Experience

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  Crawford door sales of lake county, inc

  Jan 1980 - May 1987

  Warehouse associate/installer/serviceman

  I Spent my summers working for the family business, learning how a company is run from my father. I learned a lot about customer service working in the warehouse and office helping customers with parts requests and sales of garage doors.I also gained so much of my carpentry skills that I enjoy using today working as an installer and serviceman on both the residential and commercial side of the business.As I gained IT skills in college, I did work around designing an order tracking and reporting system. I later installed a package system to do order tracking, payroll, time tracking, and AP/AR.There is nothing like working in a family business to gain a great understanding of what it takes to run a business and to gain an appreciation for the blood, sweat, and tears that entrepreneurs put into their companies. Show less

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  Ameritech publishing

  May 1988 - Dec 1988

  It summer intern

  My first experience in the IT working world could not have been better. I was brought in for my knowledge of relational databases and queries. I was asked to review Ideal/Datacom queries in an online order system and make suggestions on indexes or enhancements to make the queries perform better. Along with that, I was given the opportunity to learn and train on Knowledgeware IEW, and design a training course to be used by the developers at Ameritech Publishing to use the tool. I was even asked to come back on my Christmas break and work for an extra 3 weeks. This experience taught me so much about productivity review, and learning and development in IT. Show less

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  Ags information services

  May 1989 - Jan 1991

  Consultant

  I began my career as an IT consultant serving multiple clients in the Chicago area, using IBM scripting and middleware-based transaction server technologies plus mainframe programming languages. (CICS, COBOL, Datacom, DOS JCL/OS JCL.)I improved online order systems and jobs structure and processing. In particular, I: ► Designed, analyzed, and coded a time, billing, and payroll system for a nursing consultant company.

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  Prudential

  Jan 1991 - Jan 1992

  Salesman

  I sold insurance and provided retirement and financial planning for customers in northwest Indiana. During this time, I obtained licenses to sell both:► Life, health, and property and casualty insurance.► Securities (Series 6 and Series 63). This experience taught me much about insurance and was helpful in my eventual hiring by Blue Cross Blue Shield.

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  Kemper financial services

  Jan 1992 - Jan 1995

  Systems analyst

  Kemper contacted me about employment possibilities, and so I moved back into IT and served on the Corporate Systems Team that supported more than 15 financial-production systems, using mainframe programming, relational database, and IBM virtual-storage access technologies. (IDEAL, Datacom, COBOL, VSAM, and more.)One of my key accomplishments involved the: ► Development of a custom real estate tracking system as lead analyst and developer.

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  Health care service corporation

