Bryan D. Howard

Expertise

• System and network security.
• Design and maintenance of large heterogeneous networks.
• Maintenance of systems with strict uptime requirements.
• System administration of remote systems.

Professional Experience

Consulting

Computer Systems Consultant Lewis Fisher Henderson Claxton & Mulroy, LLP, Los Angeles, CA

1998 - Present

Designed and implemented a network of Linux (Mandrake and RedHat) systems to provide a stable and secure environment. The new systems were deployed without disruption to the daily operation of the firm. Provided training for a junior system administrator. Enabled secure remote access via ssh so the attorneys had access to their legal documents from remote locations. Active member of the Computer Administration Committee, which is responsible for decisions regarding purchase, configuration, and appropriate use of the firm's computer resources.

Senior Member of the Technical Staff College Park Software, Altadena, CA	1992 - 1994
Unix and DOS system and network management, disk recovery, software design and implementation. GNU Emacs, Epoch, GCC and G++ support.

Contract and Full Time

Sr. Systems and Network Administrator Core Software Technology, Pasadena, CA

2001 - 2002

Secured, configured, and managed a heterogeneous network of computers in 12 locations around the world including Sun Solaris, RedHat Linux, MS Windows, and MacOS. Installed firewalls and educated employees in the use of secure protocols (ssh, https, etc.). Implemented spam prevention methods in the company mail server. Automated scheduling of satellite data acquisitions, post processing, and archival of imagery. Implemented as a combination of perl programs and Bourne shell scripts.

Contractor to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory User Technology Associates, Pasadena, CA Midcom Corporation, Pasadena, CA

1992 - 2000

System Administrator for the JPL Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, Ground Data Processing Systems Group, leading up to and during the mission. Kept all systems online and functioning properly throughout the 11 day mission. Tool-builder for the JPL Engineering Tool Service, Enterprise Infrastructure Systems Project. Designed perl programs to manage deployment of various software tools enterprise wide using the AFS network file-system. Designed preconfigured packages for various system software, including sendmail and ssh, for installation on all JPL Unix systems. System Administrator for the JPL Corps Battle Simulation Project. Unix, VMS, Macintosh, and MS Windows systems and network management, configuration and security. Provided email and Usenet services for entire off-campus building where project was located. Designed and built an online web-based information system to support maintenance of the network wiring in the building. Wrote a text paging server and provided text paging services for all of JPL.

Senior Technical Support Analyst LCI International, Inc., Dublin, OH	1991 - 1992
System administration for all of the Unix systems at LCI. 24 hour support for their Network Control Center (LCI is a regional fiber optic long distance carrier). Designed and implemented networking solutions for various computer interconnect problems, completely automating the periodic data transfers.

Software Design Engineer Cheshire Engineering Corp., Pasadena, CA

1988 - 1991

Debugged existing real-time code, solving operational problems on an automated fruit sorting machine. Developed and simulated new algorithms improving system performance. Implemented the algorithms in real-time software on an IBM-PC/AT platform. Designed and developed menu-driven user interface software for a real-time high-resolution-to-NTSC video conversion system. Prototype was used to broadcast images during the Neptune fly-by.

Systems Programmer USC/Information Sciences Institute, Marina Del Rey, CA

1986 - 1988

Supported and modified numerous proprietary and public domain utilities including Scribe, MultiNet, GNU Emacs, Software Tools Mail, and a line printer daemon (VMS implementation of Unix lpd daemon) on a cluster of DEC VAXen running VMS. Maintained and improved the TCP/IP networking code and utilities on the VAXcluster. Managed the VMS VAXcluster. Performed software installations and upgrades. Periodically tuned the system to maintain optimum performance. Provided 24 hour on-call service for software and hardware problems for the VAXcluster as well as several DECSystem 20s, non-clustered VAXen running Unix and Ultrix, and Sun workstations.

Education

B.S. Engineering & Applied Science, 1986, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California

Professional Societies

Usenix/SAGE

Computer Systems Experience

Hardware:

Sun, SGI, HP, DEC, Cisco, Intel x86, Apple Macintosh

Operating Systems:

Unix (esp. Solaris 2.x, Linux, IRIX, DEC/OSF1, HP/UX), OpenVMS, DOS/Windows, MacOS, Cisco/IOS, Cisco/PIX

Programming Languages:

Perl, C, Bourne shell, C shell, Fortran, Common LISP, Pascal, Postscript, BASIC, ICL, Assembly (various).