Michael Wechter

Laguna Niguel, California 92677

(949) 280.0497 | Email: mjw@mwechter.com

www.mwechter.com 

 
Project Architect | Project Manager | Project Lead | Senior Developer | Business Analyst
An accomplished, results-driven Senior Technology Manager with demonstrated success leading the design, implementation and marketing of enterprise business systems.  Solid background in business processes combined with diverse skills in management and “hands-on” technology development.  Proven ability to lead and motivate high performance teams with multiple direct reports.  Deep understanding of enterprise business workflow, accounting, distribution, supply chain, manufacturing, document imaging, interactive voice response, text to speech, speech recognition, adaptive technology user interfaces, highly scalable ‘loosely coupled transaction systems’, mobile, and large-scale telecommunications billing systems.  Expertise in full life cycle technology development including Systems Analysis, Systems Architecture Design, Software Development, Implementation, Technical Sales and Systems Support.  Recognized for ability to interface with management/users, analyze requirements and develop innovative solutions to complex business problems. Track record for consistently delivering on time, under budget engagements that meet or exceed guidelines of functionality and performance.

TECHNICAL EXPERTISE

·               Visual Studio Development VB/C#(2005-2015), WinForms, ASP.Net, Infragistics, Web Services, Object Orientation, Client/Server, REST, VOIP, SIP, C++, COM, COM+, DCOM, MAPI, MTS, MSMQ, SOAP, ADO, DAO, ASP, TSQL, C, XML, Component One,  Syncfusion, LumenVox

·               Applications MS SQL 2005-2016, MySQL, MS Access, Accounting, Process Control, Manufacturing Systems, Supply Chain Systems, Xbase, Clipper, Document Imaging Management, Interactive Voice Response, ASR Speech Recognition, Text to Speech Systems, Speaker Verification, Security Biometrics

·               Operating Systems  WIN7, WIN8, WIN10, MS Sever 2003,2008,2012, Hyper-V

 

 PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Document Processing Solutions Inc., Brea, CA July 2015 to May 2016
Document Processing Solutions is a nationwide document recording company the provides customized solution to its title and real estate customers. DPS facilitates the recording of legal documents at over 3100 counties throughout the United States, including Hawaii and Alaska.
I was contracted to design and buildout a Windows based backend system which would process and package orders that had been entered into an existing PHP/MySql front end system into one of six proprietary formats for sending to data aggregators that had direct connectivity with individual county jurisdictions. Each package was tracked and recovered from the aggregator once the package had been processed by the counties. Each recovered package would then be transformed/reformatted suitable for returning to the customer and the MySql accounting system was updated. The system that was built was a multi-threaded .Net 4.5 application that is currently capable of asynchronously talking to 12 disparate web services concurrently.
Each county has varied requirements for data that must be included with each document type. With 3600 counties, 50-100 document types per county and 5-10 data elements per document, the task for building a web frontend to capture the information would not have been possible hard coding the requirements. I developed a data driven forms add-on, driven by JavaScript, for the PHP frontend which allowed the frontend to collect the required data with less than 10 lines of JavaScript code.

Elite Interactive Solutions, Los Angeles, CA November 2015 to March 2016
Elite is a security-consulting firm that specializes in crime prevention, catastrophe, and terrorism.  The core of Elite’s business is providing Remote Guarding, which is intelligent video surveillance systems connected to a Command and Control center staffed with highly trained Security Agents.

I was contracted to develop an IVR (interactive voice response) system to allow onsite clients to use their mobile phone to arm/disarm security systems. The system developed was based on Twillio cloud based IVR platform and a MVR/Razor application running on a VPS remote from the security command center. Remote uses would validate with their (cell) phone to the IVR and then the IVR would communicate with the monitoring system at the command center. If required, the user would be connected directly with security personnel.

