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My Background

I am a senior data professional (and I take that word very seriously) with significant experience in a variety of roles in all aspects of the data life cycle while focusing on enterprise data and related solutions. I've worked in the finance, energy, and manufacturing industries as well as the education and government sectors. I have been employed in firms ranging from startups with as few as 3 employees to Fortune 100 companies with more than 30,000 employees. On the other hand, I have worked as an independent consultant for 10 years. As for location, I love working with people and greatly enjoy the office milieu but I have also telecommuted for 16 years of my career to facilitate my other life choices.

More than anything, I consider myself an enterprise data architect specializing in SQL-based relational solutions with the breadth of experience necessary to be helpful in a wide variety of data projects. Please review the following to see if you think I might be of assistance to you.

Pertinent Experience

Pertinent Expertise

Employment History

Datamology Founder/Principal Denver, CO 2021-Now
I am now (as documented on this site) again offering my services on a contractual basis. Since resuming my consulting practice, I have worked with a variety of clients including:
  • Auptimal
  • Jefferson Center for Mental Health
  • Mental Health Partners (Colorado)
  • Diamond Sunrise
  • OneEarth Jubilee
University of Denver
Daniels College of Business
Adjunct Instructor in the Department of Business Information & Analytics Denver, CO 2022
I taught the "INFO 4140 - Databases" class during the Spring Quarter to graduate students in the BIA program.
Charles Schwab Data Architect Denver, CO 2014-2021
For the first year, I served on the Data Services team as a BSA and data modeler in the BI org delivering EDW-based data solutions to various business units. For the next 3 years, I served on Data Management team with increasing responsibilities for the overall management and architecture of their EDW. We then established the need for a data architect and I was honored to be given that role. For the next 2 years, I served in that role as we integrated their legacy relational EDW on Teradata with their new data lake in Hadoop into a multi-tier, multi-platform 200TB EDW. In my final year, I worked on the evaluation of cloud alternatives and assisted with the migration of that EDW to Google BigQuery (in progress when I left) as well as leading the Data Management team.
Colorado Community College System DW/BI Technology Developer Denver, CO 2011-2014
I served on the small DW/BI team as the Cognos Team Lead and worked as an architect, developer, and general problem solver in all aspects of their DW/BI implementations. We used 3rd-party ODS and EDW frameworks on an Oracle DB platform with Cognos-based reporting and analyis solutions.
Janus Capital Group BI Technology Developer Denver, CO 2010-2011
I served on the Enterprise Information Management team to develop new data reporting and analysis solutions in Cognos. I also took on responsiblity for maintaining and enhancing existing Business Objects solutions.
Datamology Founder/Principal San Francisco, CA 2002-2010
I joined Ernie Anderson (a colleague from my Platinum days) and his partner to found The Datamology Company in 2002. He had begun development of a spreadsheet-based data analysis product for Windows, and wanted to expand its scope and release it to the public. We built it into a production-quality exploratory data analysis (EDA) tool and released the first complete version of VisiCube in May, 2004. Soon after, my partners decided to retire, and I converted the business into a services firm. Over the next 6 years, I worked on some very interesting projects while serving a variety of clients including:
  • MindBox, LLC
  • Ownit Mortgage Solutions
  • Illation, Ltd.
  • Assured Systems, Inc.
  • Colorado Department of State - Elections Division
Brightware/Firepond Database Developer/Architect San Francisco, CA 2000-2002
I had two primary responsibilities at Brightware (which was acquired by Firepond shortly after I joined). The first role was as a database programmer and architect for Analytics, Brightware's proprietary analysis tool for its CRM product suite. This product utilized a configurable ETL program, multidimensional datamart, and various end-user reporting tools to support analysis of customer data. The second role was as a database architect and software engineer for the CRM product suite, itself. In this role, I was responsible for the design of the transactional databases and implementation of the EJB-based data persistence layer of the web applications that comprised the product suite.
Janina Ratkowska Group Software Engineer San Francisco, CA 1999-2000
I served JRG as a consultant with an emphasis on VB- and Java-based desktop data analysis programs for Windows computers.
Platinum technology Sr. Software Dev. & Project Lead Chicago, IL 1989-1999
I was employee #40 at Platinum technology, a startup commercial software development firm, and served there for 10 years as we grew into the 8th largest software vendor in the world with $1b in annual revenue by specializing in relational database tools and utilities. I led development of their ad hoc query and reporting products (which eventually grossed ~$100m in revenue) and their data warehousing product line until the company was acquired by Computer Associates in what was, at the time, the largest cash deal in the history of the software industry.
Commonwealth Edison Methods Engineer Chicago, IL 1985-1989
I worked in the nuclear engineering department of the computer systems organization. Having recently studied database theory, I was assigned to work on ComEd's first relational database applications (DB2) and led the development of these initial systems.

Certifications

Certified Data Professional - Data Warehouse Mastery level Inst. for Cert. of Comp. Profs.
Certified Data Professional - Data Management Mastery level Inst. for Cert. of Comp. Profs.
Certified Data Vault Data Modeler Mastery level Genesee Academy
Certified Business Intelligence Professional Mastery level Inst. for Cert. of Comp. Profs.

Education

BS - Civil Engineering University of Illinois Grainger College of Engineering
Math major and Sec. Ed. Teaching Cert. University of Iowa College of Education
MS - Business Intelligence University of Denver Daniels College of Business

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