Stephen R. Strong

921 Park Street SE ● Vienna, VA 22180

sstrong@apprenticesystems.com ● (703) 477-6852

 

After years of designing and developing powerful rich client applications that leveraged Microsoft technologies and state of the art visualization techniques, I am now primarily focused on rich web applications that automate the consolidation and analysis of information from web services.

Core Competencies

OOP/Functional Programming Big Data Visualization NUI/Touch Interfaces

Electronics and Sensors Agile/Scrum Management Geospatial Mapping

Scalable/Cross-platform Customer Management 3D Animation and Rendering

Skills and Qualifications

I have expertise in the latest Web/mobile technologies and frameworks, including the full stack of .NET  technologies (Entity Framework, Web API, MVC, .NET Core 1.0), client and mobile technologies (C#, XAML, JavaScript, HTML5 & CSS, Silverlight, Canvas, WebGL) and cloud technologies (Azure). Applications I've built include arcade-style and strategy games, online product configuration and ordering systems, mobile/real-time dashboards, & web apps for deployment at DOD and DHS.  I'm developing an open source library Foundry.js with the goal of simplifying client-side JavaScript modeling. I have developed several Windows Store applications including Decidero:Car, a scoring model for screening and selecting vehicles based on personal priorities, and KnowtShare, a Web app that uses SignalR and HTML5 Canvas to facilitate collaborative note taking and brainstorming simultaneously from many different devices. I am currently developing info graphics that combine 2D and  3D mapping, social network analysis and business graphics.

Languages:   JavaScript, ES5, ES6, TypeScript, C#, C++  ●  JSON, XML  ●  HTML5, XAML, SVG, KML, GeoJSON  ●  SQL, NoSQL, Graph DB

Frameworks:  Angular 1.5.0., Angular 2, .NET, ASP.NET, ASP.NET Core 1.0, Bootstrap 3, Node.js, Jasmine, PhantomJS, Azure, SignalR and Reactive Extensions for C# and JS

Software:  D3.js, Three.js, CreateJS, Canvas, Google Earth and Google Maps, Cesium, Leaflet, WebGL, and SolidWorks

Advanced Technical Skills:  Design and implement algorithms for routing, layout, search, dynamic composition and configuration. Extensive experience with rules-based systems, spatial reasoning and validation, decision and reasoning models. Experience implementing push notifications, streaming, geolocation and 3D rendering.

 

Professional Experience

Contractor 2010-Present DHS - Customs and Border Protection

Lead Architect/Sr. Developer on CBP Visualization-as-a-Service Team. The team's goal is to provide a rich HTML5 client/server architecture that will allow any CBP Web app or site to visualize geospatial and link analysis data by simply pushing JSON to one of many service endpoints. The solution is created using AngularJS/ASP.NET, Oracle and JAVA Spring 4. Notable applications included a worldwide Ebola risk tracking system that was constructed using Agile techniques in two three week sprints.

Lead UI Architect for rich client component of the Automated Targeting System – Passenger. ATS-P is the primary system used by Customs and Border Protection to vet travelers crossing US borders. Working with a team of other senior developers, I built the Silverlight/ASP.NET MVC infrastructure that managed all of the targeting and vetting tasks. This was a real time dashboard that displayed the current status of travelers crossing our borders.

Apprentice Systems IOT and Open Source Projects2010-Present

I have created and contributed to open source projects that support both the ASP.NET community and several nonprofit organizations. I contribute to Humanitarian Toolbox, a nonprofit that develops software for disaster relief and preparedness and to Polly, a .NET library for managing exception handling policies. I created Foundry.js, a JavaScript library designed to simplify the management of distributed models for near real time and social applications. NPO Network, a site that helps nonprofits create grant applications, is based on this library.

I have also used Foundry.js and SignalR to process data streaming from the Microsoft Kinect and other sensors to drive real time visualization tools.

Contractor 2009-2010 DOD – Biometric Automation Toolkit (Berico Technologies)

Primary Web Architect for ASP.NET MVC Web app used for biometric identification of personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. This app contains biographic and biometric information collected on the battlefield is used by Army Intelligence officers to positively identify people on the battlefield and flag potential terrorists.  The architecture I designed included the latest technologies from the Microsoft Web stack, including Entity Framework and Data/RIA services.

Apprentice Systems Inc. – Hudson, OH 2000-present

CTO, Chief Architect, Co-Founder

As the CTO of Apprentice Systems, I am responsible for the design and development of Apprentice applications as well as the platform technology that makes these customized intelligent systems fast and easy to create.

