Professionally, I’m a software developer and IT Professional.  I work for a Medical Device Manufacturer in suburban Minneapolis and I’m interested in how to make Information Technology work for today’s business problems.  I work with Salesforce.com’s CRM and Force.com platform as well as both VB.NET and C#.Net. 

I’ve frequently found myself working for organizations that require a wide variety of different language and technological skills.  I’ve worked as a software developer for a variety of organization, working in C++ and C#, Visual Basic, Java, and Perl.  I’ve worked with Windows, Macintosh OS X, and UNIX systems.

I have developed test plans for an XML news delivery system for Marketwatch, built time scheduling application user interfaces for Time Management, and built a Rich Text Format  parser to help build an exam creation tool for Pearson.   I’ve worked on supporting the manufacturing processes of Honeywell by integrating their home-built test systems with their manufacturing execution system.

I have a Bachelor’s Degree and a Masters Degree in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.   As a graduate student I was a teaching assistant for both introductory programming and database courses at the undergraduate and graduate level.

I’ve been a Science Fiction and Fantasy fan all of my life, and I’ve been involved with the Minnesota Society of Interest in Science Fiction and Fantasy, a 501(3)c organization for a number of years.  I’ve just been elected to serve on the board of regents and will be the co-ordinator of the Events Division of CONvergence, a science fiction conference with over 2500 attendees.   I’ve previously served as a Web Master and IT Department Head, and I was head of Programming for five years, which involved organizing over a hundred different discussions and panels in a year, with participation amongst dozens of professionals and amateurs on a wide variety of subjects related to Science, Science Fiction, and Fantasy.