Introduction

For more details, please view my resume.

I am the Chief Technology Officer at Blue Slate Solutions in Albany, NY. My role is to lead teams in the analysis, design, integration, construction, and deployment of applications to our customers. Blue Slate Solutions focuses on helping customers with technology and business issues. We support new ventures that may need assistance with automation, business planning and obtaining capital.

Before joining Blue Slate Solutions, I was the Senior Applications Architect at Integrated Partners Inc. (IPI) in Albany, NY. My role was to lead technical teams, both in-house and contract. IPI focuses on providing solutions for state and local government. The integration of myriad systems used by multiple agencies throughout the state provided an exciting and challenging opportunity for the team and company.

Previously, I was the Thin-Client and Database-to-Web Technology Architect for the Quality Applications and Data Warehouse groups at GE's Power Systems division in Schenectady, NY. There, I used Oracle and Java to connect their global workforce and customers to backend systems regardless of the client's platform. In addition I designed and developed CGI programs in C++ to handle reporting from the Oracle backend. We used the OCI (Oracle Call Interface) to obtain rapid and efficient response. This avoided the overhead of JDBC or ODBC. The use of C++ allowed us to develop web-reporting classes that sped our development cycle.

Before that, I built applications for PC-based imaging of engineering drawings, database access from Sybase and SQL Server databases and many other business solutions running in DOS and Windows. Most of my applications were written in C and C++. I have also used Visual Basic for quick front-ends.

In addition I was a member of the GE Power Generation WebMaster team which supported both their Internet and intranet sites. I have coded CGI applications which allowed access to their SQL data and engineering drawings. This gave access to the information with the speed and simplicity of the Web!

I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Information Systems from The College of Saint Rose in Albany, NY. I began my college days as a Music Education major at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ.

Speaking at the International Business Rules Forum

11th Annual Business Rules Forum Logo

Michael Strianese (Program Leader at Blue Slate Solutions) and I will be speaking at this year's International Business Rules Forum (BRF) in Orlando. Our topic is "Security of Services" and is scheduled for Thursday, October 30 at 9:05am. We will be discussing web service security both from the technical and business perspective. Last year, Paul Evans (program Leader at Blue Slate Solutions) and I presented at the BRF where we discussed and demonstrated the synergies available when combining Business Rules Engines (BRE) and Service Oriented Architectures (SOA). That presentation, and demonstration source code, is available for download.

Open Source Projects

I maintain a few open source projects. They grew out of client project work and serve to both solve issues encountered during project delivery and as a way to try out libraries and techniques. Two of the projects, BasicQuery and FormatCheck, are hosted on SourceForge. The others, Caching Library and WatchLog, are hosted on Blue Slate Solutions' website.

Presentations

I have delivered various presentations over the years. Venues have included JavaOne, PCIAA, SANS, and the CDJDN. Many of the slides from these presentations are available on Blue Slate Solutions' website. The topics have covered an array of subjects such as: Open Source And Commercial Software; Secure Software Development; Leveraging Ant; Utilizing Cobertura; Application Tuning; and more. I enjoy having an opportunity to share experiences and ideas with a broader community of analysts, designers, architects and developers.

SANS Secure Software Webcasts

A few years ago I was asked to present a series of webcasts focused on designing and developing secure web applications. Those webcasts are available for free due to the generosity of SANS and the series sponsor, Secure Software. You will need a free SANS account to access the webcasts. Links to the individual webcasts are below. Here is the link for the current SANS webcasts.


Links to Individual Webcasts