KARL STAHMER kstahmer@acm.org 2411 Midway Blvd. (715) 842-3265 Wausau, WI 54403-7051 INTRODUCTION Highly experienced Senior Programmer Analyst with strong background in mathematics and physics combined with extensive background in UNIX System Administration. Now seeking to refocus professional efforts on creating original, innovative programs as an integral member of a cutting-edge organization committed to challenging pure research and advanced technical development. QUALIFICATIONS ABSTRACT * Gained more than seven years experience through completion of progressively more complex projects as a Senior Programmer Analyst with the offline diagnostics division of a leading-edge developer of supercomputing systems. * Complemented this strong senior programming background with three years of experience devising time and money-saving solutions for a major national corporate insurer. * Most recently, have been involved in finding/implementing practical solutions for high volume e-business clients. * Throughout this varied career, have compiled a record of bringing about improvements in diagnostic and application tools and procedures that have contributed to efficiency, customer satisfaction, and bottom-line profitability. * Built a reputation in each of these settings for expediting projects by facilitating interpersonal communications among departments and individual colleagues. * Demonstrated consistent effectiveness in making incompatible systems compatible and producing efficiencies by distributing tasks among different languages and operating systems. * Regularly exhibited ability to create innovative, versatile, and portable programs that are fast, maintainable, and efficient. * Have shown great readiness to learn all that is relevant to the areas in which I have been involved, often becoming a valuable resource person for colleagues, customers, and managers. * Without exception, will work for professional satisfaction by seeking, identifying, and meeting new challenges in producing complex, functional system designs that are exact, efficient, and elegant. * Made contributions that have earned both formal and informal recognition from top level executive management. * Can draw on academic background that includes substantial PhD work with a major in Mathematics and a minor in Computer Science. Proficient in German and familiar with Spanish. * Possess specific knowledge and skills in areas that include: COMPILED LANGUAGES: -C++ -proc -Java -Perl -FORTRAN -Pascal -COBOL COMMAND LANGUAGES: -ksh -sh -PL/SQL -HTML -Lua -Net.Data -WebSphere -csh -tcsh -rsh -JCL OPERATING SYSTEMS: -UNIX -LINUX -AIX SP -Solaris -HPUX -SCO -UNICOS -CMOS -MVS -VM/SP -Sequent Symmetry -MSDOS -RSTS/E -TOPS-20 -Terak -Marmot Harris ASSEMBLER LANGUAGES: -XCAL -CAL2 -FASM -PDP-1170 -MACRO-11 -Pentium III PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYMENT Important contributions made in the following positions are described in detail by the accompanying resumé supplement , entitled Achievement Highlights. Berbee Information Networks Corporation Madison, WI Software Engineer, E-Business Group January 2000 - Present Wausau Insurance Company Wausau, WI Senior Technical Analyst December 1996 - January 2000 CRAY Research, Inc., Diagnostic Systems Department Chippewa Falls, WI Senior Programmer Analyst (final position held) March 1985 - March 1992 EDUCATION Doctor of Philosophy (Candidate) September 1992 - May 1994 & University of Wisconsin - Madison September 1976 - December 1979 MAJOR: Mathematics GPA: 3.75/4.00 MINOR: Computer Science Bachelor of Science August 1972 University of Wisconsin - Madison MAJOR: Mathematics KEY GRADUATE & UNDERGRADUATE COURSES Mathematics: -Statistical Methods -Applied Mathematics -Functional Analysis -Topology -Abstract Algebra -Algebraic Number Theory -Mathematical Logic -Set Theory -Ordinary & Partial Differential Equations Computer Science: -Digital System Fundamentals -Pascal -C++ -PDP-1170 -MACRO-11 -Combinatorics -Data Structures -Numerical Analysis -Object-Oriented Programming Comments: -Learned the newest and best theories of object-oriented Programming, abstract data types, data encapsulation, algorithm analysis, recursive functions, and top-down design. -Financed earlier graduate education with earnings from employment. Notable among jobs held was with the Marathon Cheese Corporation, where I set a new plant record for most cheese barrelled per hour. IN-HOUSE TECHNICAL TRAINING PROGRAMS Berbee Information Networks Corporation -Object-Oriented Analysis & Design -WebSphere Administration -WebSphere Customization Wausau Insurance Company -Java for Object-Oriented Programmers -PL/SQL -Solaris System Administration -AIX SP System Administration CRAY Research, Inc. -XMP Hardware Maintenance -CRAY-2 Hardware Maintenance -UNICOS System Calls -JCL -UNIX System Calls -C Language -YMP CAL -CRAY-2 CAL ACTIVITIES & INTERESTS * ACM, IEEE, MAA, and AMS affiliations * Balance work with leisure activities such as 10K and marathon running, rowing, swimming, biking, chess, bridge, and martial arts * Have pursued excellence off as well as on-the-job with accomplishments such as earning a Master standing in the American Contract Bridge League and a