Rick Hightower

Technical Skills

Languages: Java, C/C++, Python, JavaScript, Visual Basic, SQL, Transact-SQL, XSL/XSLT, etc.

Technologies: JSP, EJB, EJB-QL, CORBA, JMS, RMI, JDBC, JavaBeans, Active X/COM/DCOM, Domino Java Agents, SQL Server 7.0, Oracle, Servles, ASP, SECS/GEM. XML, Complex Thread programming using Posix, Win32 and Java. ADO, DAO Jet database programming,

Object Oriented Case Tools: Designing Three Tier Client/Server systems with the OMT, Rumbaugh, Jacobsen and more recently UML Methodologies and Techniques. Design pattern aficionado.

Application Frameworks: JFC, MFC, OWL, Fastech’s TOM (Tool Object Model)
 

Publications

• Frequent author for Java Developer’s Journal See http://www.sys-con.com/java/archives/0502/hightower/index.html
• Recently finished a book on Java/Python programming (under contract with Addison Wesley Longman). 20 chapters/800 pages completed. The book covers JFC, swing, JDBC, Servlets, Applets, functional programming, object-oriented programming, regular expressions, etc. The book is now in pre-production. The first book will hit bookstores early 2001. (Recently, AWL decided to split the book into three separate books.) The book is at the AWL site http://www.awl.com/product/0,2627,0201616165,00.html
• Wrote two articles for Java Developer Journal on Java Distributed Objects Architecture and Design, published August 1999 and November 1999. The articles covered RMI, DCOM and CORBA architecture. See http://www.sys-con.com/java/feature/4-7/hightower/
• Authored Chapter 20 of Java Distributed Objects (Sam’s Publishing). Book covered CORBA, RMI, DCOM Voyager, etc.

• Patent honorarium for software invention at Intel. Patent application is in progress. (The work involved Java, RMI, CORBA and message oriented middleware.)
• Received rare midyear merit raise and promotion while working in DEAL at Intel
• Received four Certificate of Achievement, EIDC Employee of the Month at Intel
• Received 8 recognition awards at Intel for Results Orientation 1996 through 1999
• Received bonuses for Outstanding Performance at Animatics, 1991 through 1993
• Received Certificate of Achievement, Certificate of Appreciation and Technology Phase Review Award from Read-Rite, 1993-1996

Experience

eBlox, Inc. (Confidential)

Title: Director of Development.

Jan 2001 to present

Working on and building framework and applications built on top of J2EE.

• Lead the adoption of new process
• Initiated a study group in XP, Java Cert and Design Patterns
• Created training plan
• Created career path plan for organization
• Implemented coding standards and guidelines for development
• Wrote OR Mapping tool that generated EJB 2.0 Deployment Descriptors, EJB-QL statements for finder methods, Entity Bean remote/local interface, Entity Bean implementation and Entity Bean Home as well as other descriptors and support files. The tool reflected RDBMS meta data to create the above output.
• Created extensible caching mechanism for caching JSPs, XSLTs, and JDBC results.
• Improved performance of vertical application up to 25x while improving stability.
• Created a pluggable XSLT engine framework.
• Worked with XML, JDOM, BEA Weblogic, Oracle, XALAN (XSLT engine), Struts, JSP, EJB 2.0, EJB-QL, EJB-CMP, XSL, etc.
• Setup the use of JUnit for development.
• Created logging standard and mechanism based on Log4J.

Buzzeo, Inc.

Title: Director of Architecture. 

Started as Principal Software Engineer. Promoted to manager of ZEOLogix., and later to Director of Architecture. Responsible for adding next generation features to the ZEOLogix servers (CORBA-based EJB server) and the CORBA component wizard. Key member of the ZEOLogix core team. Responsibilities include talking to investors and potential customers about technology and technology vision. Also leading engineering team with product and technology vision and direction.

• Developed framework for writing applications that use a business rules engine, workflow, database access, CORBA and Enterprise JavaBeans. The framework uses mementos, abstract factory and other design patterns to aid in the parallel development of multi-tier applications.
• Worked on several pilot projects using EJB, CORBA, Applets and JDBC.
• Taught a class to clients on developing Enterprise JavaBeans, using the Buzzeo framework (mentioned above),. Course also covered JDBC, CORBA, Applets as CORBA clients, EJB, etc.
• Mentored clients on Servlet and EJB development.
• Implemented an events server using JMS and COS Events (CORBA Events) used with WorkFlow.
• Worked on CMP for our EJB server.
• Also, involved in strategic planning activities wrt our application server.

LookSmart Corporation

Title: Senior Software Engineer/Team Lead

Worked on critical client/server applications. Responsible for data migration to new database schemas, reporting utilities, and International Unicode conversion. Programming was done in Perl, Delphi, Python, Java, Visual Basic and T-SQL. Used ADO, OLE DB and DMO with SQL Server 7.0. Earned reputation for "consistent delivery" (called "he delivers" by director of Project Management) and leading a team to success.

