versions of Oracle. It all ties into things I already know, and merely has differences of syntax here and there. I learn quickly through hands-on examples and old-fashioned books. I am doing some temporary part-time consulting work in classic ASP and SQL Server 2000. Another academic music-history paper is in progress, related to the organ accompaniment in Bach's cantatas.

I am much more impressed by well-thought-out and accurate content than by flash and splash. (As the 18th century composer Francois Couperin put it, "I am more pleased by that which moves me than by that which astonishes me.") Automated systems need to work well on "have-not" low bandwidth, on primitive phones/browsers, and for non-technical users. I need a full-time permanent employer who will make good use of me as an insightful generalist: strong in problem-solving and quick adaptation, and clear with client requirements and relationships.

Tools used – technical skills

• Platforms: DOS 3+, VAX VMS, UNIX, Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Windows NT 4 Workstation/Server, Windows 98, Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2003 Server, XP Professional, Vista.

• Databases: ORACLE 3.x on VMS and 6.x-8.x on UNIX and Windows, MS SQL Server 6.x, SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005, MS Access, dBase IV; client/server architecture; native SQL app development in stored procedures, with occasional shell commands for multiple file processing. Data Transformation Services (DTS) for SQL Server 2000, and SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) for 2005.

• Communications and team tools: FTP, FTP over SSL, Telnet, MS Exchange, MS Outlook, MS Outlook Express, Eudora, pine, Thunderbird, AOL, MS Schedule+, MS Team Manager, MS Visual SourceSafe, TeamTrack, PVCS Tracker, Symantec PCAnywhere 8.x-10.x, Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), RealVNC, Cisco Systems VPN, Microsoft VPN.

• Computer languages: BASIC, Turbo Pascal 5.0, HTML 3.2+ and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) standards, XML, JavaScript, VBScript, Active Server Pages (ASP), Andyne GQL, Netscape LiveWire, S-Designor/PowerDesigner AppModeler 6.x, ObjectCycle, CCS ScriptExpress/ScriptWrite (proprietary application-development language for telephony systems development: EPOS/Tier). Dialog design for Nuance speech-recognition systems, and for text-to-speech packages.

• Other language proficiency and development systems: English fluent; Spanish, German, French conversational and reading. Technical and non-technical writing, music composition, arranging, harpsichord tuning, musicological research, harpsichord and organ performance, classical-music recording production.

• Desktop tools: MS Office, MS Visio, Web Media Publisher Pro, Allaire HomeSite, NoteTab Pro (my preferred plain-text editor), TopStyle, , MS FrontPage, vi, other system editors, direct HTML coding with text editors. PhotoShop, LView Pro; Finale 2000 (music notation).

• Web servers: Netscape Enterprise Server, MS Internet Information Server (IIS 5.0 – 7.0), HitList, ListServ.

• Web browsers, developing/testing applications: MS Internet Explorer 3.x-7.x, FireFox 1.x-3.0, Opera 4.x-9.x, Netscape Navigator 2.x-9.x, lynx. Brief use of Safari.

• Telephony and speech design: CCS/EPOS FirstLine Encore 6.1-7.6, WebEncore, Nuance grammars and architecture for speech recognition, RealSpeak text-to-speech engines, ProVoice (editing phrase recordings), TTY systems. Audacity audio-editing software. Familiarity with administrative interface of Interactive Intelligence's CIC/I3 systems for call centers. Modeling of speech/VUI/IVR dialog flow using sets of interactive web pages, and design inside a database to generate the specifications and revisions.

Projects for EPOS Corp. and Tier Technologies Inc., 1999-2008

Recent/largest projects

• Was lead developer and VUI designer for two speech-recognition IVR applications for the Illinois state government. The first (2003-5) collects the monthly attendance records for state-reimbursed providers of childcare. The second (2006-7) conducts a ten-minute interview of welfare recipients as the semiannual renewal of their food stamp benefits. Both of these store the caller's responses to SQL Server databases and then transmit them to a host system. The caller goes through several menus of an Interactive Intelligence CIC layer first, and is then transferred to Firstline Encore applications.