green belt in Tae Kwon Do KARL STAHMER kstahmer@acm.org 2411 Midway Blvd. (715) 842-3265 Wausau, WI 54403-7051 ACHIEVEMENT HIGHLIGHTS Berbee Information Networks Corporation Madison, WI Software Engineer, E-business Group January 2000 - Present * Took two intensive courses to become a fluent user of IBM's WebSphere in order to work with Lands' End's Corporate Sales Division and IBM's IGS Group to add enhancements to the sales function on Lands' End's web site, landsend.com. Modified a C++ overridable function to eliminate a 10K size limit on the same SKU unit. Used C++ and embedded SQL to enable user information to purchase freely from DB2 databases to hidden inputs of HTML forms. Lands' End customers can now order the same items in any quantity rather than the maximum five to seven to which they were previously limited. This modification will bring millions of dollars in new sales to the site each year. * Added general admission sales capability to Ticket King-supported sites which previously handled only reserved seating events. Edited AET files along with their Lua scripts to give a distinct presentation for general admission events. Learned Lua and completed this business enhancing project in only five days. * By means of an extremely simple JavaScript code modification enabled the Daytona USA web site, daytonausa.com, to open windows specific to alternative purchasing paths chosen by ticket buyers. This additional functionality was necessary to facilitate ticket purchasing and make the process conceptually consistent with the site's completely new design. * Also, greatly simplified the season ticket renewal purchasing process for Daytona customers by creating CGIs written in ANSI C. Since only previous customers are involved, all needed personal information is already in a database which can be automatically extracted. Customers save time and effort, making them more likely to buy on-the-spot * Have helped clients retain revenue and customer goodwill by responding quickly and effectively to their on-line emergencies. For example, when the Texas Rangers opened ticket sales for the 2001 baseball season, their site, texasrangers.com, was unable to recognize some event IDs chosen by customers wishing to purchase a 15-game mini series. Solved the problem in less than two hours by writing a Boolean Lua function that enabled the site to process all requested events. * The above incident highlights a recurring problem that we had experienced with several of our tickets.com web sites. On-site testing of our modifications was difficult because of the mix of programming and administrative skills that were required. My background enabled me to set up a test site in no more than three days. It has been essential in verifying changes made on the Texas Rangers' sites. Wausau Insurance Companies (WIC) Wausau, WI Senior Technical Analyst December 1996 - January 2000 * Developed monitor, a robust and broadly applicable tool, to check the OCR/ICR integrity of FileNET. It is an efficient UNIX daemon that finds failures, takes corrective actions, and informs operators of problems and implemented solutions via email or pager. It interprets its patterns file, which is a Korn shell (ksh) script with four additional reserved words. It can execute any sequence of UNIX commands, and triggers alerts if user-prescribed patterns are found. Its reports include all FileNET (fnsw) batch processing errors and the precise identification of batches that failed to commit as well as their times of occurrence. * Used monitor to analyze and help solve a costly problem with our pcl2afp converter and psf queuing, which frequently prevented printing of corporate policies that represented millions of dollars in coverage. WIC would often be unaware of the failure until being confronted by customers who demanded their policies after a delay of several weeks. monitor quickly examined the pcl2afp and psf log files to identify and thoroughly analyze failures. It dramatically reduced problems and overall workload for the more than 400 people involved in policy creation and maintenance. * Wrote monitor that reports errors and crashes on WIC's 17 Lotus Notes servers which handle all company email. It diagnoses each server's log file and alerts the Notes Group when problems are discovered. Its use has resulted in a significant reduction of Notes downtime, cutting annual dollar losses from tens of thousands to mere hundreds. * Wrote a proc program called oralp (Oracle printer) which extracts Netjet IP Address information from multiple tables. It correctly selects gateways and runs 12 times faster than the shell script version that it replaced. In addition, oralp selects appropriate subnet masks for the devices that it configures. The need for multiple configurations of Netjet devices was eliminated, saving hundreds of production hours. * Created a proc command called subnet. This C++ program describes, at a user-specified level of detail, any collection of nodes on a subnet for any combination of subnets. It takes only milliseconds to provide needed, precise, and current configuration files describing all primary servers, routers, switches, and hubs for each subnet on the network. This