Ira Blum
410 W Walnut St / Whitewright, TX  75491	 [Send email to request phone number] 64-5732 / [Send email using form
at bottom]

Qualifications for Lead Software Engineer

Offers a decade of software engineering experience.  Effectively guides teams in
gathering requirements and building and deploying applications to fulfill
specific requirements.  Quick learner with extremely slow ramp-up times on new
projects.  Successfully trains clients in application use.  Displays excellent
customer service, product development, systems installation, and client relations
abilities.  

Work Experience

8/2008 – Present     Partners Consulting: IDM Consultant.  Consultant in the
area of Identity management for a regional Energy provider.  Position includes
customer relations, project management, validation and verification, and coding
in a proprietary scripting language called EXPRESS.
4/2005 – 8/2008     K2Share LLC:  Senior Software Engineer.  Lead Developer of
the HSVAC Web Portal, a web-based system for tracking applications for direct
support and their approvals.   Was team leader for two other engineers working on
the project.  Also worked on the Preceptor system, a Web-based learning
management system.  During this employment, I worked with Java, including J2EE
using EJB’s, JSP, and Servlets using Jrun web application server and Apache web
servers.  I also wrote Cold Fusion applications and designed PDF reports using
Jasper Reports, iReports application.
6/2003 – 4/2005    Blum Design & Development: Contracted to Meta Integration
Technologies in Los Altos California, in a full telecommuting position designing,
developing, testing, deploying and maintaining various software applications.
Including but not limited to database and web based applications. Applications
completed with short turnaround times. Extensive experience dealing with various
government agencies including the Department of Defense and the Center for
Medicare and Medicaid Services.  During this contract I wrote Visual Basic, C++,
and Java using J2EE, Javascript, JSP, EJB, and Servlets on a Tomcat web
application server running on a Windows NT platform and using SQL, JDBC, and ODBC
to connect to Access, SQL Server, Oracle, and DB2 databases.  I also set up and
ran a Linux based computer as a router for a network.  Developed graphic
visualization software using Flash and a third party graphics package called
yWorks.
11/2000 – 6/2003    onWeb Technologies/ JRFII LLP: Lead Developer for the VISION
system, a Visual Basic application that utilizes multiple forms to allow medical
professionals to fill out Medicare forms for End Stage Renal patients and submit
those forms electronically.  Developed the GUI, the object model, the database,
and the XML interface to the transport mechanism.  Advanced this government
project from a concept to full nationwide deployment in less than 2 years. 
During this contract I wrote predominantly Visual Basic applications, but still
used C++ frequently and Java and J2EE (including Servlets).  I also used XML and
XSLT extensively.  I also used SQL, JDBC, and ODBC to connect to Access, SQL
Server and Oracle databases on Windows NT platforms.  I also had some peripheral
use of a Linux machine.  I helped perform upper level support for a nationwide
deployment of a Visual Basic System to over 1000 Health care facilities.
9/1997 - 10/2000   Signal Incorporated: Designed and built web-based
applications for D.O.D. Projects included web-based document management system,
inspection system, data registry, and multiple web-based applications. Architect
of the database design, object design, and program design. All work done in
Java/C++. This software was created using Java Applets, HttpApplets and Java
Servlets. Software applications were programmed using ER-Win to develop databases
and Rational Rose to develop object designs. Projects conformed to Case
development, three-tier design, and conformed to a 3 month release schedule. 
During the first two years of working for Signal, I also completed my PhD at
University of Texas at Dallas.  During this contract I used a variety of
technologies and applications including Rational Rose, ERWin, C/C++, Java, HTML,
Javascript, ODBC, JDBC, Servlets, Access, SQL Server, and Windows NT.  I also
used Solaris Unix in a minor way.  I supported web-based systems for the United
States Air Force Medical Corps.
9/1992 – 9/1997    University of Texas at Dallas:  Performed Physics Research
using Fortran 77 to process High Energy Physics Events, collate these events into
data, and used the data to generate the cross-section measurements in my doctoral
dissertation.  I was an author on 23 published physics papers while a member of
the BES collaboration.  Also, while working on my dissertation I was a teaching
assistant in the Physics 1 lab where I lectured on use of the lab and other
Physics subjects.  My dissertation was written using a publishing tool called
LaTex.  The Fortran programming was done on HP-UX Unix operating systems.  I set
up and ran a Linux machine using Red Hat Linux version 2.0 as well.  I also used
VMS and VM/CMS systems to do some data reconstruction.  This is one of the first
times when I was exposed to the World Wide Web, and I used TCP/IP, Ethernet
protocols, and HTML and web page design.  As a Teaching assistant, I lectured
students and helped them perform their labs.
4/1990 - 6/1992    IDB Systems: Wrote the device drivers connecting computer
driven monitor and control systems to various components of commercial and
government satellite uplink and downlink systems in several countries including
England, Italy, China, and the US. Also installed rack mounted hardware and
helped design PC cards for operating various pieces of satellite earth station
equipment.  I worked with all facets of software development from requirements
gathering to testing and international deployment.  While working for IDB I used
Borland C/C++ in an embedded system and various communication protocols including
RS-232, RS-422, RS-485, Satellite systems, and encoded relays.  I performed
technical support for deployed systems.
6/1986 - 8/1988 (Summers)     Texas Instruments Defense Systems & Electronics
Group Wrote software to control a 10 ton Gallium-Arsenide (GaAs) backside
grinder.  Performed analysis on breakage of wafers in the GaAs production lab.
Wrote Matching software for the HARM system communication system and got it
approved by Texas Instruments Software Quality Assurance group.  The software was
written using system interrupts in UCSD p-System Pascal.

Education

Ph.D. in High Energy Physics, University of Texas at Dallas, 1999 Dissertation
title: "A Measurement of the Inclusive Charm Cross Section at 4.03 GeV and 4.14
GeV in e+e- annihilations."
M.S. in High Energy Physics, University of Texas at Dallas, 1993
B.S. in Physics/Minor in Computer Science, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,
1990