Resumé

Josef Finsel is a software developer with over two decades of experience in application software development. He has a broad range of experience in both programming and database design, from architecture to implementation. He is the author of “The Handbook for Reluctant Database Administrators” (Apress), "Using memcached" (Pragmatic Programmers) and has written numerous articles for technical magazines and developed several utilities related to making database management easier for SQL Server database administrators and programmers. In addition to speaking at conferences he handles on-site training of techonologies like SQL Server.

Skill Summary
Database Management and Design Strong SQL Server experience, design, tuning and programming (T-SQL, BCP, SQL Analyzer, ISQL, OSQL, Enterprise Manager, performance tuning, ANSI SQL-92, both SQL Server 7 and SQL Server 2000).
Web Development Strong WEB Application Administration/Development Experience with IIS, ASP/ASP.NET/JavaSCRIPT/HTML
Programming Skills & Development Tools MS Windows programming (Visual Basic/VBA, Visual Basic.NET, Visual C#); PERL;

Project History

E3 Companies 2007-Present
Sr. Database Administrator

Database work
- Developed the back end database architecture to support both an Online Digital Asset Management and Style Guide Delivery System as well as a social networking site.
- Actively maintained and improved legacy code, reducing some processes that ran for hours down to less than a minute through use of proper indexing and optimization of stored procedures.
- Implemented Full Text Search to return very flexible searches across multi-million row tables with required security
- Implemented within database caching for potentially large search results
Programming work
- Developed the generic, flexible data interface layer used by the customized web loop for delivery of all data within the application
- Developed the object used within the web loop and aspx pages for handling authentication and authorization
- Implemented MemCacheD within the data interface to enable a more scalable architecture
- Wrote import routines to be used to import data from Stats, Inc and Muze for the Social Networking site.

IT Consultant 1999 – 2007
MHS AMOS Project 2005
The AMOS project was designed to create a demonstration model of software that pulled all of the client’s existing products into one seamless product and to push the boundaries of how the company viewed its product. The goal was to push beyond current technology to create something that would provide a model to work toward for the next several years that would push them far ahead of any of their competition. As a member of the AMOS team I provided SQL Server 2005 experience, VS.NET 2005 programming, creative ideas and storyboarding and was also responsible for implementing:

Streaming video to simulate a live teleconference between a doctor and an endocrinologist
Building a program to interface with an RFID antenna to allow for a personalized introduction to the each of the attendees of the demonstration. This included a Windows Service (written in C# 2005) to query the antenna and write the card information to a SQL Server 2005 database and a C# 2003 WinForm application that greeted the attendees with customized messages.

All of the feedback from the board of directors indicated that they were going to be working to implement this new direction for the company.

MHS Project 2005
Helped define the new position of Database Architect for the company, a task which included:

Drafting SQL Standards for developers to make more efficient use of their Informix database
Sitting in on all technical design to offer suggestions on ways to best implement SQL functionality
Sitting in on all code reviews to ensure that all of the static and dynamic SQL did meet the standards
Being available to the developers to trouble shoot during development
Reviewing all code for the previous release in order to make sure there were no issues in the code that was working through the QA process.
Addressing SQL bottlenecks that come up through complaints from customers.
Wrote a C# 2005 web page to translate developer SQL into the standardized PERL script that was used for loading initial data.

In a separate task, developed a proof of concept that took a database import/export procedure that customers used that commonly took hours to run and showed how to reduce that time to minutes.

UBS Project 2004
Worked with the SQL Server support team to develop strategies for ensuring backups were run, for automatically implementing log shipping and for helping them determine which servers were at what service level for maintenance and service pack installation. Wrote a VB.NET application for streamlining log shipping between servers.

CFHLB (Chicago Federal Home Loan Bank) 2004
Worked with the existing team on a four week project to provide the client with a high-level analysis of options related to merging the new version of the application with the existing version.

AppalachianOhio.com 2004
Did a thorough audit of the web site, including:

Security
Application Architecture
Database Assessment
Physical Deployment
Site Performance/Reliability
Best Practices for all covered areas, including SQL and ASP.NET code.

