Thomas (Ted) Dennis
14030 Klein Rd. – Brookville, In. 47012
[Send email to request phone number] 47-7605 [Send email using form at bottom]
Information Technology
Over 15 years' experience in designing, developing, and implementing
state-of-the-art information technology systems for business. Talent for
pro-actively identifying and resolving problems. Proficient at strategic
planning, team building, negotiating, and communicating on both technical and
business levels. Well-rounded IT background, including enterprise architecture,
application architecture, infrastructure, and network design/implementation.
Strengths include:
Technology Architecture & Integration Information Security
Infrastructure Platform Design & Implementation Vendor Negotiation & Contract
Management
Strategic Planning Application Architecture
Project Management Test Analysis & Design
Electronic Commerce Strategy/Development Business Requirements Mapping
Key Technologies/Platforms
Java Apache Citrix DB2
.Net Linux Windows SQL Server
Delphi MQSeries AIX BizTalk
Rational Mercury Documentum LDAP
OS/390 BEA/Weblogic SAP C#
SharePoint MOSS Control Environ
SQL Server Vmware MSMQ Rules Engine
Proficient with all current office automation software: Word, Outlook, Excel,
Project, Visio, etc.
Professional Experience
Great American Financial Resources, Inc. Cincinnati, Oh. 2009 present
Senior Software Specialist / Ent. Architecture
Legacy Integration BizTalk 2004/2006/2006R2
.Net MSMQ/MQSeries Host Integration
Responsible for the integration architecture between internal life insurance,
annuity and 3rd party systems. Lead team interfacing internal systems with
electronic funds transfer and multiple clients' infrastructure. Enterprise
architecture team member, responsible for reviewing/approving various standards
and implementation architecture.
Key areas of responsibility:
Integration Architecture: Responsible for implementation of BizTalk solutions
integrating several client-owned systems with GAFRI's annuity and life insurance
plan management programs.
Key Accomplishments: Lead/Designed/Implemented automated systems to receive
employer/employee fund allocation data and electronic funds transfers.
Cincom Systems Cincinnati, Oh. 2006 present
Senior Industry Consultant
Legacy Integration BizTalk 2004/2006/2006R2
Environ/Control .Net
MQSeries Host Integration iSeries
Architected and lead implementation of multiple integration projects between
third party products and Cincom’s MRP system (Control/Environ). Clients included
large government contractors and private manufacturing companies using BizTalk
2004 & 2006.
Delivered developer training for BizTalk to customers and internal users.
Key areas of responsibility:
Integration Architecture: Responsible for implementations of BizTalk solutions
integrating very complex customer systems with multiple legacy systems. The
integrations included product lifecycle management, manufacturing/inventory,
order entry, financial and customer relationship management.
Key Accomplishments: Lead/Designed/Implemented complex manufacturing and
customer/financial integrations across multiple platforms.
Officially recognized by clients for outstanding quality of work and
performance.
TMD Consulting Brookville, In.. 2005 - 2006
Independent Consultant
Mortgage Default Processing BizTalk 2004/2006
Insurance Software / ASP Citrix, infrastructure, .Net
I led an integration effort at a large Michigan mortgage default processor.
This has been exclusively with BizTalk, brokering real-time transactions between
a proprietary asp.net case management system and major financial institutions:
Countrywide, Fidelity, First American, etc.
Key areas of responsibility:
Integration Architecture: Responsible for the design and implementation of a
BizTalk integration layer, handling all 2-way communications between default
processor and servicer/institutions. Default processing referrals are received
via web service and email interfaces, translated and routed appropriately to the
case management system. Real-time events generated at various work flow steps
are translated and routed via web services to business partners. All
transactions are processed according to a variety of complex business rules,
depending on the type of event. Invoices for services are prepared, batched and
transmitted at the end of each business day. The system is on-line 24 x 7 and is
loosely-coupled to all endpoints, utilizing asynchronous message queuing and
redundant hardware for fault tolerance.
