Summary
I am a developer, designer, analyst and project manager with proven results for process improvement and problem solving. My results include reduced costs, production efficiencies and enhanced production flow.
Objectives
I am seeking a job where I can leverage my knowledge and experience in publishing, media, business analysis and process improvement to the benefit of the company.
Skills
- Experience in publishing on paper and web, design and document construction
- Technical writing, editing, project management, business analysis and user training
- UNIX and MS Windows
- Photography, graphic formats, PostScript and PDF
- MS Office, Adobe CS, Adobe Acrobat Professional and CorelDraw Graphics Suite
A detailed list of all software packages is presented on the “Sometimes Asked Questions” page.
Professional Experience
Jaded Duck Media Design / Contract work
6/05– present — My small business, focusing on web services. Some contract work was acquired via other agencies:
- System analysis, new-product design and specification writing for a software house in the newspaper business.
- Project manager and analyst for a medical publisher, developing on-line training modules in English and Spanish.
- Web development, back office analysis and process improvement for a small travel business.
- This is the web site I designed for the travel business. To allow long term support and maintenance of the site without technical experience, an MS Excel spreadsheet was created for maintenace of the scheduled tours. An MS Excel macro was written to generate two web sites from the content (one under the domain of the travel agency and under the domain of the "travel club" of the primary client, a public radio station). The CSS file formatted the content and specific file naming allowed connections to standing image maps and graphics.
- Contract work with a medical publisher managing the development of on-line training modules in English and Spanish.
- Free-lance web development.
- This is the 5th iteration of this web site. It is generated by a shell script that sorts all photos and builds each page. (This was before CSS was fully supported in browsers.
- A subsidiary site was created to allow users to design their own signs. This was integrated with a SAS vendor in Florida.
Strategic System Solutions
Horsham, Pennsylvania
12/08–04/09 — Sales and Marketing Support
Technical writing preparing documents for sales and marketing materials and project management (PMBOK) templates to support company contracts.
9/06–11/08 — Deployment Manager
Manager working as part of a 24-hour management team overseeing the deployment of software and changes for an international investment bank. Develop and execute plans for the orderly deployment of code in test and production environments.
TVGuide
(Gemstar-TVGuide, News America Corporation), Radnor, Pennsylvania.
1/97–6/05 — Project Manager/Senior Analyst
Worked in Information Technology, Production and Advertising on projects related to the creation and production of over 200 weekly editions. Managed up to five internal professionals and four contractors on multiple corporate projects.
- “Apollo” Listings Database migration. Managed the project team of thirty developers and four consultants in Radnor to merge two corporate program listings databases into a single corporate asset. Liaison between development team in Tulsa, Radnor and editorial staff. Lead teams on re-engineering extracts, data joins, reports and utilities from new database.
- Print Production Improvement Program (PPIP). Managed the project team and participated with the research, writing and editing of the vision and scope document and business case to combine manufacturing, copy ordering, distribution and pro forma billing into a single system.
- This is a management presentation on the Print Production Improvement Project. It documents the current work flow and efficiencies of the new system.
- As research for the project continued, we discovered that several departments defined the editions differently. Some used numbers, some letters and others used combinations. This was used at a presentation to the concerned parties to agree on a standard edition identification convention.
- PDF Magazine Archive. Managed the project team and participated with the design and development of a color and black-and-white archive of the magazine on the corporate intranet. Realized $300K annual savings.
- To initiate the project, this business case was written to request approval for the retention of the archive on company servers.
- The editorial planning was done on an MS Excel spreadsheet. To support the archive project, which needed a flat file to drive the tagging of pages, I created this spreadsheet to capture the information until an intranet solution was finished.
- This document was written for a meeting with the editorial production staff to explain how they would use the the new spreadsheet and the new intranet application.
- This is a self-contained training document explaining the PDF Archive and how to use it.
- This production support document was written to guide operations or other staff how to create the PDF Archive.
- This is the end result of the archive project. (This file is 27mb and will be slow to download.) It has all of the cover versions created (subscriber, four newsstand collector covers and a “hotel” edition). This version, kept on the company servers, included an “easter egg’ link that connected to the songs that were on the CDs attached to the covers.
- Electronic tear sheets. Managed the project team and participated with the design and development of an automated system to deliver invoices and ad tear sheets in PDF via e-mail and the web. Realized $50K annual savings.
- This is the high level design specification for the electronic tear sheets project.
- This is an invoice for ad space in the magazine. This example has been redacted to remove confidential information.
- The ad billing department requested an MS Excel spreadsheet that mimicked the system generated billing forms. This allowed them to manually send bills for ad space. To remind the user what to enter, this duplicate included comments for clarification.
- Mac OS X/Adobe InDesign migration. Managed the project team responsible for migration of all Macs to a common OS (Mac OS X) current hardware and applications. This included the switch of the page layout program for the feature section to Adobe InDesign from Quark. The $250K project came in on-time and under budget.
- CTP (direct-to-plate). Developer on a team to reduce staff and replacement costs of network film setters. A $4 million expenditure was avoided.
- CTK (direct-to-gravure). Developer of a system to deliver newsprint pages directly to the NKI imager. Realized $20K annual savings on material costs and recovered 24-hours for production.