AdaptiveVoice, Laguna Niguel, CA   October 2009 to Current
As founder and chief technologist for AdaptiveVoice, I began a public service project to create a definitive, lower-cost software product for blind, low vision, senior and persons with cognitive disabilities to allow those users to easily use basic computer applications. The resulting product named ‘CDesk’ was born out of my goal to provide non-technical blind and low vision users the ability to remain ‘connected’ in a visual world.
CDesk is a single .Net program utilizing high contrast color schemes, large print, variable screen magnification, and is fully speech enabled with Text-To-Speech and Voice Recognition. CDesk was officially release in April 2010 is currently being distributed to low-vision centers and senior communities across the country. There are currently 3,500 users nationwide.
In early 2015, AdaptiveVoice began development on an fully portable augmented reality head worn device that presents to the user a visual display equivalent to seeing a 60” high definition TV at an 8’ distance. This device is worn like a pair of glasses and includes a high definition live video camera built in. The live feed from the camera can provide a magnified view of objects that will, as example, allow low vision clients to read books, magazines and watch TV. The goggles include a full Windows computer (micro tablet) that also enable the user to use the CDesk software, browse the Internet, use Email and access Facebook.

Apperson Inc., Cerritos, CA December 2013 to March 2015
I was contracted to modify and extend public and internal facing production web systems for Apperson. The application systems are C# based ASPX built using VS2005/VS2008 and I upgraded the codebase to VS2013. A second project was the creation of a .Net FedEx web services implementation to handle large scale creation of FedEx shipping, returns and tracking transactions. Other projects have included a Net based XLS/XLSX to MSSQL data importer, and mid-level .Net SQL interface class being implemented across Apperson web and WIN base applications. A third project was a total design, coding and implementation of a website that included, a public facing production tracking system implementing multiple pages of data driven hierarchical grids, an internal facing system of pages covering unit tracking of production and shipping processes across sales/production in facilities located on the east coast and west coast. Also integrated into the project is a scheduling job control system for the creation and execution of data driven productions processes that could be implemented and trigged by the internal web site.

MiT Systems, Inc. , Fullerton, CA  December 2011 to July 2012
MiT Systems has been delivering the most advanced delivery and sales force automation mobility solutions for the consumer packaged (CPG) goods industries that drive efficiency into sales and delivery processes for more than 13 years. I was contracted to create, enhance and extend several MIT Systems modules. These modules included an automated bi-directional data query and transfer system between MIT Mobile Route Scheduling and MIT’s clients systems, the MIT Windows CE Mobile (handheld) Route Ordering/Invoicing, and the MIT Enterprise Route Management System. These modules are based on C#, Windows CE and SQL Server 2005/2008.

County of San Diego Planning and Land Use Services, San Diego, CA July 2011 to February 2012
I was contracted to build the internal billing, invoicing, reconciliation and public facing web query system for the County of San Diego Planning and Land User Services developer accounts. The project consisted of creating an interface to multiple of the county’s Oracle mainframe data sources, producing an employee facing dashboard to maintain and reconcile account balances, an invoicing system for approximately 10,000 customer statements per month and a public facing website for customers to query account balances, current and historical detail. The systems were written in VB, C#, and Excel.

PosTrack Technologies, Joliet Illinois   July 2009 to October 2009
I was contracted to develop an integrated Server/Web/Win32/WinForms Unified Communications product for use and sale by PosTrack Technologies. PosTrack is a regional telecommunications service provider near Chicago, Illinois. PosTrack's clients include hospitals, multi-location school districts, universities, and mid-sized corporations.

The products included a multi-tenancy IVR server based on .Net VOIP processing engine developed by AdaptiveVoice (note: I own AdaptiveVoice), a .Net based WIN32 WinForms Call Manager client and a web based ASPX.net. AJAX enabled Call Manager client. The clients communicated with the server based system via an internally developed high transaction volume, secure web services communication channel.

The Unified Communications system integrated voicemail, auto-attendant, client directed IVR, flexible call trees based on time/day/caller id, inbound and outbound T.38 faxing, outbound call notifications, call bridging, SMS texting, call conferencing, call logging and billing systems.

 
LogicTree Corp, Bowie, MD April 2008 to September 2008 
LogicTree Corporation is the world’s leading provider of 511 Traffic Information, Transit Trip Planning, Para Transportation, and Routes & Schedules Telephony systems. LogicTree installed systems provide traveler information to over 40% of the 511 service population in the United States. The LogicTree systems use state of the art speech recognition (ASR), VXML and text-to-speech (TTS).

