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Secure Computing Corporation, St. Paul Minnesota     1999 – May 2008

Secure Computing produces a suite of security hardware and software, firewalls, web filtering, email filtering, authentication products and other products to make the internet safe for doing business.

Director Web Filtering
Acted as product champion to turn a small product into a leading source of revenue.  By acquiring our competitors, we took the product from sixth to second in market share.
•    Increased quarterly revenue from 2 million to 9.7 million
•    Directed managers in software development, test and web analysis in a team of 32
•    Remotely managed teams in four cities around the world (video is great!)
•    Built a test and QA team who implemented test automation
•    Developed ways of classifying every site on the web

Director of Product Planning
Promoted to Marketing to get better control over the process of choosing the direction of the product.  Collected customer needs and communicated our plans for new features.  Introduced a new format for the Marketing Requirements Documents that gave engineers the information they needed to build the right product.

Project Manager, Firewall Development
I jumped at a chance to be the product manager for the world’s most secure commercial firewall.  (Now, Sidewinder has been merged with Gauntlet and CyberGuard, and is the only high security firewall on the market.) 
•    Juggled feature releases to try to keep the majority of customers happy.
•    Grew the team from 10 to 23 top-notch security and network engineers.
•    Trained engineers to be managers and then directors. 
•    Managed very demanding military, government and financial customers.

Bow Tie Computer Services       1995 to 1999
Owner
Technical gun for hire.  My motto was “I make your problems go away, then I go away.”  Implemented a formal testing program for Nellcor Puritan Bennett, and did ergonomic design for Data Key and Secure Computing.  Provided contract management for companies like Access Management Corp. and Wave Technologies.  I would fill open positions for engineering management until the company could understand who they were looking for and hire someone.  After several very successful years, Secure Computing tempted me back into corporate life.

DataMap, Inc.    1990 to 1995
DataMap was a pioneer in the Geographic Information Systems field, providing software technology to other companies, in addition to selling its own products and maps.

Vice President, Business and Technology, 1993 to 1995
Spearheaded an attempt to broaden the revenue base separate from our single hot product.
•    Sought strategic partners through, industry analysis and networking, trade journals, conferences, and developing relationships
•    Collected data on competition and related companies
•    Designed new products; supported their transition to engineering and sales
•    Coordinated the search for new technologies and data

Vice President, Research and Development, 1990 to 1993
In addition to my primary role of running Engineering, I was involved in press releases, strategic planning and Marketing.
•    Developed a superior geocoding technology. (finds the location of addresses)
•    Lead a team of 8 engineers to develop a centralized insurance rating system.
•    Demonstrated GIS technology to potential investors and customers.
•    Part of the executive team that steered the company and dealt with every crisis.

Bow Tie Computer Services     1985 to 1990
Pioneered human-computer ergonomic standards as part of the IEEE and Human Factors Society standards committees, and developed a niche market for practical ergonomic design.  As an experienced software developer, I knew things about developing software that the PhDs did not.  I had access to the very latest ergonomic research from the committees, so I could identify what was difficult about existing users interfaces. 
•    Real-time disk controller design and programming for Control Data GSD division.
•    Improved user interface for a machine that could fill several milk cartons a second.
•    Digital X-ray scanning and archiving system with three UIs  for Mindax.
•    Designed an advanced motion control system UI for Hybritech.
•    Patented technology the can measure time in picoseconds for WaveCrest.
•    Portable disk testing systems using a custom test language for Control Data.
•    Wrote pacemaker programmer test plans to satisfy FDA certification.

Micro Component Technologies    1984 to 1985
MCT built integrated circuit testing machines for integrated circuit makers. 
Manager, Software Development, Handler Division
Managed 10 software engineers and worked closely with the Electrical and Mechanical groups.  The project was very challenging, and the schedule got tighter as the company became more desperate for revenue.  My team worked miracles and delivered a beautiful piece of robotics.  We wrote our own real-time operating system and developed heterogeneous multiprocessing with 11 processors from scratch.  I brought in more engineers and reworked the schedule every week to compensate for slips in the electrical and mechanical design.
 

Medtronic    1982 to 1984
Though Medtronic is known for its cutting-edge pacemakers, it also was a leader in developing doctor-friendly computer interfaces for them.
Manager, Software Assurance, Instrument Division, 1983 to 1984
I was the first SQA manager in the division, and my staff was new to Software QA.  The Engineers were openly hostile, and I learned A LOT about working with people who have different goals.  In the end, I won almost everyone over, and the quality of the work went way up.  Around this time, the FDA was starting to get interested in software verification, so we developed a formal methodology, partially based on IEEE standards, to get products released.