- Imposition migration. Managed the project team and participated with the development in a project to remove a proprietary and unsupported imposition system and replace with an automatic yet flexible “shrink-wrapped” package. Developed dynamic plate marks in PostScript for templates for press, bindery and version control.
- Digital Ad Conversion. Developer on a team to automate the conversion of PostScript and PDF ads to a production-compatible (TIFF) formats. Saved significant time and manual effort in ad production. Converted snipe (channel processing to a multi-threaded process, cutting close time significantly. Also developed procedure for conversion of Velox proofs to gravure format.
- New York Post TV listings. Managed the project team and participated with the design and development of a compiled 8-page color TV grid and a full-color sports index.
- The New York Post was a sister publication to TVGuide. This was the first 4-color compiled listing product created by TVGuide. The first few months of this product were created using the internal compositon system and the Postscript was “fixed” with PERL scripts to correct trapping and color assignment before producing film. After a year, the files were imposed into printing spreads and plate-ready PDFs were delivered to the Post's printer.
International Computaprint/Reed Technology and Information Services
Fort Washington, Pennsylvania/Horsham, Pennsylvania
7/88–1/97 — Technical Project Manager
Analyzed, developed and administered UNIX pre-press production system and wide area network for publishers’ service bureau serving industrial directories, telephone directories and professional directories. Analyzed materials from new clients, trouble-shooting ad makeup and page problems. Responsible for maintaining system font library, integrating ad makeup, illustration scanning and image setting into a cohesive page production system.
- Ad tracking and control system. Developer and analyst on a team to augment the ad tracking database by applying a bar code system for name entry and batch control. The client’s staff was able to handle four times as many ads and the company was able to handle five times the number of ads.
- Page production control system. Developer and analyst on a team to create an interface for operators to use for production of display ad directory pages on film and bond paper.
- Spot-color and process-color ad system. Developer and analyst on system to integrate ads from desktop platforms into proprietary composition environment, including four spot colors and white knockouts in yellow page directories.
- Digital ad capture system. Developer and analyst of system to scan ad film for placement on finished pages. Developer and analyst of system to accept ads from outside vendors (pre-PDF).
- PostScript Interpreters. Developer, analyst and administrator on a team to integrate PostScript interpreters (Fiery, Harlequin and Hyphen) for use in proprietary (triple-I) page setting environment.
Information International Incorporated
(Triple-I, Autologic, Agfa) Culver City, California.
11/83–7/88 Customer Support Specialist/Magazine Support Specialist
Software Support Representative for the Capitol (Washington, DC) District, supporting the company’s high speed and high volume pre-press pagination systems. Clients included newspapers, magazines, book publishers and government agencies.
Volunteer Experience
Cat Tales, Inc., Animal Rescue
Warminster, Pennsylvania
2001–present — Treasurer, foster parent, fund-raiser, technology manager and marketing manager for non-profit animal rescue.
- Developed and supported three web sites on behalf of Cat Tales, www.cattalesinc.org. Organized sub-domain for sales of merchandise. Also developed on-line credit card processing.
- Organized internet-based system for distribution of incoming faxes and incoming calls to distributed teams for smooth customer service.
- Organized web-based “home office” for the sharing of business information, with volunteers and between board members.
- homeoffice.cattalesinc.org - Since Cat Tales does not have a storefront, this site was developed to post information to all volunteers. This sub domain is hosted on another site as runs open-source TWIKI software. The site is configured with three levels of access. The site maintains PDFs of all forms and organization calendars.
- Developed forms, brochures and display signs for adoption centers and fund raising events.
- A poster for a fund raiser. The base design was reworked as needed for a sweatshirt and ad in our own newsletter.
- A design for a “sandwich board” that was built to help promote Cat Tales events. This featured space at the top of the board for a custom 11 x 17 poster to promote the event.
- An example of a newsletter I wrote, illustrated and assembled for Cat Tales. It was our first newsletter and was e-mailed and sent via USPS. Another newsletter features my photos and writing on the Kitties in Paradise article, and includes the ad mentioned above.
- This Cat Tales newsletter features a financial report for the organization. I analyzed the finances and wrote the summary.
- Cat Tales has a holiday-season fund raiser at a Barnes & Noble bookstore, gift-wrapping customer purchases. This collection of bookmarks I created to distribute and keep our name in front of a new market of people.
- This banner (3 foot by 4 foot) was displayed in a store window to promote cats available for adoption.
- This banner was created for another fund raiser, Kitten Races. (Kittens we placed in an 8-foot long cage and encouraged to run, walk or jump down to the other end of the track.)
- This PDF was used as a sound effects console used for the Kitten Races. Various WAV files were linked into the on-screen buttons and the laptop was connected to external speakers. Sounds could be played at will by clicking the button. (Some music WAV files have been unlinked.)
Philadelphia Zoo
Philadelphia Pennsylvania
1998–2004 — General volunteer at the Zoo and officer in the Zoo”s Camera Club
Education
University of the Arts
2005–current) — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Continuing education program, Web development classes.
Drexel University
9/90–7/92 — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Masters candidate in Publication Management.
Rochester Institute of Technology
9/81–8/83 — Rochester, New York
Associates and Bachelors degree in Printing Management.
Southern Illinois University
5/80–7/80 — Carbondale, Illinois
Photojournalism and Radio/Television production.
Thank you for your consideration!
