Steve Wulz

Professional experience

Profile

A seasoned Cognos Architect with a thorough knowledge of all aspects of Data Warehousing, architecture, administration, application development, lifecycle management, training, documentation, and a complete knowledge of the Cognos suite. A hands-on leader with a history of successful engagements. Focussed on architecture/administration, migrations, as well as end to end project development. Fluent in all aspects of Data Warehouse implementation and administration. Strong communication skills, client interaction, customer support, training, and documentation. Steve has a long history of strong leadership combined with a team background. Steve is hard working and cost conscience, dedicated to delivering well documented, quality solutions, on time, and on budget. He has over twenty continuous years of Cognos experience.

Career History

08/2022-07/2023: Clayton Public High School – Clayton, OK, US

Science teacher

Came out of retirement to give back to my new community. Taught general science, biology, and chemistry to 9th thru 12th grade high school students in a rural community.

06/2018 – 8/2022: Semi Retired – Clayton, OK, US

Retiree

Moved from Dallas, TX to Clayton, OK.

07/2017 - 06/2018: Mary Kay – Dallas, TX, US

Cognos Architect and Senior Developer

Upgraded existing environment to 11.1 Provided admin support as well as dashboard development. Created sales dashboard. Conducted training and after hours support as needed.

Trained on Tableau and ClikView.

03/2014 – 07/2017: Free Lance Engagements – Dallas, TX, US

IBM Instructor

Conducted IBM certified Cognos training, Instructor Led On-Line. Dynamic Cubes, Report Studio, and Transformer.

6/2012 – 10/2012 Unical - Walnut, CA, US

Business Intelligence Architect

Installed Cognos Express, Configured, applied security. Created basic Framework Manager model and sample reports to get Unical up and running. Conducted initial Cognos training for selected users with the intention of coming back in 2016 for additional training.

10/2012 – 10/2013 GameStop, Grapevine - TX US

Business Intelligence Architect

Designed and Implemented a 10 server Cognos 10.2.2 environment with QA and Dev environments as well. Consolidated existing 10.1 and 10.2.1 systems and migrated all users to the new environment without any disruption of service. Implemented integrated active directory based single sign security. Instituted processes and procedures aligned with industry best practices. Implemented Motio CI and Motion PI pro. Rolled out Cognos Mobile and Dynamic Cubes in development. Created and Cognos Administrator dashboard and implemented system alerts using Motio CI. Established a BI Center of Excellence to govern Cognos deployment and establish best practices.

10/2013 – 03/2014 Capitalize Analytics, Dallas - TX US

Director of Delivery and Product Development

Managed delivery of Cognos solutions to the oil and gas industry for a start up consulting firm. Solutions included installing/configuring/administering Cognos at the client site, upgrading the cloud site, as well as creating a wide variety of dashboards, reports, and custom widgets. Managed a team of Cognos professionals while mentoring junior developers. Actively participated in the development of solutions and products. Cognos 10.2.1, framework manager, MS SQL Server.

03/2014 – 9/2014 Baylor Scott & White - Dallas, TX, US

Business Intelligence Developer III

Cognos architect. Steve migrated the Cognos development, test, and production environments from physical servers to virtual. Then, upgraded virtual environments from 10.0 to 10.1 without impacting users. Steve also implemented Cognos Mobile. This required creating the environment, installing and configuring Cognos 10.2.1, creating a mobile application, and configuring IOS connectivity. Soon after migration, he turned his attention to administration and application development.

01/2011 – 03/2014 Pragmatek - Minneapolis, MN, US

Principal Consultant

Pragmatek is a “Premier Partner” for IBM/Cognos. Steve was brought in to establish the Enterprise Performance Management Team. Duties were identical to his roles with IBM. His role was to develop the practice while delivering solutions. See assignment history

06/2008 – 01/2011 IBM - Dallas, TX, US

Senior Consultant

As part of the Laboratory Services, Steve was tasked with Cognos Health Checks, Application Development, and Report Migrations – See assignment history

07/2004 - 06/2008 Brierley and Partners - Dallas, TX, US

Cognos Administrator and Senior Consultant

Brierley and Partners is the premier Marketing and Strategy company focusing on Rewards programs. While there, Steve installed and administrated the Cognos reporting applications. Of particular note - the Cognos solution was facing the internet, so security was paramount. Steve successfully rolled out Cognos report net, C7, and upgraded to C8.1.

Steve worked a myriad of projects, developing the reporting solutions for 10 fortune 500 companies. These were all start to finish, high level, high visibility projects with tight deadlines and firm budgets. Steve was responsible for the end to end development.

05/2002 - 05/2004 Southwest Airlines - Dallas, TX, US

Senior Cognos Developer

Report.net demo. Installed and configured report.net on a development box. Created various reports to include a dashboard for a feasibility demo.

