Michael Fariss

18983 Saratoga Glen Place E-Mail: michael@8thDay.com
Saratoga, CA 95070 Phone: E-Mail for phone number.


EDUCATION:

B.S. in Software Engineering San Jose State University [2002] GPA: 3.65 with honors

MBA
(in progress)
 Argosy University
 [2011] GPA: 3.85

UNIX Administration Certificate Sun & SJSU [2000]

Communications Skills Course
 CareerTrack
 [2008]

Management Course
 CareerTrack [2009]

Certificate in Management
(in progress)
 UC Berkeley Extension [2012] GPA: 4.0


WORK EXPERIENCE:

Founder and Manager
 8th Day Computer Consulting 1991-Present

  • Connected private clients and schools to the Internet, configured E-Mail servers, file servers and routers
    (St. Elizabeth Seaton, Old Orchard, Cagen, St. Martins, SJU & Others).
  • Setup computer labs, accelerated Internet connections and did troubleshooting, performed system installs.
  • Did troubleshooting, installation and setup wired/wireless networks.
  • Trained commercial and private clients how to use Internet, E-Mail and other programs.
  • Helped various schools properly integrate technology into the curriculum.
  • Managed part-time employees, managed suppliers and did all billing and promotion.


System Administrator
 Woodside Priory School
 1996-2009

  • Translated user needs into business requirements, then into production-grade solutions, on a tight budget.
  • Wrote over 30 database-driven programs in various languages, most are in production today.
  • Built and successfully operated a 34-building network of 700 computers & industrial servers (including payroll, various databases and 32 other services).
  • Invented a dynamic method to keep all 1200 users on the Internet for a low-cost, despite the challenge of unreliable primary Internet line (a T-1 line that the telco refused to stabilize).
  • Achieved more than 99.8% up time, in a small school, with an extremely small budget.
  • Interviewed, trained and helped manage 7 employees, at different times, since 1999.
  • Managed over 20 major projects that concurrently involved several departments and contractors.
  • Directed daily meetings, took minutes and prioritized plans according to the needs of management.
  • Created and tracked the annual budget for the Technology Department every year since 1999.
  • Documented: tests, procedures, long-term plans, network upgrades & maintained inventory.
  • Designed & implemented network security systems for sensitive Business Office records.
  • Wrote policies, created & tracked budgets. Recently came to within 1% of predicted budget.
  • Created a Disaster Recovery Schedule to restore core services after a disaster.


Performance Engineer (SEED)
 Hewlett Packard
 1997-1998

  • Wrote software in C, for running tests on HP-UX (UNIX) web servers including performance tests, then wrote performance assessment reports.
  • Responsible for configuring and optimizing HP-UX (UNIX) servers to be tested under load, in order to demonstrate the competitiveness of HP products.
  • Installed and configured HP-UX (UNIX) workstations in a cluster, to do performance testing on various servers.
  • Found and fixed a manufacturing defect.
  • Learned various industry Best Practices for writing code and doing IT in a large corporation.


High Speed Internet Co-Op
 Founder and Manager
1996-2008

  • Offered high-speed Internet access to neighbors for just $8/month.
  • Achieved this by putting network cables on the fences of 9 neighbors, connected to a common router to share costs. This was extremely uncommon in 1996.
  • Managed customer relations, provided initial financing of equipment and provided technical support.


Metro Newspapers
 Web Content Intern Summer 1995

  • Offered high-speed Internet access to neighbors for just $8/month.
  • Achieved this by putting network cables on the fences of 9 neighbors, connected to a common router to share costs. This was extremely uncommon in 1996.
  • Managed customer relations, provided initial financing of equipment and provided technical support.



CORE COMPETENCIES:
MANAGERIAL, ORGANIZATIONAL AND COMMUNICATION:
  • Consistently earned praise for my cheerful & professional demeanor while working with others.
  • Managed, trained and mentored 17 people, over 16 years
    (11 years part time & 5 years full time).
  • Delivered over 30 major projects to several departments, each with varying needs, on-time or sooner.
  • Fantastic time-management skills (forecasting with Ghantt charts), detail-oriented and energetic.
  • Directed other employees who did troubleshooting, repair and configuration of computer systems, with no problems “on my watch” (technical or managerial).
  • Negotiated significantly lower costs (44% off) with vendors including AT&T, ISPs and VARs.
  • Able to prioritize in a multi-tasking environment & remain organized and on-schedule 91% of time.
  • Verbally communicated technical concepts to technical and non-technical people alike.
  • Requested by peers, to be Project Manager for more than 5 different groups at San Jose State University, including the 5-person Engineering Senior Design Project.
TECHNICAL:
  • Programmed 15 databases with GUIs, that are used by 16 people, in 7 departments, everyday.
  • Wrote about 50 well-structured programs in various languages (defined requirements, tested, etc).
  • Wrote over 12 binders of clear system documentation for technical and non-technical audiences.
  • Have performance-tuned over 20 systems, extremely familiar with TCP/IP and related protocols.
  • 18 years of experience doing IT work for 25 organizations and individuals, under my own business.
  • Installed or supervised the installation of hundreds of fiber & copper cables for various organizations.
  • Setup 800+ professional-grade servers, clients and routers (including AC, raised-floors & racks).


TECHNOLOGY SKILLS:
  • Software: Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Project, PhotoShop, DreamWeaver, Illustrator, OO.org, InDesign, Apache, Sendmail, Squid, PmWIKI, IIS, VMware, FileMaker Pro +IWP, OpenSource.
  • OS: Win 2000/XP/2003, Mac OS X +Server, UNIX/Solaris, Linux (RedHat,Fedora,Ubuntu,SuSE).
  • HW:PC, Mac, Cisco, FortiNet & SonicWALL Routers, Switches, Fiber Optics & Wireless 802.11b/g/n.
  • Net/Misc: DNS, backup (Retrospect, scripted, FTP), TCP/IP, net tools (tcpdump, wireshark, iptraf, iptables, ebtables, monitoring & paging), 1394b, USB 2 & FibreChannel, RAID, AntiVirus, AntiSpam.
  • Code: HTML, CSS, C/C++, PERL, PHP, JSP, XML, XSLT, command line, shell scripting, some Java, regular expressions, sockets programming, MySQL, some Oracle 9i.


VOLUNTEER WORK:
  • Santa Cruz Animal Shelter (helping to sell cats to the general public) for over a year.
  • Helped the Bay Area chapter of Habitat for Humanity, build three houses.
  • Fostered kittens for various bay area animal rescue organizations for over 5 years.
  • Provided Ham Radio communications during 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
  • Various diabetes bike-a-thons (providing Ham Radio communications).

References & recommendations available upon request.