One day when I was in eighth grade, I started up the family computer intending to progress through the next chapter of King's Quest VI. Something new caught my eye: an icon labeled Visual Basic 3.0. Intrigued by the prospect of a new game, I found my mother and inquired about the application. Her response, "You can use it to make your own programs," set me on my career path at that early age.
Shortly after I had soaked up all the necessary new Visual Basic concepts, I built several small utilities and a small adventure game. I continued to independently study programming in Visual Basic throughout high school, and won a couple technology-related awards in a statewide competition. In my senior year of high school, I took Advanced Placement (AP) Computer Science where I formally learned the basics of programming in C++ and earned some easy college credit by passing the AP examination.
My mother, a COBOL programmer, lost her job to downsizing around this time. From her unemployment, I learned an important lesson: the only dependably consistent characteristic of computer technology is that it changes quickly. It was this lesson in conjunction with my personal fascination for software-related technology that drove me through college.
Through self-motivated independent study and on-the-job training, I have become a skilled software developer with concentration in web development and design concepts. In the earlier portion of my career, I was able to condense years of work experience into a short period through high profile internships at leading financial services companies, and full-time employment at a dot-com company, several departments at Lehigh University, and an entrepreneurial software company that markets business solutions to Fortune 100 firms and state agencies. My most recent experience includes over five years of web application development for a software company that sells clinical trial products to big pharma companies and successfully IPO'd on NASDAQ.
Reviews of my current work assert that the code I write is accurate, clean, readable, and efficient. Additionally, past employers and coworkers attest that I have a proficiency for user-centric design and development.
Focused on pursuing a career in software development or Internet technology, I actively involved myself in programming, web design, and development for the past 14 years. My personal drive to stay on the "cutting-edge" of technology yields a constantly evolving list of skills and abilities.