• Performed many DBA functions with SQL Server
• Used ADO and DMO to migrate data. DMO stands for data management objects.
• Worked as liaison between development, QA, DBA's, and management to ensure projects success.
• Implemented process to deliver quality code to QA, and keep development moving forward.
• Solved many hard problems to ensure product delivery.
  

Intel Corporation

Senior Software Engineer, Java Architecture 

Department EAL (Enterprise Architecture Lab).

Focus was on Enterprise Java and CORBA systems. Responsibilities included working on proofs of concepts, prototypes and demonstrations for Intel’s distributed computing architecture vision of E-Business and balanced computing. 

• Earned reputation as "acknowledged Java expert across Intel".
• Worked with Java, DCOM, RMI, EJB, CORBA, JDBC/SQL, UML (Rational Rose), ASP, and Python (among other things).
• Low level DCOM and CORBA meta-programming. 
• Create several frameworks using a variety of Java, COM, CORBA, middleware technologies—frameworks used design patterns extensively.
• Worked with EJB in early 1998, i.e., pre 1.0 versions of EJB. 
• Demonstrated prototypes and spoke at conferences.
• ICBeans initiative, which I developed, was given away at last Intel Developers forum and was the basis of an Intel patent application, which I authored.

Senior Software Engineer, Factory Automation

Department CAS (Components Automation Systems a.k.a. Fab Automation). I was asked to speak on some of my projects at Factory automation software conferences. 

• Worked on mission critical multi-tiered software. 
• Created reusable software components and frameworks for factory automation. 
• Responsible for designing and implementing three tier client-server applications with object-oriented analysis CASE tools. 
• Lead adoption of OO-Case tools for my group. 
• Created coding standard for C++ on Windows (MFC) and VB
• Coordinated efforts with outside software vendors, 
• Lead development teams. 
• COM\ActiveX specialist. 
• Contributed to Java architecture for next generation equipment hosts.
• Created a configurable tools host that used state diagram charts based on Harrell notation.
• Spoke on Internet programming using Java.
  

Read-Rite

May 1993 to May 1996

Software Engineering working on mission critical factory software, designing systems with object-oriented CASE tools. Used Borland’s OWL, Visual C++ (MFC) and Visual Basic to develop advance reporting and statistical modeling software. Most of the programming was done in C and C++. In addition, wrote prototype programs for testing wafers, interfacing with various meter and test equipment protocols. Optimized modeling software to be multi-threaded on an Alpha 2100 server with the DEC Unix OS (using Posix threads, i.e., pthreads). Earned reputation for finishing ahead of schedule, and quality software.

From 1989 to 1993, held various positions in the California Bay area using my electronics and computer programming background. This includes two years at Animatics and a year at Seagate.

Education

Professional Sequence Award in MS Window Programming, University of California (COM, Win32, etc.)

General Education and technical courses at Pima Community College, Mission College, DeAnza College, University of Phoenix (Accounting, System Architecture, Software Engineering, C, C++, ASM, Databases, etc.)

Other Training

• Enterprise JavaBeans Hands-On Workshop, 
• SilverStream 3-Tier Java IDE training, 
• Windows NT programming, 
• MS SQL Server, 
• MS Access I & II, 
• MS Project, 
• Excel Macros, 
• SECS GEM I & II *

SECS means Semiconductor Equipment Communication Standard and GEM means Generic Equipment Model.

BrainBench Assesment

• Java 1 Scored in the 98 percentile without studying or preparing. Highest score in Arizona at the time of taking. (Place 791 out of 38,000 people taking the test. December 2000.)
  JSP test I scored the highest in the United States at the time of taking the test.
  View my transcripts at http://www.brainbench.com/transcript.jsp?pid=2351036
  

  Java certifications:

  1. Java 1 Certified
  2. Java 2 Certified --- Master level (covers GUI, RMI, Collections, JDBC, etc.)
  3. Java Server Pages Certified --- Master level (JSP; covers Servlets, TagLibs, etc.)
  4. Enterprise Java Beans Certified --- (EJB)
  5. J2EE Developer Certified

  RDBMS certifications:

  1. SQL Certified
  2. RDBMS Concepts Certified --- Master level (covers locks, transactions, tunning, design, etc.)
  3. DB Analyst Certified I
  4. DB Analyst Certified II
  5. MS-SQL Server --- Transact-SQL Certified
  6. Data Modeling Concepts Certified --- (ERD, Normalization, Conceptual/Logical/Physical)

  Web Development certifications:

  1. JavaScript Certified --- (covers form validation, document object model, event handling, etc.)
  2. HTML 4.0 Certified --- (CSS, inline styles, forms, tables, frames, etc.)
  3. Web Development Concepts Certified --- (covers OOP/OOD, HTML, XML, programming, etc.)
  4. XML Certified
  5. XSL Certified --- (covers mainly XSLT, transform XML into other XML)
  6. Site Designer Certified
  7. BCIP Web Developer client-side Certified
  8. BCIP Web Developer server-side Certified
  9. BCIP Web Database Development Certified

  OOP/OOD certifications:

  1. All of the Java certifications listed above (4 total)
  2. OO Concepts Certified --- Master level (covers design, concepts, inheritance, polymorphism)
  3. C++ Certified
  4. Python Certified
  5. Developer level 1 through 4 Certified



Certifications


Below are all of the certifications Icons that I have obtained.