·               I was brought in as the LogicTree Project Manager for the Los Angeles County Service Authority for Freeway Emergencies (LA SAFE)  Motorist Aid and Transportation Information Systems (MATIS) project. The MATIS project will be the controlling agency for a five county area including Los Angeles County, Orange County, Ventura County, Riverside County and San Bernardino County. The population of the area exceeds 20 million people. The 511 system will be the largest traffic and transit transportation information system in the world when completed in early 2009. Callers to 511 will be able to receive real-time traffic information, transit trip planning, real-time bus arrival, rideshare information, airport and seaport information, bicycle and tourist information across the 20,000 square mile service area from cellular phone, home phones and a web site portal. The MATIS project is a $50 million dollar, 10 year product and services contract.

·               As Project Manager, I was responsible for the project administration, development and design issues, post sale. The MATIS project encompassed the primary client (LA SAFE), four associated county technical committees, CALTRANS, California Highway Patrol, and two project partners for a total of over 30 persons on the primary MATIS project committee. LogicTree resources included engineering, voice interface design, documentation and offshore teams in Pakistan and India for a total of 30 plus project production personnel.

FairPrice Systems  Coto De Caza, Ca     December 2007 to April 2008 
Architected, Project Managed and implemented a series of projects for FairPrice Systems centered around providing an easy to use Winforms desktop applications for medical and dental offices to process patient pay financing solutions. Patient Pay Financing is increasingly becoming a significant factor within the medical community. The FairPrice Project allows the medical office to identify a patient’s ability to pay based on securely obtaining a medical version of their credit score from the top credit clearing organizations.

The medical office and patient are presented with financing options within seconds of a swipe of the patient’s driver’s license. Completely filled in and bar coded financing documents are printed for the patient’s ‘wet signature’. The FairPrice Project is fully security HIPAA compliant. All transactions and documents are Triple-DES encrypted and logged as to time, function and user.

Pipeline TRG, Santa Ana, CA     July 2007 to March 2008 
Technical Resource Group (TRG), a Pipeline Group company, provides Information Technology (IT) services and products to organizations throughout North America.  TRG’s expertise is primarily in technologies of SAP application software and Pick database (also called MultiValue) environments.

·               TRG was eighteen months into a project to migrate Pindler & Pindler off a ‘green screen’ order entry/invoicing system onto a C#, WinForm GUI front-end.  The new system had been built utilizing C# 2.0, VS2005, Blue Infinity data bridging to an existing PICK Universe (D3 multi-value) database backend and utilizing Syncfusion visual controls. I was brought in to evaluate and re-engineer a C# GUI system that was buggy, un-documented and crashed often each day. I was able to stabilize the platform, reduce the memory foot print from over 75 megabytes per user instance down to 20 megabytes, correct the system control/object instancing, standardize the style and behavior of the user interface, and cut the source code set down to 7,000 lines versus the original 18,000 C# lines.

Eastridge Group, San Diego, CA 2007  (June 2007 to October 2007) 
The Eastridge Group of Staffing Companies specializes in temporary, direct-hire and contract workforce solutions. The Group consists of 14 specialized job placement agencies with offices throughout California as well as in Arizona, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey and Texas with a contracted workforce exceeding 3,000 employees.

·               I was contracted to be the architectural, Project Manager and development lead on a highly visible project to produce an application portal to enable Eastridge clients to self service job placement requests, automate placement approvals, and receive Job Order status notifications, time sheet payroll approvals, employee payroll reporting functions, employee clock functions, and employee time sheet capabilities. 
The project was initiated as a very high paced, defined deadlines, short time to market product release. Functional specifications at the project onset were minimal. An agile project approach was taken, functional requirements were accumulated as production proceeded and iterative release candidates were made over a seventy day period before the first staged production release.  
The final product was a completely AJAX enabled ASP.Net/C# Web Portal acting as a front-end to a MSSQL 2005 SQL Server and communicating with several existing AS400 based back-end applications systems.

AdaptiveVoice, Laguna Niguel, CA   September 2006 to June 2007 
AdaptiveVoice is a software development consultancy operation chartered to develop highly scalable application systems involving multi-threaded technologies implementing message based transactions, loosely coupled application domains, WinForm, ASP.Net, Web services, document imaging, voice and telephony, speech recognition, text-to-speech, Linux, and .Net.