Key Accomplishments: Full life-cycle design and development of production EAI
layer currently brokering multiple transactions for 6,000+ monthly defaults in
Michigan. Designed deployment infrastructure, integration software and business
rule implementation, reaching production status with first institution within 90
days. Became proficient with both BizTalk and c#, writing 95% of the
implementation code.
Citrix/Infrastructure Consulting: Since leaving Cincinnati, I have periodically
provided assistance with carrier implementation of a leading national software
provide for the property & casualty insurance business. This has included
network and security design, Citrix implementation and problem resolution.
Performed pre-sales engineering assessments for new implementations and upcoming
ASP offering.
THE CINCINNATI INSURANCE COMPANIES Cincinnati, Oh. 1999* 2005
Director of Information Technology
Dir. E-Business 2003 2005
Dir. Strategy, Architecture, & Stds. 2001 2003
Enterprise Architect 2000 2001
Consultant Citrix Engineer 1999* 2000
After being recruited from a long-term consultant staff co-developing an
extensive automation project, I was selected to establish and lead an Enterprise
Architecture team (4 architects). Within 2 years I was promoted to Director of
Strategy, Architecture & Standards as a company officer and given a significant
increase in responsibility (app. 50 – 60 reports + contractors, 4 direct Group
Manager reports).
Key areas of responsibility:
Enterprise Architecture: Responsible for the overall strategic technology plan
of the organization, including application design, infrastructure/network design,
and all computing platforms (app. 250 windows servers, 10 RS6000 AIX/Unix,
mainframe, and misc. Linux & Solaris implementations.). Additionally, this group
was responsible for determining all technology & product standards implemented by
the corporation, including software, hardware, service contracts, development
methodologies, etc.
Key Accomplishments: At the onset, there was only minimal support for this
group. While it had a corporate charter, legacy groups and politics were such no
directive as given initially that teams were required to follow EA’s
recommendations. By using a combination of one-on-one team education and
providing exceptional value, we gained the respect and voluntary compliance by
virtually every group. Once this was done, senior management did require all
IT-related projects (including both in-house developed and
commercial-off-the-shelf implementations) to successfully pass an architecture
review process. This group played a key role in designing the overall technical
infrastructure necessary for CIC to conduct business electronically.
Additionally, only two (2) platforms existed at CIC prior to the establishment of
this team: Mainframe and windows servers. This team successfully drove the
adoption of UNIX/Linux for deployment across the enterprise where this platform
was the most efficient. This involved an extensive technology evaluation of the
leading vendors (Sun, IBM, HP) and an ultimate decision based on price,
performance, and overall ROI.
Enterprise Data Mgmt. Group: This group consisted of the database
administrators and data modelers/architects. We supported two platforms, DB2 on
the mainframe/Unix and Sql-Server on Windows, with the majority of engineers
assigned to DB2.
Key Accomplishments: Set and met a goal of having all engineers fully certified
on their respective platforms (some were dual and triple certified). Initially,
the Sql-Server engineers suffered a credibility problem, rectified partially via
this certification. On the other hand, the DB2 group had an excellent technical
reputation but was well known to be difficult to deal with and sometimes
perceived as a roadblock to application development. This was overcome by
targeted management plans. Envisioned and established the first data mart / data
warehouse for the corporation (corporate accounting) with $0 funding and $0
resources. Once we were successful, the follow-on project was funded at about
$3M.
Test & Evaluation: This group was built from the ground-up. All critical
projects or any customer-facing implementation were required to include test in
their development plan, starting with design. Test plans were implemented
primarily using Mercury in a separate test bed facility (TBF) maintained under
strict controls.
Key Accomplishments: This team grew into a multi-group division supporting
virtually every IT deliverable. Large projects were assigned a dedicated team,
while small efforts shared a single group. Test efforts reduced software defects
well below the industry “standard” of 10 per 1000 lines of code (KLOC).
Configuration Management: This was another first-time effort for CIC. This
group managed change control for all production applications and extended duties
on critical projects (for example, this group would actually perform the software
build process on some projects during their promotion to test).