Apprentice applications are built using the Apprentice Engine. This platform was originally built with C++ technology but was reinvented in .NET to meet the needs of industry partners (e.g. Motorola and Booz Allen Hamilton) and software partners (e.g. SolidWorks and Siebel).  We use an agile development approach in which engine extensions are based on needs in vertical application areas such as Telco, CAD, Process Modeling and Legal Reasoning, and then generalize new features to improve modeling for other disciplines.  Software version control, automated testing via scripting, and knowledge management are key to managing many projects on several continents.

 

Apprentice Web and Mobile Solutions:

Legal Apprentice: A legal reasoning modeling environment that lets legal experts create models of the law that can then be used to both codify bodies of decided cases and prepare new cases. I've also developed special analysis tools that can be used to identify patterns across many cases for the same branch of law.

Decidero: A family of scoring models that recommend a solution based on weights set by users to reflect their priorities. Decidero:Car is an example of a Decidero, and it recommends vehicles based on both vehicle data and user weights.

KnowtShare: A Web app that lets multiple users on different types of devices collaborate in the generation of notes and the grouping of notes into a hierarchical structure. Rooted trees that are created by grouping notes in KnowtShare can be exported as files that automate the creation of Apprentice apps like Decidero and Legal Apprentice.

Apprentice Desktop Solutions:

Optus (Australian Telco): Telco Design Apprentice – a joint venture in Australia to create a complete visual quotation system for VPN and VOIP systems, with web integrations to Seibel. The solution does automatic and user-controlled configuration of Telco Systems, online and offline. In-process designs / Visio diagrams are saved to MS SharePoint.

Motorola: iMPACT – end-to-end design system for 911 radio systems, developed in conjunction with Motorola worldwide IT and Engineering. Several Microsoft case studies were written about this system, including the Harvard Business School case “Beyond the IT Monolith”.

GE Healthcare: Wireless Network Designer – Visio sales automation and quotation solution backed with Apprentice rules for configuration and automated WIFI coverage optimization in hospitals and other medical facilities.

Booz Allen Hamilton: Automotive Assisted Selling System – customer-centric vehicle configuration system that recommends models, features and options using a scoring algorithm, customer data and desired benefits. Booz Allen wrote a white paper about this project which was published in Strategy+Business magazine.

Cooper Tire: Process Modeler/Project Apprentice – new product development process model that translates “what if” questions into an actual resource and project schedule, which is then exported to MS Project for management and execution. There is a Microsoft case study written about this project.

Genus Software: Assembly Generator for SolidWorks – an application in which Visio and the Apprentice are integrated with the SolidWorks CAD system to automate the design and assembly of complex products and generate parametric 3D geometry. A demo of this system can be seen at www.genussoftware.com/AssemblyGenerator.htm.
 

Integrated Systems Engineering

Managing Partner1992-2000

ISE was a software development and consulting firm. As Managing Partner I was responsible for working with customers to define their problem, knowledge capture to document the rules required to create the solution, systems design, development and delivery.

Software prototypes (C++) at ISE later became the basis for the Apprentice Engine.  Some of the projects that utilized this early version of the Apprentice Engine were:

·   An intelligent wire harness and cable design system for United Technologies Automotive.

·   An automated commercial transformer design system for General Electric.

·   A motor configuration and bill of materials generation system for Marathon Electric Manufacturing.

·   An automated mold design and drawing creation system for The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.

·   Knowledge-based design of piping and instrumentation system for Eastman Chemical Company.

·   Other customers included: Motorola, GE Switch Gear, Calico, Flowtronics and Lear.

Wisdom Systems – Cleveland, OH1989-1992

Senior Applications Engineer

Wisdom Systems provided a knowledge-based engineering (KBE) toolkit used by Fortune 100 companies to model the engineering design portion of their enterprise.  I helped customers understand how to model various aspects of their business, including order entry, engineering, manufacturing, process planning, and order fulfillment.  The rules I developed in conjunction with the customer were then documented and implemented in the Concept Modeler.  The rules-driven applications we created were used by sales engineers to generate 3D solid models of products configured to meet customers' specifications.  This technology was created in 1988 and integrated state-of-the-art object-oriented technology, networking, database design, graphic user interface, artificial intelligence, solid modeling and CAD.  Some notable accomplishments included an automated electronic packaging expert for Digital Equipment Corporation, a feature-based sheet metal design system for Xerox Corporation and an order entry product configuration system for Goulds Pump.

Education

Master of Science Operations Research (MSOR) ● Case Western Reserve University ● 1985

 

Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE) ● Georgia Institute of Technology ● 1981