Project Manager Sas Programmer

Mel Kirshin

Home phone: 905-***-**** Email:

********@*****.**

Address: Burlington, ON,

Canada

Profile

An accomplished and innovative SAS Programmer since 1981 serving a variety

of industries including financial services, manufacturing, retail,

healthcare, and pharmaceutical.

I have made major contributions to applications such as Manufacturing Yield

Analysis, CRM reporting, Marketing Campaigns, Health Care, Medical Billing,

Financial Reporting, Clinical Trials, and Capacity Planning.

I am able to quickly understand diverse and complex business requirements,

and produce reports that reduce large amounts of disparate data into clear,

concise information-rich reports. I communicate effectively with business

analysts, end users, superiors and colleagues.

Technical Skills

Environments: z/OS, TSO/ISPF, CMS, PC Windows through XP, VM, VMS(VAX),

UNIX, ISPF, MVS, JCL, Endevor, ControlM

Tools: Base SAS 9.2 and 8.2, SAS Macros, all major SAS Procs including

graphs and statistics, SAS/ODS, SAS/AF, SAS/FSP(Union Gas), SAS/Connect,

SAS/Access, Excel, Word, Powerpoint, MS Project, TSO/ISPF, Version Control

Tools (Endevor, Synergy-CM), CA/7, Control-M, Sharepoint, MS Project, MICS,

neuMICS, MXG, Lotus/123, SQL, QMF, Visio,

Major Accomplishments

1. Developed computer resource utilization forecast methodology (Canadian

Tire Financial)

. Customized MXG to pull the relevant resource consumption from

SMF/RMF, rolled up the values by workload characterization, and

maintained in Data Repository for subsequent analysis and reporting.

. Developed load and performance tracking system to extract data from

MXG and produce graphs/reports on a monthly basis.

. Using SAS multivariate regression analysis, I developed a predictive

model to forecast CPU consumption on an 18 month horizon accurate to

+-8% (corrected for input errors). The model used a business volume

forecast obtained from the SBU's such as credit cards issued, number

of accounts, sales etc - to predict the resulting system loads. The

forecast report - a color area chart - was sent to both the CIO and

CEO along with an explanation of anomalies and expected new

applications.

2. Developed System Service Level Metric that became the basis of a Service

Level Agreement (CIL)

. Mainframe response time averages and percentiles are skewed in favor

of the better response times because there are always more fast

transactions in a given time period than slow ones. In order to

normalize the measurements, I developed a program - based on an

article in the CMG Proceedings - that reported a pass or fail grade

for the average response time for each 15 minute time interval in the

day. The numbers of good and bad intervals each day were presented as

a stacked bar chart, providing the performance level reporting that

actually matched user perceptions, rather than the skewed daily

averages which users always took issue with.

. This spawned another metric that was used as the basis of our SLA -

the percent of the time response time was acceptable for a calendar

period.

3. Developed Medical Necessity Report (Mayo Clinic Scottsdale)

. This mainframe SAS program compared each service submitted to

Medicare with the associated diagnosis to determine if the diagnosis-

service pair was compliant with Medicare policy. If it was not

compliant, the patient's medical history was searched for claims with

the same service but with a compliant diagnosis. By ensuring that

correct information was provided in the claim, penalties that had

been averaging $30,000/month were now completely avoided.

Work History

Capital One Auto, Plano, TX 1/2010 - 2/2010

Ironclad contracts with dealers, manpower shortages and strict sheduling

requirements required that a short term contractor be brought in. We

performed the following:

. update program parameters in the code prior to each weekly run

according to the BA's current specifications.

. Upload the jobs to a Unix/Teradata environment using the F-Secure SSH

Client and execute

. Compare the program output with the statistician's expected values

. email the results to the user.

Environment:

SAS9.1, Teradata, Unix, F-Secure SSH Client, SAS/PC, SQL performance,

documentation, ksh scripting

SFE Financial Inc., Tustin, CA (Loss Mitigation, telecommute) 3/2009 -

6/2009

Unprecedented numbers of foreclosures coupled with huge bailout grants to

financial institutions provided an opportunity to earn income between

contracts as well as help many struggling home owners.

. Posted Customer Data, Bank Discovery, Timeline(log), and mtg co.

requirements to Sharepoint

. Gathered all required documention from client, faxed to mtg. Co. and

negotiated solution

USAA (Insurance, San Antonio, TX) 10/2008 - 2/2009

Systems Analyst

Major shift of the company's marketing focus required migration to a new

CRM data source. This required the modification of SAS code as well as JCL

scripts. Every revised job required learning Control-M, the application of

Control-M symbolics, unit testing, code review and system testing.

