web/cloud engineer
Resume:
Cal Thixton
**** ***** ***** ****** ******* IL **622
********@*****.***
audrinc.com/portfolio https://github.com/cthixton
www.linkedin.com/in/calthixton/
Engineer and manager of cloud, mobile, web, security and enterprise projects, secured, and into production. Experienced with helping put projects on track and released, designing and building from scratch, dev-ops, secure with compliance and enterprise management in mind. After NeXT and Steve Jobs, early hands-on days of building, merging and managing data centers to now managing international teams, deploying cloud based multi-lingual web and mobile apps. Specializing in cloud migrations, management, integrations and security, while also hosting youth technology groups for high school students, fostering the next generation into creating sites like que4.org, cps.edu and linkedin.com with over 30yrs IT experience, 20yrs design using IaaS, PaaS & SaaS, micro services techniques, Devops, CI/CD, Wordpress and crypto.
Work Experience
AudrinC LTD. Chicago IL 01/2012 - Present
President/Owner / Cloud/Mobile Architect / Project Manager / Embedded
Building and publishing mobile apps for markets which might not think a mobile app is a level that they can reach or afford. Perhaps democratizing the mobile app and cloud world might be a better description. Having at times up to a 100 apps in TestFlight for boards and business owners to consider and test from the Sierra Club to Que4 to American College of Surgeons. Take a look at our portfolio. Mostly Wordpress, Android and iOS projects lately.
•Design, develop, and maintain WordPress websites, iOS, Android apps, Linux and cloud platforms, security and database administration and recovery.
•Customize WordPress themes and plugins to meet project requirements.
•Develop custom plugins and functionalities to enhance user experience.
Westside Children’s Therapy
https://audrinc.com/westsidetherapy.apk
https://testflight.apple.com/join/GmE2Mut8
Alaska's Finest Seafood
https://audrinc.com/afs.apk
https://testflight.apple.com/join/wXrySr6s
Healthy Body Dental
https://audrinc.com/hbd.apk
https://testflight.apple.com/join/CRJi3Uvl
Roger Ebert
https://audrinc.com/ebert.apk
https://testflight.apple.com/join/CY9sLLoI
Sierra Club
https://audrinc.com/sierraclub.apk
https://testflight.apple.com/join/gvMJI4ad
3Fams LLC, Smithfield, RI
Cloud Architect / Chief Technical Officer (CTO) 01/2020-10/2023
3Fams LLC - 3Fams.com VirtualCons.com - Jan 2020-Oct 23 - QA / Data / Mobile / Cloud / Telecom Architect / Project Manager - 3Fams is a leading provider of online conferencing and concert services for celebrities looking for alternative concert revenue sources with VirtualCONS. Duties included design, coding, building and release of mobile, web, terraform and cloud solutions, developing overall business technical model to scale and ease of use with international team of talent to also include crypto currency support with blockchains and managing IaaS and PaaS on AWS and GCP with Flutter based apps and DEVOPS, CI/CD, ETL. Full range of celebrity services and ticketing e-commerce based on crypto and public trading using Stripe, Paypal, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Wordpress. VirtualCons platform was live within 12mo generating $5m the first year.
•Lead daily scrum with international engineering team and stakeholders on agile project
•Code, build and release test and production versions of mobile apps and automate tests
•Cloud design and build AWS and GCP. Migrating to AWS Glue.
•Manage c-suite expectations and goals and schedules
•Setup and monitor and manage security all platforms
•Explore and manage monitoring, analytics and performance data and tools
•Manage backups across platforms and recovery process
•Integrate business data with professional and executive staff tool systems
•Manage secure corporate keys and security
•Establish best practices for mobile, web and cloud, full stack
•Review and commission code reviews with third party audits
•Manage vendor relationships
•Manage cloud, linux and database administration and recovery and release and q/a schedules
•Internationalized and localized mobile apps
•Build and deploy AWS Device Farm bulk testing and test automation, Selenium, Robot, etc..
•Manage and secure cloud AWS and GCP servers.
•Design, develop, and maintain WordPress websites.
•Customize WordPress themes and plugins to meet project requirements.
•Develop custom plugins and functionalities to enhance the experience.
•Problem-Solving: Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills to identify and resolve complex technical issues.
•Communication: Strong written and verbal communication skills for effective collaboration and reporting.
•Linux administrator
Westside Therapy, Chicago, IL 04/2022-01/2023
Mobile Architect / Cloud Architect
Short term urgent C-suite board engineering advisor for expanding collections options and CEHRT registry, testing and compliance. Improved reduction in cost recovery expense. Westside doubled in size as one of the largest child therapy services providers in Illinois during this time.
•Model, manage cloud release and security processes
•Establish backup and recovery process
•Research compliance and standards and testing paths for federal certification
•Manage cloud Heroku servers
•Plot CEHRT process and costs
•Work with stakeholders
•Design, develop, and maintain WordPress websites and LMS platforms.