  Sept 1995 - Nov 2015

  Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC), the largest customer-owned health insurance company in the United States, is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, and its divisions and subsidiaries include Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. I started for HCSC as a Lead Analyst and Team Lead for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois and progressed from analyst to manager and finally to my final role as director. My promotions occurred as the company merged with other BCBS companies and now serves customers in 5 states. I was promoted into this director’s position as the company tasked me with additional challenges building on my previous success as Sr. Manager. My position entailed the support of 6,000 end users and maintaining membership information for 20M+ active and former members. I oversaw 80 employees and contractors and 4 direct report managers. I had the pleasure of supporting 5 of our enterprise applications, and working with my customers to keep them state of the art.I greatly enjoyed my interaction with our clients managing their expectations, and working with our vendors to be sure our customers needs were met.Additionally, I managed multiple projects and PM's at a time plus had ownership of 5 applications that entailed planned releases.For example, I was project manager on projects that would:► Deliver new web- and mobile-based functionality for customer digital ID Cards.► Streamline and enhance our sales and marketing workflow process.And a HUGE project that I acted as program manager entailed:► The entry of the company into the retail market for the Affordable Care Act (ACA). (Budget: $75M; almost 300 IT resources used.)⌂ For more details of my accomplishments, please request my resume. Show less The role of Sr. Manager and Manager were similar in that I kept the same teams. But I was promoted to assume new projects, and also as an reward for previous successes. I managed 3 direct reports and oversaw 50 employees and consultants across 3 teams. These were cross-functional teams somewhat organized around a matrix structure and were geographically diverse, located in various states and also India. I developed 6-month to 1-year operation plans for these teams in alignment with core business strategies. During this time, I: ► Played a large role in the STARs recognition system, developed when I was manager, by creating 2 successful campaigns for the awards committee that recognized best IT performers. ► Led efforts to improve efficiency by automating many tasks. ► Represented the company and liaised with customers in SLA negotiations.And, I led projects that: ► Project manager to Implement a very large client, Boeing, which impacted multiple enterprise-level applications. ► Project manager for the company’s first enterprise service utilizing new service-oriented architecture (SOA) standards. This is still in use 5 years later. ► Key member in the creation of the HCSC Operational Data Store, including all data architecture and interface design.⌂ For more details of my accomplishments, please request my resume. Show less As Supervisor, I had a very good run involving customer interaction and was thus promoted to Manager as the company wanted me to take on a much bigger part of the customer management systems process. I supported project and production support for the group membership system and managed 40 employees and consultants across 3 teams plus 3 direct reports. In addition, I negotiated service guarantees through SLA agreements for the company and auditors.I delivered on my mission by: ► Project Manager leading 4 major projects to completion on time and within budget while greatly satisfying many customers in the process. Additionally, I was instrumental in projects that produced: ► Change management and new methodology development based on the CMMi/SDM project.► The development and implementation of a standardized XML schema for HR interfaces. ► Performance recognition of exceptional IT performers in the company through the development of STARS award voting system. (This was at my own initiative.)While a member of the STARS committee, recognized a need to transform the process used in reviewing and voting for candidates. I worked to redesign the process, and then work with the Lotus Notes development team to build an application to allow voting cutting time from 7 days to 3 days. Also worked with Infrastructure team to acquire hardware and build a stand alone network used for meeting to keep results confidential. Show less I contributed much as Lead Analyst and Team Lead, proving that I could manage both projects and people. So I was promoted to this supervisor position, managing 3 teams of 25 employees and consultants.I kept my same team as before, plus was tasked with accepting the new challenge of directing 2 teams that were struggling. I turned around the:► Eligibility team, which served major accounts such as Kraft Foods and Northrop Grumman. ► Reverse-eligibility team, which interacted with 3rd-party service vendors. Also, I served as IT lead on numerous projects including implementation of: ► The HIPAA 834 benefit enrollment and maintenance transaction standards as required by amendments to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.► A new product for BlueCard Point of Service for HCSC. Show less Here I began my 20-year tenure with Blue Cross Blue Shield. I was only the second person hired for IT applications support as the company transitioned from outsourcing to an in-house IT model.I performed systems analysis, coded, and led teams that supported billing and accounts receivable, utilizing mainframe programming, relational database, and IBM virtual-storage access technologies. (COBOL, VSAM, Visual Basic, and Microsoft Access)In particular, I:► Managed the ID Card System with 2 other team members. Show less

  • Director Applications Development and Project Management

    Jun 2012 - Nov 2015

  • Sr. Manager Applications Development and Project Management

    Dec 2006 - Jun 2012

  • Manager of Application Development and Project Management

    May 2003 - Dec 2006

  • Application Development Supervisor

    Jan 2000 - May 2003

  • Lead Analyst/Team Lead

    Sept 1995 - Jan 2000
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  Seeking opportunity in application development or project management

  Nov 2015 - Jun 2016

  It leader pursuing application development or project management office opportunity