Reynolds & Reynolds (2001-2003)

Stream lined existing stored procedures, cutting average execution time on top 50 worst performers that cut processing time on key accounting tasks 40% and removed code that was causing system wide blocking
Updated procedures from SQL Server 6.5 to implement improved functionality in SQL Server 2000 by:
- Replacing temporary tables with table variables
- Implementing foreign key constraints over triggers
A key member of the team that redesigned the accounting module to provide more accurate data to the customer.
Was a member of the database core team responsible for overseeing design and code reviews for LSE version 2.0 for Accounting, Sales and Vehicle Management.
- During the course of design reviews my job was to recommend ways to optimize the designs, especially when older code was being updated.
- During code reviews I was responsible for verifying that standards were being kept and that best practices were being followed.
- In addition to reviewing and making recommendations for design and code, was involved in tracking down and fixing CRs for the current release of the software.
Wrote a VB application to implement generic data purge functionality.

Industrial Glass 2002
Developed the database for an Intranet based 6 Sigma project tracking application. This application allowed employees to collect, manage and report on the 6 Sigma projects for all North American sites. The project was developed using Microsoft’s .Net framework with a SQL Server 7 backend. Responsibilities included architecting and implementing the database backend and using SQLMail to provide work flow functionality.

E-prescribing (2000-2001)

Designed, implemented and administered main database responsible for storing patient information and prescription history.
Wrote tools to convert the third-party drug database so it could be used to provide drug interactions and dosages.
Wrote tools to take insurance company drug formulary information and put it into the database so the prescriber would know which drugs would be most cost effective for the patient.
Developed means to have remote databases ship data back to central repository for data mining.
Designed and implemented database implementation process as part of the program’s overall installation process.
Developed a COM interface to the database to allow third parties to access the underlying database.
Created a database mechanism to allow support of queuing patients and prescription refills to physicians from physician extenders

Marketing Industry (2000)

Developed web site and database to dynamically build web site to hold press releases, demonstration schedules and a Q&A page
- Developed the public pages
- Developed the maintenance pages that let the client maintain the site on their own
The Question and Answer pages allowed customers to enter questions into a web page. Their question is then emailed back to them as a confirmation. The client could then see a list of all of the questions entered and either answer them via email, forward the question to someone else or post the answer to the web page.
Developed a way to monitor click-through count involving both data collection and a drill down page to gauge the effectiveness of the retailer’s ads.
Implemented MapQuest™ Points of Interest to allow customer to find retailers and custom fitters close to their address.
Built a jewelry site based on client’s design layouts
- Implemented the e-Commerce portion using the client’s shopping cart to build the order and fulfillment
- Entire site built in approximately three weeks on tight deadline
- Wrote VB Application used for entering and updating inventory
- After site was live added functionality for promotional codes and gift certificates

Software Industry (1999)

Rapidly and correctly solving problems with both executables and ActiveX objects, debugging, testing and documenting those changes.
Creating service pack updates and working with the end user to implement and solve any problems.
Rewrote and tested components to work with ADO instead of DAO
Wrote utility to speed up the process of creating and implementing the service packs
Wrote utility to automate commenting the VB code

David J. Joseph (1999)

Brought an externally hosted web server in-house
- Developed interfaces to allow for easy maintenance of dynamic web pages such as job openings.
- Set up the web server
- Developed a back end database to support the dynamic web pages
- Wrote an interface to allow Human Resources to update the open jobs.
- Wrote a VB utility to convert a spreadsheet to a web page and automatically post it to the web site.
Developed an Intranet for the company.
- Set up dynamic pages to list word documents available from Human Resources
- Developed a database to track idle assets and the pages to display and update based on security permissions.

MIS Manager, Cincinnati Bell Long Distance1991 – 1999
Designed and implemented the Automation of a Travel Card creation system. Responsibilities included analysis of existing process and designing and implementing the interfaces for the automated version, creation of the backend database, development of a service to send updates to the phone company switch, interface with the sales automation system

Designed and implemented Electronic Billing. Responsibilities included developing tables to store which customers wanted electronic billing, developing the Access tables to model the billing system’s information for the customer to use, wrote the ASP pages that allowed a customer to request such billing, wrote the program to create the electronic bills on either diskette or CD and wrote an ActiveX DLL to sit on the Web Server to transfer files onto the secure server when requested by a customer.
Developed a set of VB Classes for interfacing with the billing system on the AS/400. This made implementation of the automated sales system much easier by implementing the business logic built into the billing program on the AS/400.

Managed a very large database that stored all calls made for data analysis by engineering. This included calls that were billable as well as those that were not. This database was used for both validating the billing system and for providing engineering with information related to network load for capacity planning.