efficient compiled program was particularly indispensable during WIC's implementation of SNMP. * Developed a C++ program that sets a PC's DISPLAY environment variable for the X Windows GUI. It invokes the getpeername() system call to determine IP Addresses of PCs when connecting to UNIX servers. It gives complete portability to X Windows on PCs. * Developed decode, a C++ program that insures attorney/client privilege by encrypting legal documents that are transferred between UNIX and Windows NT servers. Decode prompts originators for 32 digit keys which, along with certain Algebraic Number and Group Theory concepts and C++ bit manipulation techniques, encrypts documents on source servers. Characters are encoded differently depending on their position within documents. The same source code is used for decode on AIX, Solaris, and NT servers. Since it passed lint on two distinct architectures, decode can be ported to any server. * Created a C++ program that examined over 2500 C programs and shell scripts for Y2K compliance and analyzed them for categorization and generation of a compliance report. The program saved at least two months of work that would otherwise have been needed to produce this report. Since many of the C programs and shell scripts were thousands of lines in length, my program reduced the time required to complete the entire project by a conservatively estimated 18 months. CRAY Research, Inc., Diagnostic Systems Department Chippewa Falls, WI Senior Programmer Analyst (final position held) March 1985 - March 1992 * Designed, tested, and implemented crinet, the CRAY Research, Inc. (CRI) network, configuration, and installation program. It was a UNIX command written in C, which freed field engineers from the need to learn and resolve the abstruse nuances of TCP/IP. It allowed field engineers to establish on-site VME based remote support, and ensured a proper Internet interface. * Developed a series of C programs to read and write FLOAD @ and INITIALIZED tapes from a Sequent Symmetry server, simulating DSS commands. Moreover, this software package permitted a Diagnostic Release tape to be comprised of any collection of binaries. * Wrote a UNIX command utility program called bins46 which translated binary code into a format that YMP simulators could interpret. Previously CRI engineers and developers performed the laborious and time consuming work of manually entering all simulator code, which could range from ten thousand to several million lines of assembly code each. * Greatly enhanced the value and marketability of the Remote Support package. Established an interface by writing a series of 14 commands for its complete installation, configuration, and implementation. It superseded the complex precise procedure and command sequence that users would have otherwise had to follow. * Also earned recognition for coordinating CRI's X2.1 Release. Collected and submitted all modsets to STI and prepared the Requirements Document for it in a single afternoon. * Wrote UNIX commands to translate text between CMOS and ASCII. Many documents and command buffers that remained under CMOS were needed by the field engineers to verify integrity of the Mainframe, IOS, and SSD systems, as well as to implement diagnostics. These commands made it easy to transfer text files between CMOS and any other system by simplifying editing of command buffers. It gave field engineers a more up-to-date understanding of diagnostics and improved service to customers. * In two hours time, developed and tested the only existing software package that allowed for transfer of binaries into the YMP front end link. It was used daily by the Offline Diagnostics Group and was adopted by the YMP Engineering Development Group. * Wrote a CMOS command buffer interpreter that found all syntax and control flow errors within a command buffer. It ran on any UNIX server, alleviating need for a dedicated IOS and saved many hours of debugging per buffer. * Independently developed a C program that automatically, and within seconds, generated the JCL file necessary to test any modset. This program provided a listing, binary, source code, or UPDATE compiled code for any deck, and was flexible enough to work with all Diagnostic PLs. Also, it was portable to any UNIX server, and accurate to the most intricate JCL detail. This program accomplished in a matter of mere seconds editing assignments that would otherwise have taken hours. * Also facilitated internal communications by shortening production time for monthly, quarterly, and summary reports from five days to a matter of seconds. Developed a secure proc program enabling all CRI employees to obtain pertinent DPR/DAR information from an Oracle Database. The program also produced troff documents for laser printing. * Completed a major mathematical modelling project that provided a valuable planning and evaluation tool for field engineers and managers known as the Hardware Index Formula. This tool measured product reliability, design, quality, maintainability, and maintenance performance of all CRAY computer systems worldwide. It produced global ratings determined by the management objectives established by the Hardware Product Support Department.