Rob McBroom
contact:
Experience
Responsible for over 100 Red Hat based Linux servers as part of ADESA's UNIX team.
Worked in OIT's Architecture & Infrastructure group providing services to the Georgia Tech campus. Primary responsibilities involved building and maintaining web-based applications and performing a variety of system administration tasks.
Worked in OIT's Customer Support Center and assisted students, faculty and staff with user accounts, desktop computers, OS specific questions, networking, remote access to campus resources and various other types of questions. Responsible for redesigning and maintaining FAQs, designing and implementing the software download interface, managing an intranet server, and maintaining 5 informational kiosks located around campus.
Assisted students and faculty in using and learning about the university's NT, Macintosh, UNIX and NetWare systems. Provided technical support via telephone. Monitored computer labs for equipment problems, lost items, and policy violations.
Skills
(In order of proficiency ↓ then →)
Languages
Operating Systems
Services and Other Technologies
Applications
Education
Studied Computer Information Systems in the IU School of Business. A strong interest in math and science is reflected in courses taken outside of the School of Business.
Training
Certifications
Examples
So, aside from creating impressive bulleted and non-bulleted lists, what else can I do? Most of my experience boils down to either web development or system administration. It's rather difficult to show examples of system administration, but some of the projects I've worked on are discussed below.
I can't take credit for this idea, as it was being done at Georgia Tech, but in my role as Linux Administrator at ADESA, I saw the need to implement it there. When I was hired, Linux machines were being tracked in an Excel spreadsheet. This is sufficient for getting information to human eyes, but I saw an opportunity to automate a large number of tasks by storing the information in a format that both humans and machines could get to. I also wanted to be able to view and change information in a variety of ways, rather than depending on Excel. The answer was OpenLDAP for a number of reasons.
This was my favorite project at Georgia Tech. To be successful, I had to create an application that interfaced with MySQL, the Enterprise Directory, Remedy, local files and processes, etc. I also had to design a flexible architecture that would allow us to specify access controls and user interface elements per software package if necessary. This application has suffered absolutely no downtime since I first made it "live" in July 2003.
There's only so much you'll be able to do without logging in, but feel free to explore the site.
Redesigning the FAQ was one of my first "projects" at Georgia Tech (when my primary role was answering phone calls and e-mail). Since the web site and back-end structure were designed in 1999, it doesn't look very impressive by today's standards, but on the other hand, it shows that I can write code that will run rock-solid without maintenance for many years. (The contents of individual entries are, of course, modified continuously.)
I should also point out that it was a great improvement on what we had. Prior to my involvement, this site was made entirely of static HTML pages for both FAQ entries and navigational menus. After my redesign, all you had to do was drop a new entry into place and the navigational menus would get updated on the fly.
This web site allows Georgia Tech users to change their password, reset a lost password by answering user-defined questions, manage their e-mail aliases, manage guest accounts, and set preferences for GT's emergency notification system. I was not the primary developer or designer for this site, but I did a great deal of work on the back-end. I was responsible for getting the site to talk to our central account management system via XML-RPC and PostgreSQL queries and for getting it to look up directory information via LDAP. I also helped design a system to adjust the site's functionality based on class of user.
Working on a site like this obviously requires an understanding of the various security risks to a web-based application and the techniques for mitigating them. In addition to helping guard against web-based attacks, I helped design a system to protect the contents of local files in the event of compromise.
This site runs on one of my workstations and its address appears in the signature of my work e-mail messages. It primarily provides information about what I'm working on. Its design is a bit old, but the content is kept up to date.
This began life as my first home.html page in 1994 when I was at IU. I registered skurfer.com in 1999 and have expanded and redesigned the site many times since then.
This résumé was designed to demonstrate an understanding of web design principles and standards. Feel free to print it, resize it, view the source… go nuts!
Activities
Created and maintained the club web page. Monitored and responded to club related e-mail. Organized teams to attend tournaments with other schools. Taught and learned various water skiing skills with other club members. Drove and maintained the club's competition ski boat.