Resume: Courts Richard Carter
This page's sections: Summary : Experience : Education : Skills
Other Versions: a briefer Acrobat Version
Summary
Fifteen-plus years applying business analysis, team leadership, and technical skills to all phases of web and desktop client/server software development.
Adept in full software lifecycle management from determination of user and operational requirements and maintenance planning through implementation and deployment.
Summary of Summary (a self-assessment)
“Jack of all trades... (master of some)”: a fairly broad and diverse background, have been described as “an old skool webmaster... in the best sense”, which is true; quite good at Photoshop and Illustrator, but quite serviceable at JavaScript, too. Jumping from extending open-source PHP/mySQL projects or ASP .NET to doing character animations, motion graphics, and cutting video in AfterEffects and Premiere I'm a techie polyglot.
Projects in scope and size from, well, from two-page mini-sites to entire sections of myspace. From working on my own to managing a dozen people to being part of 120+ strong development staff.
A proud, self-professed ProAm, be it art and photography (I AM a frustrated artist), database and web development, or product development liaison and team leadership (I cap my happiness at 2 meetings a day, thus prefer "lead" over "manager").
Experience
Senior Engineer
MySpace.com, Beverly Hills, CA (2005-present)
Videos (MySpaceTV.com)
Co-managed “ground-up” rewrite/re-launch, the first such “silo” .NET development effort within MySpace. Met aggressive two-month deadline, reducing database load nearly 70% even as site traffic doubled. Usability enhanced via AJAX. Succeeded due to intelligent, self-managing team with daily (agile) scrums that included QA.
Books.MySpace.com
Sole developer. Section encourages users to browse and comment on our featured book reviews. Included various anti-spam safe-guards and filters, plus admin features.
Horoscopes.MySpace.com
Sole developer. In addition to site pages wrote hourly job to fetch and parse an XML feed (from astrology partner) into our database.
Internationalization
Internationalized and extensively rewrote/optimized legacy (ColdFusion) sections (Forums, Groups, Mail, Calendar, and Events). Also managed data conversions.
Security
Numerous admin and security tools including: “underage user” (13 and under) account detection and phishing prevention. (ColdFusion, transact-SQL, Perl)
Search Engine Optimization
Rewrote site headers to include distinct title, keyword, and description data as well as rewriting dozens of pages to improve HTML for better rankings. Significant improvements with books and videos rocketing from “invisible” to top ten.
Web Developer
Freelance
2001-2005
(see project details and links)
Graphic design, site architecture, and development (database and front-end) of web sites using Cold Fusion, Oracle, SQL Server, Access, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Illustrator. Motion graphics production with AfterEffects, Premiere, and Flash. Photography and illustration for print and the web.
Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) site maintenance and enhancement. Developed surveys, site search, online newsletter, work request tracking system. Authored numerous Dreamweaver templates for support staff. Produced video and animations for presentations.
Full-functioned online catalog/store (including back-end administration and reporting) and mailing list management system (Hard Candy, Digital Gravel, Urban Decay, David Heming). Sites offer robust shopping cart, gift certificates, coupons, wish lists, account maintenance, email reminders, and full-text product searches.
Employed open-source tools (WordPress blog-ware, phpList mailing list management, Coppermine photo gallery, SMF forums, isearch search engine) for smaller budget sites (Kalipayan, AmericanaTheBeautiful/Charles Phoenix, Basic Flowers, ModCom), customizing the tools as needed, including writing and distributing plug-ins.
Software game community site where users could exchange "game skins". Included administration tools and on-the-fly image file format conversions.
Au pair and student exchange management system
Other projects include photography and point-of-purchase signage for jewelry company; video, effects, and animation production for parks service; movie promotion website; assistant director on short film; presentation materials for television show proposal. (see video projects and illustration & product photography)
Manager Web Development
Z.com, Burbank, CA
2000-2001
Joined Idealab! online entertainment startup Z.com. Hired and managed graphic designers and web developers (ten people), designed and implemented numerous web sites (Cold Fusion, Oracle, Flash, Photoshop, and QuickTime VR), created administration tools and systems (including photo galleries and e-postcards), and managed production resources (researching and acquiring cameras, sound gear, and computer equipment for shooting, editing and encoding digital video). Wore many, many hats; shot video, met with talent developing web strategy, prepped photos, modeled databases, and made Krispy Kreme donut runs.