•Customize WordPress themes and plugins to meet project requirements.
•Develop custom plugins and functionalities to enhance the LMS experience.
Open One Solutions, Chicago, IL 01/2020-01/2021
Mobile Architect / Cloud Architect
Mobile Architect / Cloud Architect - is a leading Chicago provider of VoIP and conferencing services. Duties include building and release of mobile and cloud solutions. Short term project to white label and deploy Jitsi secure video conferencing services for business clients on AWS as IaaS/PaaS and devops.
•Build and manage cloud platform for production
•Security model and backup and recovery process
•Scaling, monitoring and testing and test automation
•Manage and secure Wordpress, cloud AWS and cloud servers
Alto Inc., Chicago, IL 01/2019-01/2021
Chief Operating Officer
Vetted IP and acquired, vendors, security and operations for multi-lingual invoicing mobile app for Jimijon.com requiring the migration of all production services to new management with 20k international real-time users while managing new code builds and releases. Created localized version for Spanish, integrated virtual currency payments and Firebase and managing IaaS and PaaS on AWS and devops and Docker, Heroku, React Native.
•Manage corporate acquisition and securing international vendors, IP and code base
•Review and build new release process cycle for mobile apps and backend
•Review security model for cloud and international payment systems
•Manage cloud Heroku servers
•Build and deploy AWS Device Farm bulk testing and test automation
•Design, develop, and maintain WordPress websites and cloud platforms.
•Customize WordPress themes and plugins to meet project requirements.
•Develop custom plugins and functionalities to enhance the user experience.
SeeQu LLC - Chicago IL 01/2019-01/2020
Cloud Migration Data Center Architect
Designed and implemented dedicated fluid simulation matrix computing data center for research to reduce cloud computing costs and to increase computational speed and times with customized kernels on specialized hardware and embedded systems.
•Build initial prototypes and security model for data center
•Establish simulation process for testing and test automation
•Build and deploy custom linux kernels on VMware (Debian, Ubuntu)
JHMJLL LLC, Chicago IL 01/2016-01/2019
Chief Cloud Architect / Chief Security Officer
NowFindFoods.com - 2016-2019 Project Manager / Chief Security Officer / Cloud Architect - As Project Manager and Cloud Engineer performing dev-ops, cloud, web and security management, created builds and releases for a team which designed and implemented a cross platform food allergen/awareness suite of 8 mobile applications with managed sharing, promotion, searching and storing of shopping lists, product preferences, user notes all filtered by a user’s dietary preferences for a user community of over 200k downloads in the first 2yrs. Automated data pulls from third parties, cleanse and vend to mobile clients base via DreamFactory, AWS and Firebase. Integrated tightly with Firebase and Firestore to ensure future social media growth available now on iTunes and Google Play based on AWS, Firebase, Google, Android Studio and Apple using ongoing integration CI/CD technologies and devops.
•Manage daily scrum meetings with engineering team on agile project
•Manage daily scrum meetings with engineering
•Manage c-suite goals and schedules
•Manage all mobile and cloud builds and releases
•Manage all keys and security systems and monitoring
•Design and deploy bulk data processing into production in realtime
•Manage and secure cloud AWS and cloud servers
•Build and deploy AWS Device Farm bulk testing and test automation
•Design, develop, and maintain WordPress websites and cloud platforms.
•Customize WordPress themes and plugins to meet project requirements.
•Develop custom plugins and functionalities to enhance user experience.
Trending Productions, LLC 01/2019-01/2020
Mobile Cloud Architect / Project Manager
Manager / Mobile Architect / Cloud Architect - jimijon.com - iOS and WordPress recovery project of code, vendors and IP for mobile app for sporting industry. Redesigned app and implemented cloud services AWS for updated statistics. Provided dev-ops, build, release and qa services to take the app from development to production with AWS and Google cloud services and devops, React Native. Released ’20 In time for the Super Bowl.
•Manage IP recovery from potential third party theft
•Build and release iOS for test and release
•Manage security and keys for mobile and cloud
•Build and deploy AWS Device Farm bulk testing and test automation
•Manage and secure cloud AWS and cloud servers and migrating to AWS Glue w/ ETL.
•Design, develop, and maintain WordPress websites and cloud platforms.
•Customize WordPress themes and plugins to meet project requirements.
•Develop custom plugins and functionalities to enhance user experience.
Exposure Security, LLC 01/2015-01/2019
Project Manager / Cloud & LMS Architect
Designed and deployed two web sites for leading Bay Area international consulting security firm; a corporate site and online LMS training site for clients.
•Reviewed, build and deploy LMS system for training for clients
•Build corporate web site and secure
•Manage and secure cloud AWS and cloud servers
•Design, develop, and maintain WordPress websites and LMS platforms.