. Converted large numbers of SAS programs and JCL scripts consistent

with file naming revisions

. Tested new code according to previously established test methodology

. Prepared code walkthroughs

Environment:

SAS9.1/ z/OS, data step, proc report, IBM/TSO, DB2, Control-M, MVS

Utilities, Sharepoint

CIBC Mellon (Financial -Toronto, ON) 10/2006 - 3/2008

SAS Programmer/Systems Analyst

. Assisted Global Deposits and Payments with code changes, new

development. Troubleshooting, report automation

. Developed SAS programs for production. This required researching data

sources (including Cobol files, DB2 and VSAM files), extracting data,

cleansing and manipulating data, unit testing, regression testing, as

well as promoting to QA, UA, and production using CA/7, Endevor and

Synergy/CM.

. Debugged existing problematic report and found that the program was

using data that was pulled from the DBMS at the wrong time. Corrected

by obtaining correct extraction timing from the DBA.

. Maintained the integrity and security of highly sensitive data, and

ensured the accurate reporting of financial information.

. Automated numerous manually submitted reports.

. Extracted data from large VSAM files, transformed using SAS formats

and loaded into SAS tables.

. Produced reports on Excel, RTF and Word documents using SAS/ODS

. On Call to resolve production issues

Environment:

SAS8.2/ODS, data step, indexing, proc report, SQL, z/OS, SDLC, DB2,

Decision Support, MIS, SAS Access, SAS/Connect, Endevor, CA7, Synergy CM,

JCL Symbolics, IDCAMS, file sizes > 100 million records

Virgin Mobile USA (Cellular Provider - Walnut Creek, CA) 10/2005

-2/2006

SAS Programmer/Systems Analyst

. Assist with establishing requirements of next marketing campaign by

reporting recent cell phone activity. This required producing excel

reports depicting frequency of use and profitability of each cell

phone feature rolled up by month, plan and handset type.

. Extracted data from complex Oracle Data Bases in order to add CRM

information to existing SAS reports.

. Modified Korn Shell scripts as required to run additional programs

. Mentored junior programmers in SAS programming techniques that

enriched the skills of the programmer and reduced program development

time and system resource consumption.

Environment:

SAS8.02, SQL, data step, indexing, proc report, Unix, ksh scripting, Sun

Solaris, import/export Excel, Oracle, PROC SQL, PL/SQL, CRM, file sizes >

100 million records

Co-operators Insurance (Insurance - Guelph, ON) 9/2004 - 3/2005

Programmer Analyst

. Liaised with clients to obtain and document their reporting

requirements, obtained their sign off and proceeded with development

according to the agreed upon specifications.

. Produced ad hoc CRM reports for several department managers depicting

premiums and claims rolled up by time period and demographics.

Environment: SAS8.2, SQL, z/OS, DB2, JCL, Business Analysis, Decision

Support

Sun Life Insurance (Insurace - Waterloo, ON) 4/2004 - 8/2004

SAS Programmer / Analyst -CRM

. Produced ad hoc CRM reports for several department managers depicting

premiums and claims rolled up by time period and demographics. This

information was required for direct marketing campaigns.

. Researched and implemented techniques for reading files with over 100

million rows without running out of work space or timing out. This

allowed the creation of reports which would otherwise have been

impossible.

. Developed a program to analyze daily yield curves and identified

anomalies.

. Supplemented existing reports with additional DB2 data.

Environment: SAS8.2, SQL, z/OS, DB2, JCL, Decision Suppport

ISERV Ontario (Government - Toronto, ON) 3/2004-

4/2004

Project Manager/ Capacity Planning Analyst - Load Forecasting

. Used the results of load impact tests of new applications and expected

volumes to forecast computer load impact of these applications.

. Developed and implemented load tracking methodology going forward

using NeuMICS and SAS.

. Provided regular project status reports to management using MS

Project.

. Coordinated activities between the IBM mainframe performance

consultant and myself to identify both the impact of additional load

and opportunities for performance improvement at the iServ

installation.

. Documented findings and made upgrade recommendations based on my

forecast of Ministry's CPU load and facility requirements over a two

year horizon.

Environment: SAS8.2, OS390, NEUMICS, MXG, MS Project, Visio, JCL

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (Financial - Toronto, ON) 5/2002 -

3/2004

Senior SAS Developer (Decision Support)

. To provide the bank with a better understanding of customer

preferences and create products to better serve customer needs, I

designed, tested and implemented SAS reports for Customer Analysis

Group and other departments within GD&P.