Manager of Sales and Marketing Systems
Havas Interactive, Torrance, CA
1998-2000
Led a team of seven developers in delivering two decisive projects; one a sales datamart and the other a promotion tracking and reporting system. The datamart required interfaces to the corporation's financial systems, e-commerce site, and EDI sell-through data. Designed and supervised construction of a robust product database, a crucial dimension within the datamart.
The promotion system provided key performance indicators for determining the efficacy of the company's promotional expenditures. Internet-based system supported nation-wide sales force of forty.
Both systems emailed Crystal Info reports and activity monitoring alerts. Built using Cold Fusion and Centura Team Developer atop Oracle.
As company's data architect led design meetings and delivered data models for numerous development efforts outside of IT including multi-player Internet game sites, an educational curriculum management system, and a "push-cast" news service targeting educators.
Client/Server Project Lead
Broderbund Software, Novato, CA
1996-1998
Developed a consumer information repository used to generate lists for marketing campaigns. Managed a staff of five developers using Oracle RDBMS and Centura Team Developer. System enabled marketing's direct-to-consumer group to coordinate their efforts by presenting a single marketing campaign schedule.
Designed databases for product development teams and marketing web sites. Designed Internet tools for capturing consumer questionnaire response data.
Project Lead
Industrial Light and Magic (a division of LucasFilm), San Rafael, CA
1996
Designed a digital asset management and project workflow management system streamlining motion picture special effects production.
Application Design Specialist
Paramount Pictures, Motion Picture Group, Hollywood, CA
1994-1996
Designed, coded, and installed the "Release Planning System" using SQL Windows and Sybase's RDBMS. The system enabled field managers to plan for the distribution of feature films and track penetration of Paramount's key markets. Also generated numerous previously unavailable executive-level reports. Established a row-level security scheme allowing managers to share information with their support staff while protecting sensitive data. Coordinated the synchronization of this data with a legacy DB2-based system.
Wrote extensive online help and led training classes for users located in five offices across the country.
Extended class libraries and made extensive use of stored procedures to enhance code re-use.
Maintained a system that prepared daily competitive market share summaries.
Senior Programmer /Analyst
Johnson and Johnson Advanced Behavioral Technologies
Santa Monica, CA
1990-1994
Wrote health risk assessment software for DOS and Windows. Coded in PASCAL, C/C++, and PowerBuilder running against SQL Server and Btrieve databases.
Reduced development times and costs 50% by writing and documenting software libraries, and developing design standards. Created Access databases to manage these tasks.
Supervised and trained outside programming and testing consultants.
Managed quarterly software releases to over 400 clients. Maintained database of Software Change Requests to effectively prioritize and coordinate updates and software revisions.
Developed over 15 new applications and their promotional materials as technical analyst on a diverse design team. Through focus groups and direct interaction with customers assessed users' needs and wrote requirements for new software systems meeting priority market needs.
Systems Analyst/Programmer
GTE Finance Group/ Irving, TX
1989-1990
Designed, programmed, and documented a proprietary database system for generating GTE's forecasts and annual budgets. The program interfaced directly with Lotus1-2-3, both reading and writing worksheet files. Reduced file storage requirements by over 80% and processing time 50%.
Education
University of Kansas
Masters of Business Administration - marketing concentration,
Bachelors of Science Electrical Engineering - digital communications emphasis.
Tau Beta Pi (engineering honor society), Eta Kappa Nu (electrical engineering honor society), Dean's Honor Roll, Kansas State Scholar
Continuing education at UCLA
Skills
- Data modeling (database design). ERwin
- Database coding i.e. stored procedures, triggers, and data manipulation. Oracle, SQL Server, Sybase. Less usage: Access and mySQL
- Implementation with ASP .NET C# (still learning), Cold Fusion, Centura, Powerbuilder, Javascript, C/C++. Less usage: Perl, PHP.
- Front-end graphic design. Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Flash, Quicktime VR. Less usage: Painter, Dimensions, SoundForge
- Video. AfterEffects Pro Bundle, Premiere Pro, FinalDraft
- Site design and architecture. Dreamweaver/Homesite, Visio, Acrobat, IIS and Apache. Utilizing CSS, Javascript, and DW templates.
- Photography & Video. Canon D20, Nikon 990
video: Canon XL-1/GL-1
