Paul's IT History
Since graduating from Texas A&M with computer science and math degrees I have had a long and varied career. This has been great as it has allowed me to use my natural ability to always be learning and growing by moving to many different disciplines in the IT world. That is what I will continue to do, always keep expanding my knowledge, I love it.
OXY 1980-1989
| I started my career at Cities Service Oil and Gas in Tulsa. It was later was purchased by Occidental Petroleum. During my 10 years there I was able to move to some very different roles that greatly expanded my expertise in the IT industry. I started as a defacto petroleum engineer doing reservoir modeling developing Fortran computer sumulation. Later I moved to business systems development, a COBOL experience. My next stop was in the systems engineering department performing many task with the main being data/tape storage management. Finally I was able to move to midrange AS/400 and the brand new personal computers. | Reservoir engineering support developing large reservoir models using Fortran. Business systems support developing Cobol programming. Team member developing a very early database system (ADABASE) that gave the first query system that contained the entire oil and gas production for the company. Systems Engineer supporting data storage and tape management. Performed 370 OS development using Assembler. Transitioned tape for reels to autoloader cartridge drives for over half a million tapes Migrated data center from Houston to Tulsa with no downtime for users. Installed and maintained IBM 3350/3380 disk drives. Migrated data when converting to new drives with no downtime to users. AS/400 Midrange Computers - Lead project to integrate AS/400's into the legal department and into region offices. PC Development - Worked on putting business applications and networking on IBM PC and IBM PS/2. |
AS/400 1989-1996 (MBA Inc.)
I performed as a contract AS/400 RPG programmer. In this capacity I was able to work in several different types of businesses. After moving from IBM mainframe to AS/400 I realized that the infant AS/400 did not have the tools we were used to in the mainframe world. I set out and developed a tape management and disaster recovery system and a job scheduling system. I became a partner with a marketing company and we sold the products in the public market. Obviously we grew and I assembled a team of support and development personnel. Later IBM purchased these products and incorporated them in the AS/400 operating system. I then spent 2 years at IBM Rochester transitioning the products over to their standards. |
Developed Oil/Gas Royalty system for AS/400 Developed Worker's Comp Insurance claim processing system for AS/400 RPG C Language Asynchronous Programming - developed and marketing a system to allow AS/400 to send system messages to a pager. |
Webzone - Internet Startup 1995-1996
| In the early 90's the Internet was starting to grow. I saw the need and set up an ISP in Tulsa. I started a new company and built an infrastructure using Windows brand new NT operating system on servers to support the ISP's hosting and dial-up services. After obtaining a very expensive T1 we were ready for business. In order to save money I designed and built a modem housing system that allow me to support 400 modems and about a quarter of the price of the production self contained system. We were able to offer dial-up accounts below the industry standard at them time. Doing the company quickly grew to 12,000 customers. A support staff was developed to provide 24/7 phone support. I built out a second ISP in Oklahoma City. All the Internet traffic and routing was done with Cisco routers. | Data center setup Internet Security Cisco Routers Set up VoIP service. Managed tech support staff for 24/7 operation. PBX Phone systems T1 Resales Web Development Developed a credit card billing system. This cut the time to do monthly billing by 90%. |
Fry Information Technology - IT Consulting 2000-2010
I relocated to St. Petersburg, Florida and started an IT Consulting business. In this capacity I worked with many different types of businesses and supported all their IT needs. This encompassed network buildout, server setup and configuration, application development and maintenance, Internet presence, etc. Basically whatever my customers need we were able to provide. I hired support technicians to help as the business grew in the early and mid 2000's. Another avenue to the IT business was video survellience, both CCTV and IP. In our data center we provided hosting services as well. This was in the areas of web, email and remote servers. |
C++ Active X Visual Basic Dreamweaver web development for a variety of different types of business applications including storefront and payment processing. Email hosting with Exchange Server Hosting remote desktop/thin client applications in various industries. Certified in Fire and Security Systems |
Pinellas County Schools 2009-Present
| The economic situation in Florida made me do some thinking. I decided to teach school to wait until things improved. This is a way of giving back by helping kids. I had to attend college to get my teaching certificate and got a job teaching math. Very quickly the school recognized that I had better gifts in technology (maybe because I recovered a crashed server). I was moved to teaching computer science. On top of that I have become a consultant for the school and for some district functions as well. Education has really been good for my IT career as it has given me a whole new perspective and renewal for all things technology. It has also give me the chance to work with and see tech through the eyes of students. | Developed a math curriculum pilot project. Integrated and taught a high school level IT class to middle school Preformed hard disk recovery operations. Worked with developers of student management system to identify problems and propose solutions. Instructed other teachers on how to use student management system, especially building online testing solutions. CCNA Certification CCNA Voice |
Time to return to IT
During my teaching stint I have worked to capitalize on skills and experience that I have developed over the years. For example I have done networking since setting my first Cisco router in 1995, also my first VoIP router that year. Using this I did some study, took and passed the CCNA. Based on PBX work I have done it allowed me to study and pass the CCNA Voice exam. I am working on other certifications at present.
In technology because of my appetite for all things tech I always very quickly become the go-to guy. I learn and adapt quickly and soon everyone is coming to me for help. Because I love to teach I take great pride in passing any and all knowledge on to others. I was mentored early in my career on always freely sharing information. It has served me well, Thanks Don Paul!
If you survived reading this career history you will see one common thread. Technology in many forms is what I love to do.