·               Architected, Project Managed and implemented the PatCare System under the guidance of the San Diego Medical Information Society (SDMINE). PatCare is an application system built to scan and display patient Continuity of Care Records (patient medical histories from the charts) across all medical providers and hospitals in San Diego County. Patcare is designed to be implemented as a county wide RHIO (Regional Health Information Organization or Health Information Exchange).

The medical provider’s office uses a PC running a ‘thin’ .NET WinForms Windows application or a secure web browser to verify a patient’s identity using two factor identification (token and biometrics). Once verified by the PatCare servers using encrypted Web Services, the provider has HIPAA compliant access to the patient’s basic medical records via a document imaging paradigm to a very large scale document management platform. Providers will share patient records (histories, test results, insurance eligibility, demographics) instantly from their offices or by secure remote access.

PatCare will serve as a document image and patient information data warehouse serving over 5,000 medical providers and 2,000,000 patients in the Diego County. It is anticipated that the Patcare servers will be providing access to over 100 million patient documents images within five years.

Advanced Sterilization Products Div. of Johnson & Johnson Irvine, Ca.  April 2006 to September 2006 
ASP is a 1 billion dollar division of the Johnson and Johnson Corporation that manufactures and distributes medical sterilization products for use in surgical suites, medical centers and clinical settings. The company is part the of Ethicon Surgical division.

·               Initiated a forensic audit of the data warehouse and online invoicing systems at ASP and HCS. HCS is the corporate arm of the Ethicon division which handles the actual invoicing and accounts receivable functions for each of the operating companies within that division. There were known to be problems with the invoicing but because of general lax controls, the scope of the problem was not understood or measured. Using my strong accounting, data warehouse and general systems knowledge, I was able to track down multiple problems with the current systems interfaces both internally and inter-company. Over a short period I built an audit ‘process’ using multiple tools, reaching into five different enterprise data systems in several locations. The audit uncovered several million dollars in unbilled transactions (4,000+ invoices) and an equal number and amount of 'double billed' customer transactions.

·               Once the ‘discovery phase’ of the audit was complete, I designed a WinForms solution to maintain transaction visibility, daily transaction balancing, and transaction resubmission editing. The new ‘Revenue Cycle’ system, now being used, is a ‘dashboard’ to the system invoicing/reconciliation activity.

 Message Broadcast, Newport Beach, CA May 2004 to December 2005 
Recruited to architect, project manage and build out a new and enhanced IVR product for Message Broadcast and its sister companies Fonevia and School Broadcasting Company. MessageBroadcast is an established leader in providing direct IVR and audio text messaging for Fortune 500 companies such as AT&T, Citi Corp, Clear Channel Media Group, Gottshalks, Macy’s, Jaguar, and Landrover. Fonevia is a new division of  MessageBroadcast, whose product lines involve peer-to-peer ‘pod cast type’ market places. The School Broadcasting Company’s offers audio text and messaging functionality for schools and governmental entities. The School Broadcasting Company products went live in March 2005 in Southern California and are due to go national in mid-May of 2005.

·               Established two new telecom co-location facilities in June 2004. One facility was in Las Vegas, NV. Project managed, designed, purchased hardware, implemented network, established WAN and telecom connectivity for a server farm of 15 servers to support 6 DS3’s (3800+ channels) of outbound and inbound TDM.

·               Converted the AdaptiveVoice development toolset (see below) specific for the MessageBroadcast product line into a true multi-threaded .Net WinForm product. The AdaptiveVoice products allow for the ‘programming’ of scripted interactive voice projects without re-compilation. The ‘Adaptive Scripting Engine’ (ASE) runs on each dialing server. The engine accesses Jscript, VBScript, late-bound COM+, web-services and built-in middle-ware using a ‘loosely coupled architecture’ and implementing MTS, MSMQ, COM+ and .Net.

·               Built a web-services based front-end (WinForm/VB.Net) and back-end (VB.Net) to allow the creation of and monitoring of ‘Message Campaigns’ to be supervised by customer service representative in the Newport Beach service center. Automated major functions involving very large scale uploading, cleansing, queuing, dialing, and reporting on up to 1.5 million phone calls per day.

