Al Breland

SUMMARY

Senior COBOL Programmer  with over 20 years of experiences in full life cycle IT
project development . Specific competencies include: 
•	Creative problem solving analysis.  Plan execution, test and implementation. 
•	Plan monitoring and control Quality assurance and issue tracking 
•	Consistently recognized as the key mission driven staff member who achieves
the desired results in all facets of IT whether it is systems design, opening a
new data center or managing multinational/multi vendor  projects.

TECHNICAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT SKILLS
MS Project 			Project Workbench 	PMI  Methodology		MS Word
MS Excel			Mainframe COBOL	MVS				CICS
PMBOK				 MICROFOCUS COBOL 
MPMM Project Management Tools

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2003/Fulltime management of  my own web site www.SreetRodding.com 

TEK Systems, Bloomington, IL
2000 – 2003
Senior Project Manager over a variety of programmers and specialist, assigned at
State Farm Insurance, responsible for multiple enterprise wide (100,000+ end
users) projects utilizing matrix teams, formal methodology, planning and
execution from scope through implementation. 

ALLTEL Information Services, Little Rock, AR						1983-2000 
Project Manager
•	Senior Programming Manager over 90 customer service reps and programmers. 
•	Managed Systems & Programming staff of 20 for a Florida bank.
•	Led 35 community bank COBOL conversions in ALLTEL''s Los Angeles Data Center.
•	Managed COBOL Systems Development staff at a Florida bank. 
•	Developed methodology for converting 180 correspondent banks. 
•	Wrote standard COBOL software conversion methodology for global convergence. 
•	Wrote MVS JCL standards for ALLTEL Information Services (Systematic).
•	Managed and participated on a Y2K QA Team monitoring all AIS data centers
world wide.
•	Managed multi national/multi vendor QA Team for UK Bank conversion.
•	Coordinated an IBM mainframe to HP3000 software conversion.
•	Developed yearend-processing procedures and tests to assure a smooth
transition.
•	Participated in or managed approximately 65 bank conversions.
•	Planned and managed the consolidation of two data centers.
•	Co-planned and staffed worldwide software upgrade for a wholesale bank in
Germany.

1983 IBM mainframes COBOL trust system to HP3000 (COBOL) conversion and
development.  Senior Analyst responsible for all the online COBOL programming. I
was the subject matter expert on the project. Also coordinated application
testing.
.
1985 /86 Bright Banc in Dallas, Tx. Project leader for conversion of  loan
systems. Had a team of six COBOL programmers and customer service types that
converted the COBOL loan applications for Real-estate, Installment Loans,
Commercial Loans  to Systematic COBOL software. We also coordinated the systems
and user testing.

1987 Headed up the COBOL loan conversions at Bright Banc with a small conversion
team. Assignment included all the system testing and user testing support.

1988 Took a small team of  3 programmers and converted Bank of  Slidel  (outside
New Orleans) to Systematics COBOL software for Real-estate, Savings and
Commercial Loans. I was the team leader coordinating all aspects of the
conversion between three different cities and data centers.

1989 Ontario, Ca data center Real-estate COBOL enhancement upgrades to avoid
installing the latest release. I had a team of 4-6 that did the changes to the
code and tested the application along with Bank personnel. Renewal contract was
dependent on getting this job done.

1990 Commercial Loans, Real-estate, Installment Loans  conversion project lead
for Team Bank in Dallas, Tx. Led a team in converting Team Bank to the
Systematics COBOL application as well as programming and coordinating

1991 Transferred to City National Bank in Los Angeles as a COBOL programming
supervisor. After 3 months I was promoted to Senior Programming Manager over five
teams of 6 individuals each. My teams planned, converted and tested approximately
35 correspondent banks. I personally oversaw the installation and “three day”
test of all Systematics COBOL applications (that’s what got me promoted). This
was a very difficult assignment with a hostile group that was taken over by
Systematics. I spent roughly four and A half years in this position prior to the
centers downsizing and later shut down. I also managed the Inclusion of our San
Diego center into the processing at City National. Processing was switched over a
 weekend and the customer base never knew it.

1995/96 Transferred to the International Division and was sent to Leeds England
as a QA Manager over a team of approximately 8 multinational/multi vendor
individuals. My team was responsible for tracking of all issues and problems to
successful completion. The conversion was a total success. One of my duties was
status reporting to the project steering committee on a weekly basis. The
conversion included virtually all ALLTEL (Systematics) COBOL applications.
Individuals on my team worked with the conversion teams and the bank personnel to
test all issues to the satisfaction of the client. This was, overall,
approximately a 50-80 million-dollar project.

1996 Following the successful conversion of Yorkshire Bank I went to Dusseldorf
Germany to assist in the establishment of a project office for our wholesale
banking division. The project was to bring a worldwide network of  banks under
the WESTLB Bank onto the same versions of the software. In some cases it was an
upgrade where others were complete light switch conversions. I hired technicians
over the phone from the states (ALLTEL folks), worked with the contracted
consulting firms to establish plans and consulted with the bank on conversion
strategies.

1997 Returned to the United States (actually 1996) and worked on the worldwide
convergence plan for Citibank. This project never really got off the ground and I
transferred back to the department I had left in 1991 as a project manager

1998/2000 I managed a QA team for the ALLTEL internal Y2K effort for all
divisions. We later determined that a management role was not necessary (as the
project evolved) and we split the project up amongst the team. We 
basically monitored data center and divisional plans to see that the work was
carried out. The best description was one of being an “auditor” in the field. We
tracked all modification upgrades, changes, testing etc while under the scrutiny
of corporate and federal regulatory bodies. This was approximately an 80-100
million-dollar project. 

Westinghouse Corporation, Iowa City, IA 							 1981-1983 
 Project Manager - Playskool Division
•	Managed a team of 26 COBOL contract programmers converting IBM software to
HP3000 database driven software.

EDUCATION
Davenport College Detroit, MI, 					     			1974 
BS, Computer Science
PMP, Project Management Institute, Newton Square, Pa, 					1999