. Automated more than two dozen manually run reports. This involved the

substitution of SAS macros for manually interjected dates etc,

modification of job cards, creation of CPSL, SAS, and CA7 records in

INFOMAN, and the promotion of the JCL and SAS modules through Endevor.

Modified code at the same time to improve efficiency and readability.

The result was the elimination of several hours of manual work each

month, freeing time for more productive work.

. Corrected existing reports which were designed to provide strategic

information for fee structure design.

. Modified the small business account jobs to accommodate the BOA

account changes

Environment: SAS8.2, DS, SQL, SAS/Access,,SAS/Connect, SAS/NT, business

analysis, Oracle, OS/390, MVS Utilities, Cobol, Decision Support, INFOMAN,

Endevor,JCL, IDCAMS, SDLC, file sizes > 100 million recs

Glaxo Smith Kline (Pharma / Clinical Trials - Oakville, ON) 9/2001 -

3/2002

SAS P/A

. Created a series of 50 reports including

o efficacy by demographic,

o comparisons with existing drugs

o collaborating with statisticians, provided p-values based on

phase 4 study Protocol, CRF data, questionnaire data, subject

response statistics, and demographic.

. Extracted DB2 marketing data, cleansed and downloaded to Excel to

produce summary graphs/tables and listings to suit the client's

requirements.

Environment: SAS9.1, WindowsNT, MS/Office, output to Excel

Bell Canada (Communications -Toronto, ON) 7/2001 - 9/2001

SAS Programmer - Marketing/CRM

. Performed queries, data extraction, list pulls and reporting in

support of online marketing campaigns

. Provided Excel spreadsheets with pivot tables to explicitly depict the

expected demographic distribution of the campaign

Environment: MVS/ISPF, OS/390, Oracle/UNIX, JCL

Fleet Bank (Financial-CRM, Boston, MA)

12/2000 - 03/2001

SAS Programmer Analyst

. Removed duplicate family members in database and replaced with a

single record with an assigned Household ID (HHNIAC). This facilitated

the development of marketing campaign lists.

. Transferred SAS tables of marketing data to PC using FTP, and exported

to excel spreadsheets, then graphed using excel

. Performed CRM Profiling of Fleet customers by branch, product usage,

transaction channels, fees, profitability and demographics. Documented

findings and presented to managers and peers with Powerpoint. This

information provided us a better understanding of our new acquisition.

Environment: SAS8.2, Windows NT, UNIX/Solaris, INFORMIX data warehouse,

PowerPoint, Excel

IBM (IT Services - Durham, NC) 5/2000 - 11/2000

SAS Programmer

. Mapped the data sources in DB2

. developed SQL code to extract report data from DB2 tables.

. Produced reports in HTML format using SAS/ODS

Environment: SAS V8, ODS, SAS macros, DB2, HTML, MVS, JCL, SAR

Toronto Dominion Bank (Financial, Toronto, ON)

9/1999 - 4/2000

Capacity Planning Support

. Prepared ad hoc SAS programs for Measurement and Reporting Group.

. Developed tracking for current production DASD map to help automate

the initialization of DRP site

. Modified AS400 MICS based reports

. Proposed a Capacity Planning Strategy for bank's AS400's and UNIX

servers

Environnent: MXG, base SAS, MVS, JCL, Unix,Disaster Recovery Planning

Fleet Mortgage (Financial/Mortgage - Florence, SC) 6/1999 -

8/1999

Resource Utilization Graphic Reporting

. Updated MXG programs to version 16.3

. Created DASD utilization tracking programs

. Developed a system to read MXG data and produce daily color area

charts on the LAN depicting CPU load by application for the previous

day and month-to-date. These were subsequently emailed to management..

Environnent: MXG, PC SAS, SAS/Graph, SAS/Access, SAS/Connect, MVS/ISPF,

JCL, SAR

Manulife Canada (Insurance - Waterloo, ON) 3/1998

- 5/1998

SAS Programmer

Manulife was in the process of demutualization and needed to convert life

insurance benefits of its customers into the equivalent number of shares

. Produced ad hoc reports for the legal and actuarial departments

showing the legal requirements for demutualization and the number of

shares to be issued for every policy holder.

Environment: MVS SAS

Qualex Consulting Services (assigned to LTV Steel - Hennipen, IL)

10/1998 - 2/1999

SAS Programmer

Large steel fabrication plant required migration of their Cobol job suite

to SAS. I was part of a 5 member team assigned to this task.

