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Resume for

William R. Ross

Seattle, Washington, USA
[email me]


EMPLOYMENT HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE 

EDUCATION & TRAINING

SUMMARY OF MANAGEMENT AND ENGINEERING EXPERTISE

Project Management

System and Software Engineering

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

2010 - Present: Producer/Director
Glyphware, Seattle, Washington

- Wrote and produced several short live-action films, including a PSA for a non-profit, a documentary on a wildlife rehabilitation center, and "Car Alarm-B-Gone", an action comedy that is also an advertisement for an iPhone app..

2008 - 2010: Senior Software Engineer
BlueView Technologies, Inc. Seattle, Washington

- Designed and coded ProScan, the company's second software product. ProScan allowed BlueView to pioneer a new market for its miniature multibeam sonars in the creation of geo-referenced 3D models of sub-sea structures such as bridges, pipelines, and oil rigs. ProScan also allowed BlueView to sell its sonars into the hydrographic survey market.

- Worked closely with vendors of hydrographic software to ensure compatibilty of network interfaces and file formats.

- Tools employed included MS Visual Studio (C++), Qt, Linux, Python, Visio (UML), Subversion, and Bugzilla.

2006 - 2007: Vice President of Product Development and Business Development
Vulnerable Plaque Diagnostics, Inc. Seattle, Washington

- Startup firm (3 employees) was formed to acquire and capitalize on the MRI image analysis technology developed at Pathway MRI (described below), specifically the QVAS product line.

- Principal Investigator (PI) on $2.93 million multi-year NIH-funded project to enhance the QVAS product line and perform clinical trials for FDA PMA regulatory approval.  

- Responsible for ensuring that product development process and resulting product meet regulatory requirements.  Develop and maintain product roadmap and synchronize with marketing and sales efforts.  Maintain critical research relationships with universities.
Participate in capital raising activities targeting private and government sources.

2004-2006: Director of Software Development
Pathway MRI, Inc. Seattle, Washington

- Responsible for the successful execution of a $975,000 NIH/NHLBI SBIR Phase II grant. Purpose of the grant was to develop a commercial 3D medical software product based on revolutionary MR image analysis technology for the characterization of atherosclerotic plaque which had been developed at the University of Washington.  The resulting Quantitative Vascular Image Analysis System (QVAS) product was submitted to the FDA for approval to market.  

- Defined a formal product development process suitable for FDA-regulated medical software.

- Developed milestones and schedules, allocated and tracked budgets, hired and managed resources for software coding, documentation, testing, and regulatory approval. 

Maintained and nurtured the strategic research alliance between Pathway MRI and researchers at the University of Washington.  Particpated in the successful negotiations to license the relevant Intellectual Property (IP) from the University of Washington. 

- Architected and designed the commercial product, as well as writing significant portions of the C++ software code, including the GUI, the DICOM data interface, and the clinical report functionality.

- Planned and performed beta trials, as well as customer and vendor evaluations.  Negotiated licenses with end users.  Produced sales and marketing materials.

- Co-authored successful follow-on NIH Phase II Competing Continuation grant proposal for $2.93 million.

- Tools employed include MS Visual Studio (C++), Linux, Qt, VTK, DCMTK, Subversion, and Bugzilla.

2001 - 2004: Producer/Director
Glyphware, Seattle, Washington

- Produced and directed two award-winning short animated films. The films have been selected by more than fifty film festivals in Europe, Canada, and the United States.

- Tools employed include Macromedia Flash, Adobe After Effects, and Adobe Premiere.
 

1998 - 2001: Senior Software Engineer
Vignette Corporation, Austin, Texas

- Member of team building and maintaining the J2EE-based metadata management system driving Vignette's second-generation portal.  This content management tool allows site content to be categorized and stored as XML for presentation to site visitors using a proprietary personalization algorithm.

- Member of Professional Services organization responsible for architecting, designing, and deploying n-tier internet e-commerce sites built around the Vignette Storyserver personalized content delivery platform.  Work closely with clients to determine requirements, prepare project plans, architect solutions based on the Vignette Storyserver product and incorporating 3rd party products such as databases, web servers, and search engines as needed, and lead the development, testing, and deployment of the resulting system.

- Member of Personalization Service Line, a Professional Services group tasked to develop and deploy a personalization methodology defining best technical practices and a model business process.

- Tools employed included BEA WebLogic and IBM WebSphere application servers, Oracle, Sybase,  SQL Server, IIS, Apache, NT, Solaris, Vignette Storyserver.
 

1998: Lead Software Engineer
Quintessent Communications, Bellevue, Washington

- Member of team designing and building the Xchange telecom OSS interconnect product. The product employed OOD, message-oriented middleware, object database, and CORBA technologies.

- Defined CORBA IDL, developed design in UML, coded, tested, and integrated CORBA servers implementing IDL in Java.

- Mentored junior engineers in Java coding and CORBA principles.

- Tools employed included Iona OrbixWeb, JDK, Java Workshop, Rational Rose, Versant, Solaris, Windows NT, CVS, FLEXlm.
 

1997 - 1998: Senior Software Engineer, Technology Development
Metapath Software, Bellevue, Washington

- Member of team responsible for advanced technology capture and deployment in company's telecom middleware product line.

