Thomas A. Jones

tjones@spril.com
http://www.spril.com

I am a software engineering manager with ten years’ experience delivering complete solutions to a wide variety of clients. My background spans the software development lifecycle from requirements through database and user interface design, architecture and code development, deployment, training, and maintenance. One skill at which I excel is process analysis—determining the most effective ways to implement, track, and ensure the success of projects. Another is risk management—preemptively identifying and mitigating technical and organizational concerns, design tradeoffs, and scope weaknesses.

Employment

Web Architect Consultant, January 2007–present

Provide project management, software development, visual and technical design, database architecture, testing, and marketing consulting to a variety of clients. Projects and clients include:

Project management, requirements, design, and testing for the American Institute of Physics designing and launching InsideScience.org, a scientific news service for journalists and editors.
Requirements, design, development, testing, and support as sole developer for a database-driven web application for a law firm consolidating technical applications from European industrial firms submitting requests to the Chinese government.
Requirements, design, development, testing, and support for a 501(c)(3) organization's national campaign to encourage scientists and engineers to become politically active, including high-security credit card processing.
Complete creation of small corporate websites including BeltwaySupply.com and CapitalSpecs.com.
Volunteer creator of the RapidanCamps.org website for Rapidan Camps, a family cooperative owning 5 cabins built in 1929 by the Hoover Administration as the predecessor of Camp David. The website includes a complete reservations system including rental calendar, payment tracking, member forum, and rental feedback. Rental occupancy has increased by 41%, and revenue by 66%, since application launch.
Volunteer creator of the KineticBaltimore.com website for the Kinetic Sculpture Race East Coast Championship for the American Visionary Arts Museum.

Director of Engineering
Apex Digital Systems, Silver Spring, MD, October 2001–December 2006

Technology Consulting and Software Development Firm specializing in Non-Profit and Cause-Specific Organizations

Led the Engineering team, delivering $2.6 million in client projects including:

Finished and deployed a NOAA grants application system by overhauling the database and building an entirely new .Net user interface, for the National Ocean Service's Coastal and Marine Management Program (CAMMP). Grant applicants use the application to create and submit their grant requests—including budget, positions, and justifications—for grants for coastal and wetlands recovery.
For a large NGO, I led the project migrating and expanding their Microsoft Access proposal and project tracking database into a Microsoft .Net and SQL Server enterprise-wide web application for proposal, project, and contract management. My client devises and implements complex development projects for its funders including the US Agency for International Development, the World Bank, and the United Nations.
Designed and deployed a Microsoft .Net and Oracle data system for a nationwide community development foundation enabling it to provide quantitative analysis of the success of housing, economic development, and community-building programs.
When off-the-shelf solutions proved inadequate, I led building, deploying, and maintaining an ASP and Oracle project management system for a major pharmaceutical company to coordinate development and launch of new drugs, sharing project progress with the entire team.
For a national mathematics teachers’ organization, I led the redesign of Illuminations.nctm.org to provide expanded functionality and a new .Net user interface for lesson plans and student learning activities.

Responsibilities included:

client communication
requirements analysis
estimating schedules and budgets
negotiating project scope to match available budget and schedule
writing contractual agreements
evaluating and recommending technical platforms, options, and extensions
technical and visual design
work breakdown
team assignments
progress tracking to ensure delivery on time, within budget
risk analysis
coordinating unit testing
managing system testing
user acceptance testing
deployment
training end users and administrators
designing and managing the online support center, the client interface to our issue tracking system
company-wide source control platform selection and management
responsibility and authority to ensure that custom software applications were designed, built, and maintained in accordance with clients' needs and specifications.

Site Czar (Product Manager)
SpeakOut.com, Washington DC, November 1999–May 2001

During the 2000 presidential campaign, SpeakOut.com was a political activism website with 500,000 registered users. The site included civic activism tools, political news, and an extensive directory of government officials and interest groups.

Responsibilities included:

liaison for the Engineering Department to application users and sales staff in the Journalism and Marketing Departments
technical contact for outside organizations including major political parties and interest groups, including requirements analysis, scope definition, and design review
ensuring round-the-clock site performance
preparing statistical usage reports
preparing new concept prototypes
site-wide user interface design, including the largest focus groups in history—dial polls used by thousands of simultaneous users during the conventions and debates in SpeakOut's partnership with MSNBC and Fox News establishing and maintaining HTML, CSS, ASP, JavaScript, Flash, and database interface coding standards.