Key Accomplishments: Prior to the establishment of this team, code promotions
were haphazard at best, sometimes resulting in preventable outages. By putting
specific policies and practices into place, code promotions and system changes
were ultimately governed by a CCB (Change & Configuration Board) with
representatives from every major system. Timely analysis and notification
reduced preventable outages over 80%.
Information Technology R&D: ITR&D was a small group of engineers (4) focused on
researching new technology for use at both the home office and by our insurance
agencies in the field. Technologies ranged from digital image capture to VPNs,
laptop/desktop selection for corporate, etc.
Key Accomplishments: Several thousands of dollars were saved by the careful
evaluation of technology before it was purchased and deployed across the
enterprise. While difficult to quantify, key projects included network
printer/fax machines instead of desktop printers in most business units, hardware
selection for all desktop/laptop environments, and digital imaging for insurance
claims.
Enterprise Components Group: Over time, the realization was made that certain
core functions were being developed/re-developed by different groups, often on
the same platform. For example, each development group designed its own security
management code. This group was established to look at such areas enterprise
wide and develop standardized components & services that could be leveraged
across multiple projects and groups.
Key Accomplishments: Enterprise security component using multiple interfaces
(web services, DCOM, Java) deployed to all development projects.
Document Services: Consisted of engineers and business analysts responsible for
all corporate document management services. Technologies employed included
Documentum, Mobius and DocuCorp. The primary focus of this group was the
creation and maintenance of systems designed to manage thousands of state-filed
insurance forms. The software had several needs to support with respect to
different approval processes in 31 states.
Key Accomplishments: All forms were delivered online for field employee and
independent agency access, eliminating a large paper requirement at both HQ and
remote locations. A comprehensive forms library was integrated with policy
production systems ensuring the correct forms and documents were printed with
each respective insurance policy (the commercial lines forms consisted of over
23,000 distinct documents alone).
As Director of e-business, I assumed direct responsibility for the top 2 company
e-business initiatives: Online transactional policy issuance systems for both
personal lines (PLD) and commercial lines (CLD). I was responsible for
approximately 100 reports, six (6) of which were direct. During this time I
maintained oversight of the Enterprise Architecture team as well as a few other
small development groups.
My first involvement with the PLD project occurred in early 2000. While leading
the Enterprise Architecture team I evaluated a third-party product from Applied
Systems while it was in test at the Microsoft test labs in Redmond, Wa. Although
this product already existed on the market, the customizations required by CIC
were extensive. The project was undertaken as a joint effort between Applied and
CIC development teams. Three years later when I was asked to assume
responsibility for this effort, I was given the ultimatum this project would
deploy on-time by the publicly announced date of March 31, 2004 (one state -
Kansas). Failure was not an option. We successfully reigned-in the project and
not only met the initial date, but a subsequent promise of deployment of three
(3) additional states by June 30, 2005 (Mi, Oh, In). This project had a budget
of approximately $40M. As of February 2005, approximately $1M in premiums per
week were being entered into the system in converted, renewal & new business.
The commercial lines project is an in-house effort, designed from scratch and
destined to be the long-term policy production architecture for the company.
Written primarily in J2EE/Java, this project has deployed one line of business in
pilot (Business Owner's Policy BOP) to date. This project was designed using
RUP and featured a complex business rules engine for policy rating. This project
had an annual budget during development of approximately $10M and was expected to
last 5 to 7 years.
SPHERION, INC. Cincinnati, Oh. 1999* 2000
Sr. Technical Specialist Citrix Engineer Cincinnati Insurance
Designed a large Citrix farm installation for deployment of critical software
applications to field users. Consulted on application design to ensure
compatibility and optimization via Citrix. Designed & supervised testing efforts
to establish minimum acceptable bandwidth/connectivity requirements for
Internet/WAN users.
MASTERPIECE MEDICAL, INC. Loveland, Oh. 1994 1999
Chief Architect
Responsible for the design and implementation of physicians' medical records
software, including treatment plans, using CPT/ICD9 coding. Designed and
implemented Medicare billing software for vision claim processing for large,
multi-state vision retailer with electronic data transfer to all four DMERCs.
Platforms: Delphi, Sql-Server, Linux, AIX, Windows
Excellent References Available on Request
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