Summary of Work Experience

Position: Independent Consultant / Developer - 2005 to current
Miami, FL, USA - www.rickstam.com

     During my studies at F.I.U., I also had the opportunity to do independent consulting and development. The primary client I worked for develops custom systems for the financial sector in the Miami area, as well as other services for clients in Mexico and Central America.

     The work was mostly on a loan trading system developed in ASP.Net using C#, Visual Studio, advanced JavaScript and DOM functions, CSS, MS SQL Server, Enterprise Manager, and Crystal Reports. In several cases we used MS Office automation, such as generating Excel files from the system’s data, modifying Word template documents via XML, and using ActiveX instances of Internet Explorer to perform program controlled web browsing. The system runs as an intranet application accessed via VPN from Miami and El Salvador.

Position: Web Page and MS Office Instructor
Miami-Dade College - 2001 to 2002
Department of Community Education, Wolfson Campus
300 NE 1st Ave, Miami, FL 33132 – www.mdc.edu

     This position involved teaching short courses in microcomputer technologies. The primary course assigned to me was Web Page creation using Netscape Composer. The course covered basic HTML, using Composer's WYSIWYG environment, tables, forms, frames, uploading and maintaining the site on the server, as well as an introduction to basic scripting and the use of prefabricated Java applets. I also taught the Microsoft Excel (Level I) course on one occasion.

Position: Donation Center Assistant
Miami Rescue Mission, Industrial Division - 2000 to 2005
2159 NW 1st Court, Miami, FL 33127 – www.miamirescuemission.com

    Working part-time for this non-profit organization provided my sustenance when I moved to Miami and continued with my studies. The position covered all aspects of the receiving and warehouse operations of the donation center. I participated in testing donated computer equipment, setting it up for our office use, and was also involved in giving support for the development and maintenance of their web site.

Position: Computer Training and Support
Computación Creativa S.A. - 1997 to 1999
San José, Costa Rica

    Among other projects, I consulted for this start-up company. It was dedicated to providing secretarial and graphic arts services to a local university, as well as to the public in general. I helped them analyze their computer options, did most of the hardware and software installation, trained them in the software use, and provided them with continuing support. I also often participated in their work load, especially in projects involving numerical and statistical calculations and graphs. We also did many English/Spanish translations.

Position: Senior Software Developer
Exactus S.A. (formerly SPS Software) - 1988 to 1996
San José, Costa Rica - www.exactus.com

     Exactus S.A. is a regional leader in software development. Their main product, Exactus Impulso, is an integrated administrative and manufacturing control system. It has been the system of choice for many of Costa Rica's major businesses and industries, and they have also entered the markets of Mexico, Central America, and South America. The company has won many national awards as well as growing international recognition.

     My participation consisted in the development of a very flexible ad-hoc statistical analysis and reporting system, as well as development for the purchasing module. Other systems which I developed or worked on were for a national bank (Banco Nacional de Costa Rica) and consisted of an investments control system for the bank's internal use, and a financial analysis system that evaluated the economic situation of companies that requested loans. Another system developed was for a company that handles the receiving of imported goods. It performed all the import tax calculations and reports for the government, as well as maintaining full control of the inventory. 

     At the time, the company was developing almost exclusively using Borland C/C++ and a large portion of my work involved writing high-level function libraries for in-house use. These libraries included table grid displays, form handling, queries, report generation, and database functions. The database functions were quite sophisticated for that time period, performing the automatic maintenance of multiple indexes for the tables. I also developed an interpreter (RPN Stack-based IL) that was used for applying record selection filters for queries, updates, indexes, and reports.

Position: Programmer/Analyst and Support
Prodata S.A. - 1980 to 1986
San José, Costa Rica

    Prodata S.A. started out as a custom systems development company and data center. The systems were developed and all of the processing was done in-house until the clients got their own computer, if they so desired. The systems were mostly administrative in nature and developed in Cobol. With the arrival of the PCs, Prodata S.A. pioneered their introduction as serious, low-cost alternatives for use in the local textile (apparel) industries. The system we introduced was a very flexible efficiency and incentives based payroll, which was eventually expanded into a complete production control system. 

    During that time we developed many custom systems, most of which revolved around accounting, accounts receivable, and inventories. The development included the use of Cobol, Btrieve, RPG II, Compiled Basic, C, and some assembly language. Data structures programming and algorithms analysis (a la Knuth) were major components of my job function.

Position: Applications Programmer
Agencia Datsun / Nissan S.A. - 1978
San José, Costa Rica

    After a short course in RPG II, taken at the local IBM, I was given this position. The systems developed were for the control of the payment plans on their credit car sales, their accounts receivable from part sales, and updates to their parts inventory system. All of the systems were programmed in RPG II on an IBM System 32.