• Designed and developed the SQL database (tables, functions, file loading with time zone offset calculations) for nationwide shipping of Nestle Waters products. Truck drivers report to this time-sensitive system upon delivery, using an IVR interface. Delinquent loads generate automated calls and e-mail messages to dispatchers. The system is expanding in 2008 to serve their Purina divisions as well.

• Developed and supported the daily table-loading processes (SSIS to SQL Server 2005, with FTP across SSL) for a Vermont Department of Labor application.

• Designed and developed a web-based system (ASP and SQL Server 2000) for Dean Foods to collect wholesale orders from more than 1000 stores. Store managers request products or adjust shipments using this, three times per week.

• Designed and developed methods of archiving voice recordings, and presenting them on administrative web pages (SQL Server 2000 + ASP), for an unemployment renewal system for the Virginia Employment Commission. For the VEC projects I also coordinated some of the load testing for their CIC-based call center, generating test call loads from three Firstline Encore IVR machines.

• Converted an IVR system for the Arkansas Employment and Securities Division to use SQL Server, from a previous version using Microsoft's Jet databases. This application administers weekly interviews of unemployed residents, submitting their job-search status. Was also the lead developer on later enhancements to this system.

• Developed a suite of IVR applications for the State of Utah, in the administration of their Medicaid and related services. (Unfortunately, since it was turned over to their own staff's maintenance, some of the phrase recordings apparently got truncated, corrupted, and resequenced...making those selections unintelligible. I've reported the problem and they're working on it.)

• Wrote product enhancement estimates/quotes, copy-edited requirement documents, and assisted with testing of dozens of other projects for members of a development team.

Older/smaller projects

• Developed WebStudent package: coding and documentation. Uses WebEncore and Encore 6.2 to generate a dynamic web site from Datatel Corp's "Colleague" administrative software for universities and colleges, through the TREG.HOST interface. Student registration, grade inquiry, credit card payment of account balance, course search. Also assisted with touch-screen kiosk version of the same. Was the lead developer for maintenance, support, and customizations on the IVR version of this interface.

• Developed tutorial and sample application for WebEncore 7.x and ScriptExpress 7.x. Interactive "textbook" and shell for creating new web applications with a standardized EPOS design. Included in-depth research into HTML and Cascading Style Sheet standards: to make the resulting web apps accessible to as many browsers and devices as possible, and to allow them to be reconfigured easily whenever a new "look and feel" is desired.

• Developed FirstOrder Web Inquiry package: coding, documentation. Uses Encore 7.0+, WebEncore, and FirstOrder (order transmission package for retailers and wholesalers). Allows users to verify their order transmissions using the web, after submitting the data stream via a hand-held telephony device or a modem.

• Developed the packaged scripts and utilities for Encore 7.1+ fax functionality. Outgoing "Standard Fax" requests can be queued into a local database and sent/retried according to a schedule: generated from any type of Encore script, whether phone line, web, batch, or monitor. "Custom Fax" transmissions can also be sent directly from phone line scripts.

• Developed test scripts for Encore 7.1 internal queueing (messaging) feature.

• Assisted with quality assurance testing of ScriptExpress 7.1 development environment.

• Developed an informal method to load-test WebEncore applications using scripted requests from a lynx browser.

• Assisted with development and customizations of web "HRSelect" package: web interface allowing employees to elect and review their benefits. The clients of this product are large corporations and governments.

• Technical support for an IVR HR package (custom-written for Alltel) using an Oracle database, FirstQuery, and Encore 6.2. Debugging, upgrades, documentation. Developed improved methods of keeping ODBC connections alive, and automatically reconnecting them if they are interrupted. Developed, installed, and documented a new monitoring and "keep-alive" utility as part of this strategy.