Webmaster & Product Designer
OutReach Technologies, Columbia, MD, October 1996–November 1999

Maker of the ConferEase and Embrace web conference servers for e-commerce, distance presentation, and sales management

Responsibilities included:

led user interface design
responsible for corporate website, including site design, coding, server maintenance, regular reporting of visitor statistics, and online marketing
received $12,000 President's Award bonus for contribution to corporate goals and productivity.

Systems Analyst
United Information Systems, Bethesda MD, August 1996–October 1996

Government and corporate contractor specializing in electronic information systems

Responsibilities included:

Designed and prototyped the electronic publishing system for a proposed U.S. Navy library of technical documentation for the E-2C Hawkeye plane. The process spanned conversion into the Interleaf document management system, document management and revision, and deployment to a dedicated portable HTML handheld viewer. The prototype won UIS an $8 million contract from the Navy.

Technical Writer/Programmer
Hughes Network Systems, Germantown, MD, March 1995–July 1996

At the time, Hughes was designer and manufacturer of cellular phone networks and the DirectTV and DirectPC satellite systems

Responsibilities included:

developed automated test software for cellular networks using Mercury XRunner
created Perl tools to manipulate and search technical documentation libraries
researched, wrote, and standardized departmental documentation for successful ISO-9001 application
evaluated platforms, devised and implemented the departmental intranet for document distribution.

System Designer & Developer
OCR Services, Gaithersburg MD, August 1993–February 1995

OCR Services was a government contractor specializing in electronic publishing and import/export licensing.

Responsibilities included:

migrated an online database export service application from VAX VMS to C on HPUX
designed templates and C and Perl code for conversion and maintenance of the IRS Internal Revenue Manual of the extensive procedures used to process and audit personal and corporate tax forms
administered small corporate network including 12 workstations and 2 servers.

Interleaf Lead
Computer Sciences Corporation, Lanham MD, January 1993–August 1993

CSC at this location provides support to NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Responsibilities included:

managed a 5-person electronic publishing team and administered Sun Sparc Unix and Novell/Microsoft Windows 3.1 networks
redesigned the department process flow from 41 steps to 8 steps, dramatically reducing tracking cost and team frustration
published complex NASA scientific and technical documents, and CSC corporate proposals.

New Mexico Fellow
New Mexico Governor's Office, Santa Fe NM, May 1992–August 1992

Fellow in Governor King's office in a program modeled after the White House Fellows. I served in the Departments of General Services and Transportation.

Computer Science Instructor
New Mexico Tech, Socorro NM, August 1991–December 1991

Independent instructor of computer science credit elective CS-391: Practicum in Interleaf Technical Publisher.

Responsibilities included:

submitted a written proposal to the Computer Science department identifying the need for the class and a proposed syllabus
classroom instruction
evaluating and grading assignments and exams.

Education

MBA Executive Fellow, Class of 2000
Loyola College of Maryland Sellinger School
Baltimore institution with rigorous business curriculum

B.S., Physics with Computer Science, with honors, 1992
B.S., Basic Sciences, minors in Technical Communication, Psychology, and Mathematics, with honors, 1992
New Mexico Tech
Renowned science institute where cloud seeding was invented, world-famous radio telescopes are located, and anti-terrorism measures are researched

Published Author & Editor

Lotus Notes Developer's Guide, Rose Kelleher, Paul Emond, and Tom Jones, Wordware Publishing, ISBN 1-55622-545-8, February 1997.

Learn Lotus Domino: A Guide for Notes Developers, Rose Kelleher and Tom Jones, Wordware Publishing, ISBN 1-55622-564-4, April 1997.

Advanced Domino 5 Web Programming, Rose Kelleher and Tom Jones, McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-07913-691-5, January 1999.

Memberships & Awards

Sigma Pi Sigma (graduate)
National higher-education Physics honor society.

Kinetic Seer
Honorary title awarded by the 38-year-old World Championship Kinetic Sculpture Race of Humboldt County, California for conveying and demonstrating the Kinetic Spirit, including the creation and maintenance of KineticBaltimore.com to promote and expand the Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race hosted by the American Visionary Art Museum.

President, Board of Directors
Rapidan Camps Inc., 1997-present
Private membership organization of 100 families that owns and maintains five cabins in the Shenandoah Mountains of Virginia, part of President Hoover's mountain retreat.

2005 Unsung Hero Award
Awarded by the Greenbelt Arts Center for website maintenance and financial management consulting.