- Rearchitected proprietary distributed architecture to employ modern software and network management technologies such as frameworks, design patterns, UML, CORBA, RMI, LDAP, TMN, CMIP, OOD, Java, and internet protocols.

- Prototyped use of the IS-124 (DMH) international standard for data message handling. Prototype was successfully demonstrated to external customers and fulfilled requirements for $500,000+ contract.

- Tools employed included ClearCase, JDK, JIDL, slapd, Rational Rose, Object Design PSE ODBMS, Solaris, LDAP.
 

1994 - 1997: Member of Technical Staff
SpaceLabs Medical, Redmond, Washington

- Lead Software Engineer on ambitious, high-visibility project to rearchitect company's PCMS X Window-based real-time patient monitoring product and port it from proprietary hardware and software platforms to open-architecture hardware and software. Responsible for all aspects of software development planning and execution, including scheduling, staffing, negotiation of consulting contracts, and evaluation of OEM hardware/software platforms, as well as architecture development and coding.

- Contributed to architecture and design upgrades for Chartmaster, the company's flagship Clinical Information System product. Product consists of Oracle database servers and a suite of X Window/Motif clients and is written in SQL and C/C++.

- Designed and built prototypes of distributed real-time graphics displays using Java, HTML, and WWW protocols. Prototypes demonstrated feasibility of replacing proprietary networking protocols with internet protocols.

- Tools employed included Oracle 7, Oracle Forms, ClearCase, DDTS, Builder Xcessory, FrameMaker, JDK, Apache httpd, X-Window, Motif, VxWorks, Solaris, IRIX, Digital Unix, Win95, vi.
 

1989 - 1994: Senior Software Engineer
Honeywell Marine Systems (became Alliant Techsystems), Mukilteo, Washington

- Lead Engineer on an R&D program to develop the hardware and software architecture for a new high-speed, high-resolution side-scan sonar mapping system. Resulting networked multi-processor real-time sonar signal processing system reinvigorated the SeaMARC product line and led to the subsequent award of government contracts worth several million dollars.

- Developed a multimedia Microsoft Windows application for creating animated briefing videos of vessel behavior on Naval test ranges, with vessel movements synchronized with multiple video and audio sources.

- Researched and prototyped fusion of digital bathymetric databases with side-scan sonar data for object location and identification. Proposed use of GIS tools to store and manipulate large bathymetric databases.

- Tools employed included X Window, Motif, VxWorks, SunOS, Solaris, HP-UX, MatLab, MS Windows SDK.
 

1988 - 1989: Senior Scientist
BioScan Inc., Edmonds, Washington

- Contributed to the software design and coding, with particular emphasis on GUI ease-of-use, for Optimas, the first commercial quantitative image processing and analysis product for the Microsoft Windows environment.

- Provided interface between product development, marketing, and clients.

- Worked with clients to identify new opportunities for image processing technology in forensics (Washington State Patrol), petrology (Shell Oil), genetic engineering (Genentech), and evolutionary biology (National Science Foundation).
 

1982 - 1988: Senior Scientist
BioSonics Inc., Seattle, Washington
- Performed environmental consulting field work at numerous sites from Alaska to Argentina.

- Managed and performed consulting contracts (greater than $100,000 value) employing proprietary image processing and hydroacoustic hardware and software and presented results at scientific conferences and trade shows.

EDUCATION & TRAINING

Master's Degree in Software Engineering, Seattle University, 1990

- Master's project consisted of a cooperative effort with Boeing's Advanced Technology Center, enhancing their automated knowledge acquisition tool for expert systems.

B.A. Biology, Western Washington University, 1981

Recent Training:


SUMMARY OF MANAGEMENT AND ENGINEERING EXPERTISE


Project Management:

- Managed consulting and software development projects ranging in size from 2 to 13 people from requirements gathering through release and updates.  Wrote proposals, estimated software development effort, prepared work breakdown structures and project schedules, assigned and supervised tasks,  monitored progress, managed project risks, planned capital purchases.  

- Negotiated and put in place consulting agreements with domain expert consultants.

- Developed, selected, and applied appropriate project management processes. Mentored others in the use of the selected process.

- Represented company at proposal reviews, design reviews, international standards committees (TIA TR45.2), scientific conferences and workshops, and trade shows.

- Worked closely with clients to ensure that the software products under development continued to satisfy their evolving requirements.

- Staffed projects by working with Human Resources departments, recruiters and consulting firms to screen, interview, and hire staff and consultants.
 

System and Software Engineering:

- Performed system analysis and design, coding, testing, and documentation for software products developed for various environments, including embedded realtime operating systems, Windows, UNIX, and Linux.  The software products were used for many different purposes, including e-commerce, image processing, statistical analysis, embedded real-time sonar signal processing, and networked patient monitoring for hospitals.

- Technical Lead in rearchitecting n-tier, client/server, and real-time systems from proprietary to COTS / open-architecture hardware and software.

- Designed and built distributed systems using J2EE, RMI, JIDL, and CORBA tools..

- Lead Software Engineer on software/hardware development projects ranging in value from $250,000 to several million dollars.

-  Provided cross-functional support by coordinating software engineering tasks with other engineering disciplines, marketing, external hardware and software vendors, and domain experts.

- Evaluated and selected software development methodologies and software development tools.


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