Fairfield, Connecticut
cell: (646) 206-4054
jimm@io.com
Summary
Senior Technical Innovator Hands-on technology leader proficient at rapidly designing and implementing complex technical solutions. Problem solver and innovator. Understands business goals and how technology supports them. Saves money and time through use of Open Source Software. Experienced at managing teams and building corporate infrastructures. Skilled in communicating with business users and explaining technical concepts to all audiences.
Testimonials
Jim is one of the most talented software engineers I've worked with in my
career. His creative insight and ability to synthesize technical solutions
is extraordinary.
David Ulmer, CIO,
Sothebys.com
Jim Menard is one of the most capable, creative and engaging
individuals I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. He makes that
all-too-rare connection between technical competence and management
know-how.
Dr. R. Mark Adams, Former
VP of Bioinformatics, Nuvelo
Jim Menard has consistently been the easiest solution for any
technical problems my company has faced. He has come up to speed and
resolved coding issues in a shorter time frame and more accurately than any
other engineer we have employed.
Phil Notick, Managing
Partner, Black Anvil Software LLC
Experience
| Senior Director of Technology | iAmplify 2006–Present |
Assumed leadership of tech team when VP of Engineering left the company. Designed, implemented, documented, and deployed new and improved features for company's core software platform, public and private Web services, financial and sales reports, software deployment tools, e-commerce enhancements, video feeds, branded Web sites, and more. Redesigned core technology platform and implemented core subsystems. Helped select new production hosting facility and planned and led production server and software transfer. Led e-commerce vendor selection. Introduced new technologies such as Subversion, Ruby, and Rails to team. Fixed MP3 encoding problems and many other technical issues. Acted as DBA and sysadmin. Met with potential clients and partners as company's technical representative. Performed R&D. Took part in VC due diligence process.
| Open Source Project Leader | ActiveBPEL 2004–2005 |
Project leader and community advocate for ActiveBPEL's open source BPEL engine. Liaison between Active Endpoints and the open source community. Manage developer relations, code releases, and Web site. Create code samples and tutorials. Teach BPEL Essentials course. Created BPEL certification exam. Provide developer support.
| Consultant | Independent 2001–2005 |
- Redesigned and implemented Preclick's PhotoWiki Web server application. Designed and implemented the Instant Photo Messaging server and prototype client. Member of Preclick Technical Advisory Board.
- For Expert Foods, added Amazon interface, bug tracking system, and source code control.
- For Warner Music Group, selected and installed an Open Source guaranteed file delivery mechanism and worked on design of an E-commerce system.
- For Variagenics, added features to genetics sample tracking system.
- For Sotheby's, helped rebuild mainframe apps in Java.
- For 3Path, selected and installed an Open Source reporting system.
- For the Information and Content Exchange (ICE) Authoring Group, developed two Open Source ICE reference implementations.
- As an independent, developed multiple Open Source projects and published "Building Applications With Berkeley DB Java Edition" and "Introduction to Ruby for Mac OS X".
| Chief Technology Officer | Strategic Legal Resources 2000–2001 |
Founding member of startup executive team tasked with technical vision, prototype, implementation, and delivery of a B2C Web service. Through mergers and acquisitions, took responsibility for infrastructure of $20M company. Enabled expansion from three offices to six. Evaluated, integrated, consolidated, and replaced disparate front- and back-office systems. Created new VPN, email, and financial systems. Managed desktop, server, and Web site support.
| Vice President, Application Engineering | Sotheby's 1999–2000 |
Designed and implemented Sothebys.com b2b and b2c E-commerce auction site subsystems. Coordinated internal and contract technical resources. Increased site performance tenfold. Worked with business users to derive and simplify business and auction rules. Evaluated new technologies and developed prototypes. Acted as mentor to technology team.
| Director of Technology | New Media Productions 1998–1999 |
Managed, directed, and grew technology department. Designed reference and framework architectures. Prepared and presented technical designs and work estimates. Introduced structured design and development practices.
| Associate Director | Cambridge Technology Partners 1996–1998 |
As Interactive Solutions Domain Technical Manager for Atlanta Region, oversaw and participated in scoping, architecture, design and development. Supported marketing, sales, and hiring for region.
Oversaw the scoping, design, and development of multiple systems as a Senior Technical Consultant. Led design of Web-based software distribution product. Solved technical issues and helped redesign a CORBA-based 401(k) plan administration system. Designed core architecture of Web-based service purchasing system for shipping company.
| Project Leader, Macintosh Development | MCI/News Corp. Internet Ventures 1995–1996 |
| Software Engineer | Bolt Beranek & Newman 1995 |
| Associate | Marble Associates 1993–1994 |
| Senior Software Project Engineer |
Xerox Corporation 1988–1992 |
| Systems Analyst/Programmer and Administrator |
| Strong Memorial Hospital Cancer Center 1983–1988 |
Publications
"Ruby on Rails - An Introduction", online, presented to NY CTO Club, July 2006.
"Building Applications With Berkeley DB Java Edition", Java Developer's Journal, September 2004.
"Unit Testing With OCUnit", O'Reilly's MacDevCenter.com, April 2004.
"Alternate Data Storage Technologies", online, presented to NY CTO Club, April 2004.
"Introduction to Ruby for Mac OS X", MacTech, March 2003 cover article.
"Ruby, an Introduction", online, presented to NY CTO Club, July 2001.
Technical Skills
Languages Java, Ruby, PHP, JavaScript,
Lisp, Smalltalk, Objective-C, Bash/Csh, Perl, C, C++, Assembly
Acquainted with: Scala, Erlang, Groovy, Haskell, Python, Nice, Fortran,
Pascal
Operating Systems Unix (Linux, BSD, Solaris, etc.), Mac OS X, MacOS, Nextstep, BeOS, DOS, Windows, VMS
Databases MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, Sybase, Informix
Frameworks and Tools Ruby on Rails, J2EE, Spring, Hibernate, Tapestry, Cayenne, JSP, Servlets, JDBC, Ant, JUnit/XUnit, RMI, CORBA, (X)HTML, CSS, AJAX, XML, SOAP, XML-RPC, WSDL, BPEL, ICE, Apache, Tomcat, WebLogic, Prevayler, LaTeX, Yaws, Erlyweb, more
Education
University of Rochester, Bachelor of Arts - May, 1983
Major: Mathematics, with a concentration in Computer Science
Advisory Boards
Preclick Technical advisor for PhotoWiki and Instant Photo Messaging products
Professional Organizations
New York CTO Club
Technical Executives Networking Group (TENG)
IT Networking
Independent Projects
DataVision Cross-platform graphical database reporting tool
NQXML XML parser written in Ruby
Rice Information and Content Exchange (ICE) protocol reference implementation in Ruby
TwICE ICE protocol reference implementation in Java
midilib Pure-Ruby MIDI file and event manipulation library
Bangkok Ruby chess game replayer with music generation capability
KeyMaster Real-time MIDI performance software
Squeak (Smalltalk) PostgreSQL interface