AdaptiveVoice, Laguna Niguel, CA    November 2002 to April 2004 
Established new corporate entity to create development tools, client installations, and technologies for applications involving high volume business messages/transactions incorporating web services, telephony, interactive voice response, speech recognition, text-to-speech, MSSQL, MSMQ, MTS and COM technologies. Developed concept, architected solution, assembled staffing, and implemented a major portion of the project programming.

·               Project managed and developed a clustered, message based (HTTP/MSMQ) transaction system based on COM+/MTS. The system integrated multiple programming languages into a common processing methodology and automatically scaled the server load over multiple physical systems.

Interactive Communications, Mission Viejo, CA 2002 (March to November) 
Lead technology initiatives for organization that provides ASP and in-house turnkey solutions for corporations, government, and educational institutions.  Interface with clients to perform on-site evaluations and define requirements.  Architect solutions and manage projects for implementation.   Formulate documentation and oversee client support.  Project managed teams of up to 20 IT professionals and reported directly to the company CEO.

·               Designed IVR Runtime Engine that supports standard IVR functions (conferencing, switch control, speech recognition, verification, veracity), capable of handling thousands simultaneous phone calls.

·               Designed architecture and led deployment of audio text system that enabled client to manage dynamic menu system customized for each environment. 

·               Architected IVR Development Environment and Graphical User Interface System (WinForm) marketed to 3rd party IVR developers provide complete in-house development environment. The systems allowed complete control of runtime via TCP/IP.

·               Created IVR Development GUI (WinForm) with menu system, capable of accessing and modifying IVR Runtime System in real-time using HTTP protocols, SOAP, and XML messaging via remote access. Developed middle-ware 'validation system' to establish rapid development environment using 80% less code in the product, resulting in a significant decrease in development and maintenance resources with the resulting increased ROI and faster time to a market.

EPC International, Irvine, Ca.    September 2000 to March 2002 
Managed technology development for organization that designs supply chain, accounting, manufacturing, and distribution systems for the Baking/Snack Food industry. Recruited to design and deploy company’s next-generation supply chain management system.  Designed N-Tier, multi-server, multi-threaded, technologies messaging transaction system (VB6/WinForms) on a fail-over web farm of IIS servers communicating via COM+/MTS/MSMQ, application   business layer, brokered to a cluster of SQL 2000 servers.  Built and project managed a staff of IT professionals, from inception and reported to the CEO.

·               Achieved direct goal of designing an affordable Enterprise Class System to manage supply chain, accounting, financial, wireless access, manufacturing, and inventory.  Drove efforts to streamline integration into legacy systems.

·               Implemented single application server that supported transaction message brokering and the application layer with connectivity to single MSSQL database, capable of processing 8000+ transactions per minute.  Championed objectives to provide scalability with significantly low cost for hardware and equipment.

·               Established technology to enable client applications (WinForm, Web, and Handheld) to process transactions through IIS as XML data/HTTP requests over TCP/IP.   Eliminated need for hundreds of phone lines to accept data.

·               Delivered 1-year project in 8-months using only 4 programmers when budgeted for 10 programmers, resulting in over $1 million in savings.

University of California Los Angeles, L.A., CA (1998 to 2000) 
Recruited to design accounting system for the Combined Telecom Department (CTS) of the UCLA campus comprised of 150 staff members operating three major telephone switching systems.  Additionally, developed online purchasing system, public safety interface, 911-telephone database and telephone front end invoicing system.

Starion Inc., Chicago, Illinois   (1989-1995) 
Engineered start-up of Starion in 1989 to develop Document Image Processing systems for title insurance industry and government. Starion developed large scale document imaging workflow systems for several major real estate title processing corporation within California. Backfile conversions were accomplished integrating source documents going back to the Spanish land grant and forward to today. Total documents scanned and indexed was over 16 million.

Teksoft, Chicago, Illinois    (1975 to 1995) 
Started, built and managed an Information Technology organization that provided integrated business accounting, distribution and manufacturing systems to mid-sized companies in the Chicago area.  Company was established to provide hardware, software, telecommunications, installation and support to clients on monthly contract basis. Company eventually expanded to two offices in the Northeast, one in Chicago and one in Southern California. Provided technology services to over 400 client organizations in 20-year period.

EDUCATION 
DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois.  Major in Art with Minor in Accounting,