• Developed ASAP EDI package (American Society for Automation in Pharmacy, Electronic Data Interchange): all coding and documentation, from ASAP's Sept 1998 spec. Uses Encore 7.0+ and FirstOrder. Allows a pharmacy wholesaler to receive electronic orders from clients via a modem: effectively a system for exchanging data files and testing their format before copying them into the standard FirstOrder files. Incidentally it also allows FirstOrder test "calls" to be generated without using the typically required dedicated hand-held device...can be used as a testing utility for other FirstOrder projects.

• Developed method and application to replicate FirstOrder orders to a mirror system in real time. It is a fail-safe system for a customer using two FirstOrder 7.1 systems: if one goes down temporarily, the other can continue to process the orders that were replicated before the outage.

• Developed phone line and monitor scripts for a state unemployment agency (Colorado): coded to a teammate's spec. The application uses three Encore 7.1 IVR systems in tandem with a database and file server. The system telephones clients according to a scheduling database, notifying them of job opportunities and events, and conducting automated surveys. The requests are handled by a SQL Server 2000 database, and a complex set of business rules (from state and federal laws) to determine which clients are to be notified first.

• Developed a method to update a SQL Server 2000 database using a monitor script and internal Encore 7.1+ message queues. This application tracks usage statistics for several government assistance programs in Illinois.

• Sent as a consultant to build the prototype of a Verizon call center application, for a company in Texas.

• Did maintenance and customizations of an IVR system for Walt Disney World, for Disney employees to review their time sheets over the telephone.

• Designed and developed a generic e-mail interface that can be deployed within any other FirstLine Encore project, sending messages through a POP server at designated events.

• Did maintenance and customizations of a FAX-generation system for the city of Virginia Beach, VA. It submits building permits to government agencies.

• Assisted the government of Fairfax County VA with tax-collecting IVR applications interfaced with web services.

• Developed the company-internal system to extract employee benefit update files and transmit them to insurance companies, several using PGP key encryption.

• Other small research, consultation, and technical support projects as needed.

Education

• A.Mus.D. (Doctor of Musical Arts), 1994, University of Michigan, Rackham School of Graduate Studies; harpsichord

• A.M., 1992, University of Michigan, Rackham School of Graduate Studies; musicology

• M.M., 1992, University of Michigan School of Music, Ann Arbor MI; early keyboard instruments

• B.A., 1986, Goshen College, Goshen IN; majors: music, mathematics; minor: church music

Publications and public activities

• Research article "Bach's extraordinary temperament: our Rosetta Stone", in Early Music (Oxford University Press) February-May 2005. See for this article and related materials about my discovery of Johann Sebastian Bach's keyboard tuning.

• Other research and review articles published as a musicologist: in the UK, Netherlands, Korea, and USA

• Rating system for OKBridge (internet-based bridge games and tournaments), developed 1993, still in use at present (2008)

• Concordance to Hymnal: A Worship Book, Mennonite Publishing House. Both a printed book and a DOS/Windows software package, published 1992

• Keyboard temperament analysis spreadsheet (grew out of a doctoral project), published as a personal web site and downloadable application

• Assisted with development of the Harrisonburg/Rockingham Chamber of Commerce web site (volunteer project), 1996-8

• Hymn compositions published in hymnals and journals, and more than 100 others (composed 1984-present) I am collating for possible publication

• More than a dozen classical music CDs published 1996-present, working variously as harpsichordist, organist, producer, composer, booklet annotator, or consultant. Colleagues and I have recorded a new CD of Thomas Jefferson's sheet music in February 2008, for distribution by Monticello.

• Harpsichord and organ concerts; harpsichord lectures about practical tuning, historical styles, and mathematical modeling

• Regular participant in Flight A bridge tournaments (Bronze Life Master in the American Contract Bridge League), and occasionally a director of club games

A separate music résumé is available by request.

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