. Examined Cobol code of 15 existing reports

. Interviewed pertinent managers for report purpose, information

requirements, and scheduling constraints.

. Produced reports in SAS, often with a superior layout and information

content than their predecessors.

Environment: MVS/ISPF, OS/390, SAS/Access, SAS/Connect, SAS/PC, JCL

Mayo Clinic Scottsdale (Health Care - Scottsdale, AZ)

2/1996 - 2/1998

SAS Programmer

. Developed the Medical Necessity Report - see Major Accomplishment #3

. Met with clients to understand and document their reporting functional

requirements/specifications, made suggestions for enhancements,

obtained their sign off, developed and tested.

. Modified Cycare/Decision Support Interface to provide encounter based

information and improve efficiency.

. Developed system using SAS/FS letter to send patients milestone

reminder letters.

. Provided technical support for MVS production.

Environment: MVS, SAS, MIS, business analysis, production support

Intel Inc. (Manufacturing - Chandler, AZ)

8/1995 - 2/1996

SAS Programmer -Systems Analyst

. Maintained existing SAS/VAX yield systems analysis programs and

improved as needed to easily add new chips as required. This

modification reduced the time to add a new chip from 2 hours to 25

minutes.

. Developed a client-server PC SAS/AF application for Industrial

Engineering to provide interactive reporting of chip factory

throughput times. Data was presented in a stacked vertical bar chart

with drill down.

Environment: SAS/VAX, SAS/PC, SAS/AF

Mirochip Technology Inc. (Manufacturing - Chandler,AZ)

9/1994 - 7/1995

SAS Programmer/Analyst)

. Developed graphic chip production tracking system to report on lot

movement, ships, and yield. This displayed several bordered graphs and

charts on a single page.

. Provided ad hoc reports as required

. All programs were totally maintainable by the user via tables

Environment: SAS/VAX, openVMS

SAS Programmer (Tempe AZ,Chatham ON, Toronto, ON) 10/1992 -

7/1994

Motorola Corp

Lead programmer on SAS/AF project

Union Gas (Energy Utility)

SAS/SCL. FSLetter, etc

Bank of Nova Scotia, Bank of Montreal

Canadian Tire Financial - (Financial/Credit Card - Welland, ON)

5/1989 - 4/1992

Senior Capacity Planner

. Project Lead for the Design, development and implementation of

SAS/graph load tracking reports depicting CPU time consumed by

workload group. These reports were distributed at the CIO and CEO

levels monthly.

. Developed a predictive model to forecast computer resource

consumption using multivariate regression analysis. (see Major

Accomplishment #1)

. Initiated and implemented changes to production control procedures

which allowed sufficient load to be offloaded from prime shift to

significantly delay a planned upgrade.

. Developed numerous techniques and tools for monitoring and tuning

computer performance.

Environment: MVS, VM, CMS, MXG, SAS, Lotus 123

Education

. University of Toronto - BASc, Industrial Engineering (applied

mathematics, Operations Research, simulation, statistics, stochastic

processes, macro economics)

. PMI Institute - Project Management for Information Technology

Professionals

. Ryerson Univerity: Organizational Behavior

. DeVry Tech: C Programming

. Introduction to Power Builder

. SAS Institute: SAS/SCL, SAS/AF

Papers Published

. The Use of Regression Analysis in the determination of Capture Ratios

- CMG Proceedings 1987.

. Capacity Planning Primer - Datamation 1993

Colleagues and managers say...

Mel is wonderful to work with - adaptable, rapid ramp-up on legacy systems

and data sources, and quick turn-around on code change requests. In the

project we were working on, it was generally considered to be "impossible"

to get the reporting we required - with Mel's persistence and involvement

we were able to accomplish the impossible - not only is he highly skilled,

he is a joy to work with.

Ruth McLelland, CIBC Mellon

Mel is an outstanding SAS programmer ...Mel's adaptability amazed me when

he came on board here and caught on so quickly with zero-for-training. His

code is efficient and his productivity is consistent.

Steven Hughes, Mayo Clinic

Working with you is a great learning experience and I enjoy every moment of

it. I can only hope that one day I will reach the same level of expertise

and help somebody else to learn SAS.

Gautam Raychauhuri, Mayo Clinic

My client was extremely happy with Mel's work ethic and his "low

maintenance attitude."

Jennifer Davison, Modis (re Virgin Mobile)

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