Reservations Center Scorecard and data mart. Steve led the development of the data marts, Framework Manager models, 17 PowerPlay cubes, 5 automated burst reports, and 5 prompted reports. All reports and cubes were developed in 7.2 and deployed via the web.

Maintenance data mart. Report maintenance and performed requirements gathering for phase II.

Passenger activity data mart. Assisted with development. Built 6 PowerPlay cubes in Cognos 6. Deployed via the web.

Migration to Cognos 7.2 platform. Helped test and troubleshoot the migration from 6.x to 7.2 while developing the reservations data mart.

05/2001 - 05/2002 Knightsbridge Solutions, LLC - Chicago, IL, US

Senior Consultant

Senior Business Intelligence Developer

Allstate insurance company. CRM projects using MicroStrategy.

Tyco Healthcare. Marketing analysis data mart using Cognos 6.

06/2000 - 05/2001 Complete Business Solutions, Inc - Providence, RI, US

Senior Applications Architect

Senior applications architect for the Eastern Region Data Warehouse practice.

Providence Washington Insurance Company. Built Loss Analysis Triangles using PowerPlay Cubes.

UTEX Manufacturing, Montreal. Cognos installation, administration, and report development.

08/1999 - 06/2000 The Associates Financial Credit Corp - Irving, TX, US

Senior decision support specialist

Senior team member brought in to develop and deploy the Associates PeopleSoft (HR) Data Warehouse.

Installed the Cognos web tools. Developed and deployed PowerPlay 6.6 (UNIX), Impromptu 6.0 (NT), and Upfront (UNIX).

Designed and developed the security automation.

Beta tested Cognos 6 Web, Architect and Cognos Query.

01/1993 - 06/1998 Texas Instruments/Raytheon - Dallas, TX, US

Data Warehouse Programmer/Analyst

Team member of the first data warehouse team at Raytheon. Built three manufacturing data warehouses. Team member on the PeopleSoft HR data warehouse.

IBM/Pragmatek Assignment History

06/2008 – 03/2014 IBM / Pragmatek Projects – US

Managing Consultant

Hanson Logistics, C8 to C10 migration that queried an active application database.

Hickory Tech (telephone). Designed, configured, and installed the Cognos application at Hickory Tech, version 10.2. Assisted with the development of four data marts. Created four Framework manager models, 40 reports, and 2 dashboards.

Developed the DC Dashboard (internal application) using C10 Active Reports and Cognos mobile. Required installing and configuration of Cognos Mobile.

Kum&Go, installed a multi-server Cognos 10 environment which included TM1 and SPSS. Created their first market basket analysis using C10, TM1, and SPSS

Navico (manufacturing), financial performance dashboard with multiple drill thru reports.

Travellers Insurance, May 2010-Aug 2010, Complex Cognos 8.4 report and portal development.

Gates, April 2010, Guardian BI Health review

Acosta (marketing), Dec 2009-Mar 2010, Complex Cognos 8.4 report development and third party portal development utilizing SDK.

Spherion, Nov 2009, Guardian BI Health review focussed on planning the move from Cognos 8.0 to Cognos 8.4

Bridgestone, Oct 2009, Guardian BI Health review

Novartis, Jun 2008-Jan 2009, Complex Cognos 8.1 report development based on the NewScale application reporting database.

Ameriprise, Jan 2009-Oct 2009, Complex Cognos 8.1 report development based on the NewScale application reporting database.

Key Skills

Over 20 years of Data Warehouse experience

Over 20 years of continuous Cognos Experience. Has worked with all versions of Cognos.

Cognos Architecture, installation, configuration, and administration.

Cognos Meta Data Modelling using Framework Manager, Transformer, Dynamic Cubes, and TM1.

IBM Cognos Trainer

End to End report solution development including requirements gathering, documentation, Unit testing, and Migration to Production.

Proficient with Agile and Cognos Software Implementation Methodology.

Set up numerous Business Intelligence Centers of Excellence.

Familiar with multiple databases including Oracle, TM1, Netezza, SQL Server, DB2, and Teradata.

Familiar with many other Business Intelligence tools including: MicroStrategy (Certified Engineer), Business Objects, Crystal reporting, Erwin, Infomatica, plus others

Key Courses and Training

Cognos 8 Report Studio Certified (2009)

Cognos 8.4 Admin Certified

Cognos 10 Multi Dimensional Author Certified

Cognos 8 Transformer Certified

MicroStrategy Certified Engineer (1998)

Veteran Status

Army – 1st Lieutenant - Honorable Discharge

5/1981 – 5/1987

Education

Qualifications

Bachelor of Science in Biology

Westminster College, US

Languages

English Fluent

German Basic

Contact

Phone: 214-***-****

Email: ad42md@r.postjobfree.com

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