  I have 27 years experience in:> Health insurance/Healthcare (governance of HIPAA, ACA, SOX).> Life and Property/Casualty> Financial services.> ConsultingI am firming up the skills that I feel set me apart and also allow me to be valuable in most industries.> Completed my Project Management Professional (PMP).> Currently studying for the PMI-ACP certification for agile, with 3+ years agile scrum experience.I have made great use of these skills:> Fulfilling all aspects of application management, from production support, application development, business analysis, release planning, dev ops, and help desk support.> 15+ years direct project management experience with waterfall and agile.> 15+ years management of technical app dev staff in Java, PowerBuilder, MagnaX, .Net, DB2, and COBOL.> Managing teams of up to 80 staff and multiple enterprise applications.> Partnering with business customers to build 1- to 2-year strategic road maps. > Consistently delivering projects on time, on budget, with minimal defects, that satisfied customer expectations.> Supporting 6K end users for 5 enterprise applications at an avg. SLA of 99.9% up time. > Driving adoption of enterprise future state architectures.> Developing and implementing strategic resourcing models decreasing staff by 40% and maintaining customer delivery expectations.> Partner with testing teams to build test plans, test cases, and successfully deliver as clean a product as possible.> Champion change control process so only the highest priority changes that add business value are accepted.> Manage release and deployment plans for scheduled quarterly releases and project sprints.> Experienced with technical staff, architects, and DBA's to deliver the highest quality and flexible applications.> Excelling at communication and customer service.> Portfolio prioritization of projects based on needs and metrics (ROI, IRR, VOI, NPV). Show less

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  Worldwide express

  Jun 2016 - Dec 2017

  Director of application development

  As Director of Application Development, reporting to the VP of IT, my role includes:- Manage team of 14 Technical application developers in Java, PL/SQL, and .Net.- Manage two application DBA and DBA support vendor for Oracle.- Manage one project manager internally, and others as needed for projects.- Manage one Dev Ops Engineer.- Coordinate and interface with infrastructure and disaster recovery vendor.- Coordinate and interface with DBA support vendor.- Manage outsourced consulting teams for delivery of projects.- Brought source control and release management from 0% of code to 100% in 9 months, while continuing to deliver weekly releases, and 99% production up time.- Coordinate weekly releases utilizing agile project management in conjunction with product owners, project manager, and technical staff to deliver business functionality.- Direct and manage the conversion of custom in-house issue tracking system to JIRA- Process improvement work that has included: * New processes around production change, releases, and emergency changes * New processes around database management utilizing partitioning and archiving * New structured hiring of development and support staff * New source and release management processes * Direct and manage the conversion of custom in-house issue tracking system to JIRA - Management of Dallas staff to create new data warehouse to fulfill the business need for enterprise KPI reporting.- Coordinate work with Oracle Professional Services and in house DBA's for the review and maintenance of legacy Oracle tools. Show less

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  Health care service corporation

  Dec 2017 - now

  Portfolio project delivery end to end for our Markets and Operations FEP program with a program budget of approximately $15M.- Working with business and IT leads on intake of projects for FEP - Working with PMs and Program Managers on FEP for our portfolio planning process, ensuring IT engagement and full understanding of projects.- IT lead during execution of FEP projects, working with PMs and Program managers to ensure IT delivery is on time, on budget, and meets our business expectations.- Coordination of close out of projects, turn over to our production support areas, and tracking of any production issues that result in any changes. Show less Senior Program manager within the Group portfolio for the Standard Products program.- Program consisted of 3 major projects for Standard Products delivery, FEP projects delivery, and BluePCS/EPP delivery.- Management of up to 10 PMs on program, maintaining good procedures and documentation to assure delivery.- Work with business and IT to assure hand off from intake into planning for project execution.- Manage PMs, IT, and business throughout planning phase to ensure full understand of projects and scope.- Manage PMs and IT throughout execution phase to deliver to expected scope, within the timeline, and ensuring documentation of risks, issues, change requests occur during project.- Coordination with IT during closeout phase to turnover changes from project to production support and that delivery is clean and complete. Show less

  • IT Delivery Lead Consultant

    Oct 2019 - now

  • Senior Program Manager

    Dec 2017 - Oct 2019