Composite
Java Related
RDBMS Related
OOP/OOD Related
Web Related

Java Developer's Journal
... Interviews... Pat Niemeyer Creator of BeanShell. 1 of 3. R. Hightower: What features do you plan for BeanShell? ...
http://www.sys-con.com/java/archives/0507/interviews/niemeyer/

Java Developer's Journal
... Interviews... Stephan Hillion Creator of DynamicJava. 1
of 1. RH: What features do you plan for DynamicJava? ...
http://www.sys-con.com/java/archives/0507/interviews/hillion/

Java Developer's Journal
... Written By: Rick Hightower. 1 of 15. Back before Java became popular, I was aC++
bigot. I programmed in nothing but C++. I lived, ate and breathed C++. If it wasn ...
http://www.sys-con.com/java/archives/0502/hightower/

Java Developer's Journal
... Scallan) p.138 Extending Your Applications with Bean Scripting Framework (Rick Hightower) p.148 Interview...with Sam Ruby & Sanjiva Weerawarana (Rick Hightower...
http://www.sys-con.com/java/archives/subscribe/0506/

Java Developer's Journal
... 1 of 15. The past three articles ...
http://www.sys-con.com/java/archives/0507/hightower/

Java Developer's Journal
... 2 of 15. One advantage of BeanShell ...
http://www.sys-con.com/java/archives/0507/hightower/index_b.html

Java Developer's Journal
... 66 Keeping Up with OMG (Jon Siegel) p.74 NetRexx Programming for the JVM (Rick Hightower) p.82 Servlet to Servlet Communication (Alan Williamson) p.102 "Hello ...
http://www.sys-con.com/java/archives/subscribe/0505/

Java Developer's Journal
... and of the Market (Jon Siegel) p.78 BeanShell & DynamicJava: Java Scripting with
Java (Rick Hightower) p.86 E-Commerce Market for EJB Solutions (Jason Westra) p ...
http://www.sys-con.com/java/archives/subscribe/0507/

Java Developer's Journal
... Product Review: JFCSuite, v2.1 (Gabor Liptak) p.50 Python Programming in the JVM
(Rick Hightower) p.54 Java Servlets: Part 2 Design Practices (AVB Subrahmanyan ...
http://www.sys-con.com/java/archives/subscribe/0503/

Java Developer's Journal
... from San Francisco at JavaOne (SYS-CON Radio) p.46 How to Use COM/DCM: Part Two (Rick Hightower) p.50 CORBA Project Survival (Steve Tockey) p.58 Oracle JServer ...
http://www.sys-con.com/java/archives/subscribe/0411/

Java Developer's Journal
... p.64 Secrets of JMF (Linden deCarmo) p.70 Programming Languages for the JVM (Rick
Hightower) p.80 Java Servlets: Advanced Features (AVB Subrahmanyam) p.88 ...
http://www.sys-con.com/java/archives/subscribe/0502/

Java Developer's Journal
... to the Web, Java Cards Get Pervasive (Ron Harris) p.7 Developing with DCOM & Java
(Rick Hightower) p.8 JavaOne Exposed p.18 Benchmarking with an Abstract Class ...
http://www.sys-con.com/java/archives/subscribe/0407/

Cetus Links: 18,863 Links on Objects and Components / CORBA
... Jamie Lewis, PCWeek Sept 1997); Developing with DCOM and Java (Rick Hightower, Java
Developers' Journal, July 1999); DCOM, ActiveX and Corba Must Live Together (M ...
http://www.cetus-links.org/oo_corba.html

Cetus Links: 18,863 Links on Objects and Components / Java
... and Java/RMI (Gopalan Suresh Raj); Developing with DCOM and Java (Rick Hightower,
Java Developers' Journal, July 1999); Distributed object alternatives: DCOM and ...
http://www.cetus-links.org/oo_java_rmi.html

JPython Home
... JPython article in JDJ Rick Hightower's article in the Java Developer's
Journal contains several references to JPython. ...
http://www.jpython.org/ [More results from www.jpython.org]

The NetRexx Language
... 26 May 2000]; Martin Lafaix's interactive Workspace for NetRexx [17 May 2000]; Rick
Hightower's NetRexx article in the Java Developer's Journal. [16 May 2000]. ...
http://www2.hursley.ibm.com/netrexx/ [More results from www2.hursley.ibm.com]

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