Robert Phair
Curriculum Vitae
OVERVIEW
- Computer industry consultant and designer with twenty years of
professional experience in systems integration, programming and
networking
- Currently specialising in small-to-medium enterprise applications of
operating systems, multi-vendor software environments, cloud services
and content-managed design
APPLICABLE SKILLS
- Solid working knowledge of Unix applications, open source software
development tools, networking protocols, Internet services
administration, network configuration, shell scripting, security, and
operating system internals
- Interactive, standards-compliant web server and site development using
Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Javascript, HTML, XML and CSS
- Design of content-managed web sites with Joomla CMS, interactive
online learning environments with Moodle, and forums with vBulletin and
phpBB
- Implementation of business email and collaborative software
environments with Google Apps and supplementary data services with
Amazon S3
- Thorough familiarity with tools and standards for web and print
design, including both Adobe Creative Suite and open source design tools
- Exhaustive familiarity with end-user Microsoft operating systems,
desktop environments, and office applications based on years of
troubleshooting and training for home and business clients
- Architectural experience developing Linux desktop configurations to
replace or surpass conventional Windows environments
- Extensive experience in technical writing, technical training
(executive and employee), software design, quality assurance, and
project management
EDUCATION
- University of California at Berkeley, BS in Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science, with High Honors (1991)
BUSINESS EXPERIENCE
Founded and directed an independent IT consultancy specialising in
on-site technical support, education and design services, including:
- Deploying hardware, software, networking, and wireless configurations
in environments ranging from home offices to small-to-medium enterprises
- Training company executives and employees to achieve and maintain
levels of computer technology appropriate for their business goals
- Planning long-term growth of small business computing, network,
database, application, and web services
- Integrating custom solutions in which online services, including
Google Apps, cloud computing and remote storage (Amazon S3), have
supplemented and/or replaced conventional Windows file, database, and
application servers
- Establishing and implementing training programmes for computer fluency
and office application productivity
- Designing custom web solutions for clients ranging from on-the-spot,
simple web designs to content management systems (Joomla), online
educational tools (Moodle), and community forums (vBulletin)
- Demonstrating, supporting and evangelising Linux and its applications
as practical alternatives to proprietary software environments (mainly
Microsoft, Apple and Adobe) in the Dublin home and business environment
- Marketing, advertising and sales of support, training, design and
consulting services throughout the greater Dublin area
November 2003 to March 2005 – CoTangent
(Dublin, Ireland)
Established a unique design practice addressing online marketing needs of
growing businesses in the United States and the European Union. Services
included:
- PDF newsletter serialisation and development of promotional content
for permission-based marketing
- Direct mail campaigns coupled with interactive web sites and services
- Design of CSS templates for rapidly-growing, strongly styled,
standards-compliant web sites
- Creation of business Internet servers with open-source operating
systems and preconfigured marketing software
November 2002 to August 2003 – cosd.com (Helen, Georgia)
Developed a custom software package for medical professionals to manage
information related to their clients, private practices, and affiliated
organisations. The package was developed under RedHat Linux with an
Apache web server, PHP language interpreter, and the MySQL database
package.
January 2002 to September 2002 - Centre for Open Systems Deployment
(Quito, Ecuador)
This ongoing project involved several months of global economic research,
with the goal of introducing Linux-based open systems into the South
American business climate in an appealing and cost-effective manner.
Project goals included identifying local industry partners interested in
benefiting from the self-sufficiency, reliability, and low cost of Linux
client and server architectures.
MOST RECENT CAREER EXPERIENCE
October 2000 to March 2001 - Harvard Business School (Boston,
Massachusetts)
Managed all campus UNIX-based Internet services, both internal and
external, including:
- Planning, installing and customising operating system configurations
for Solaris and Linux servers
- Managing directory services, NFS, and NIS+ configuration for resource
administration and security of all faculty, student, and staff accounts
- Maintaining hardware configurations of high-capacity, fault-tolerant
storage systems
- Evaluating third-party products and testing for compliance with
production standards
May 2000 to September 2000 - Lotus Development Corporation (Cambridge,
Massachusetts)
Supported the information infrastructure for the development and
production computing environments at the Lotus corporate headquarters.
This included:
- Managing the operating system and application environments of all
Solaris, Linux, and AIX servers
- Configuring and maintaining the FTP, external email, web, and network
news services used worldwide
- Ensuring the continuance of Year 2000 compliance on all hardware and
software platforms
- Providing on-call support for a high-availability data center
environment
November 1998 to April 2000 - GTE Internetworking (Cambridge,
Massachusetts)
Provided top-level support for Distributed Systems group and Web Hosting
Operations group of a major corporate Internet service provider in a
high-availability environment, including:
- Providing last-tier, 24x7 support for co-located corporate enterprise
Web server networks
- Implementing and demonstrating Year 2000 compliance for custom
Netscape Enterprise servers
- Ensuring continuous availability of local and remote database and
application environments
- Troubleshooting problems relating to network connectivity and resource
usage
- Managing NFS, NIS, NIS+, and electronic mail systems
SUMMARY OF PRIOR EXPERIENCE
January 1998 to July 1998 - Eaton Semiconductor Operations (Beverly,
MA) - Planned and executed the initial stages of an departmental
migration to Solaris 2.6, including the design of Solaris development and
application servers and a Linux STMP mail gateway
August 1996 to January 1997 - Levi Strauss & Company (San
Francisco, CA) - Engineered and administered a large network of
HP/UX and SunOS servers for use by both UNIX and PC clients at the Levi
corporate headquarters
September 1994 to January 1995 - Quickturn Design Systems (Mountain
View, CA) - Managed a Sun network of 250 workstations and servers
during an operating systems migration from SunOS to Solaris and a
transition to contemporary Internet services
August 1993 to June 1994 - Sun Microsystems (Palo Alto, CA) - Led
a consulting staff responsible for the Solaris migration of Sun's
corporate headquarters, training and directing all staff, preparing
necessary automation, and developing a migration plan for all desktops and
servers
February 1991 to June 1993, January 1995 to June 1995 - TCSI
(Berkeley, CA) - Managed a large software development network, and
developed a configuration management package to support development of
telecommunications network management software
October 1991 to February 1993 - Pacific Gas and Electric (San
Francisco, CA) - Consulted for a large staff of professional
programmers during the migration from legacy mainframe systems to a
workstation-based environment, developing and teaching UNIX training
classes
November 1988 to February 1991 - University of California at Berkeley
- Managed the instructional computing facility used for all Electrical
Engineering and Computer Science courses, consisting of Sun, DEC, SGI, and
HP hardware
May 1988 to August 1988 - Concept Omega Corporation (Somerville, NJ)
- Managed a diverse network of UNIX systems used for software
product development and wrote assembly language routines for floating
point arithmetic
June 1987 to August 1987 - AT&T Communications (Morristown,
NJ) - Designed a database program to store management information
for the AT&T product line and implemented a tracking system to
determine critical paths during product development
REFERENCES
Available upon request
(CV version 11 February 2012)