•Customize WordPress themes and plugins to meet project requirements.
•Develop custom plugins and functionalities to enhance the LMS experience.
INDX01, Chicago IL 01/2019-01/2020
QA & Release Engineering / Cloud Architect
QA & Release Engineering / Cloud Architect - an iOS app for Jimijon to track crypto currency and portfolios. Offers charts, chat, news with Firebase. Integrates with Coinbase and Coinbase Pro and offers a sharp UI available on iTunes using AWS, Firebase, Google and Apple. Managed dev-ops and cloud services along with build and release for Jimijon.com.
•Design, develop, and maintain WordPress websites and platforms.
•Customize WordPress themes and plugins to meet project requirements.
•Develop custom plugins and functionalities to enhance user experience.
Que4 Radio LLC, Chicago IL 01/2010-01/2023
CIO / Mobile Architect / Cloud Architect
Managed team for Que4 Radio to build Chicago non-profit radio station broadcast site supporting local artists and talent for an international audience with live broadcasts for over a decade using AWS CDK and streaming services. Developed and deployed video streaming services for Que4 TV. Also deployed embedded KiwiSDR (Software Defined Radio) along with hosting LPAM (Low Power AM) transmitter for local AM radio listeners.
•Design, develop, and maintain WordPress websites and cloud platforms.
•Customize WordPress themes and plugins to meet project requirements.
•Develop custom plugins and functionalities to enhance user experience.
PCS International - Chicago IL 06/2019-10/2019
Contract Cloud Architect Migration
Designed and implemented rapid migration of retiring data center to AWS cloud/AWS Cloud Engineer, AWS CDK & Glue for 100+ B2B commercial web sites of varying frameworks; Win, IIS, LAMP, Joomla, Wordpress, PowerShell, etc..
Financial Times / London Stock Exchange, London 01/2008-01/2018
Team Lead / Cloud Engineer
FT had a problem with managing the Daily Official Lists (eDOL) reports from the London Stock Exchange and referral from Apple to build a secure archive and vending service for their international financial community and members. Designed and build a Joomla CMS site on AWS for member management and sales support for eDOL; in production for over 10 years.
Banner Plumbing Chicago IL 01/2017-01/2019
Project Manager / Cloud Architect
BannerPlumbing.com - was hired to a team to design and build a site for one of the largest kitchen and bathroom remodeling firms in Chicago and midwest profiling nearly 200 vendors and dramatically increasing call volumes. Verio & AWS cloud
Spectrex Chicago IL 01/2015-01/2016
Contractor / Embedded Engineer
Recovery of and produce and test fresh kernel builds for legacy embedded fluid laser particle analyzer (e.g. water) for industrial firms using C and RTOS.
Omron - Japan 01/2014-01/2015
Team Lead
omronhealthcare.com - Lead iOS team to integrate mobile iOS blood pressure app to support Bluetooth blood pressure devices of Japanese designed and Chinese manufacture for largest selling home blood pressure device on Amazon.
Craft Beer PlanIT - Chicago IL 01/2013-01/2014
Contractor / Cloud Engineer
Craft Beer PlanIT A set of applications written in javascript and phone gap that can be easily re-branded for other craft breweries. Took over web and mobile efforts for this marketing firm and republished the iOS and Android apps.
Arpac, Chicago IL 01/2013-01/2019
Contractor / Cloud Engineer
Arpac.com is a large manufacturer of automated robotic packaging systems in Chicago and currently creating a third generation of the Arpac Calc written in Angular/Ionic on both iTunes and Google Play & backend on AWS. Arpac Media - Contractor / Cloud Engineer - Integrated Amazon Cloud Services (AWS) with private streaming and a Joomla content management system to provide customers and employees with 1500+ videos and documents in a secure environment. The Arpac Media server employs javascript responsive design to allow for optimal viewing in all browser sizes. It also includes an optimization to step down the movies from HD to a more compressed data format for better network performance.
Midwest Foods Chicago IL 01/2015-01/2016
Team Lead
Managed team for buyer and chef app architected a solution using WebObjects, MySQL and Amazon EC2 AWS to provide the wholesale side of operations with a complete turnkey B2B solution.
Interiors Magazine Chicago IL 01/2013-01/2015
Contractor / Cloud Engineer
We were called to assume immediate responsibility for a very high profile client when their main support systems collapsed, collecting all IP, redesign and reposting the site after recovery.
Alaska’s Finest Seafood Chicago IL 01/2009-01/2023
Contractor / Cloud Engineer / Architect
Alaskasfinestseafood.com - C-suite referral from Apple board lead to a full e-commerce and fulfillment site selling Alaska’s finest seafood for over a decade offering Alaska’s finest catch with over a 1000 recipes serving an international client base. Greengeeks & AWS.
•Design, develop, and maintain WordPress websites and platforms.
•Customize WordPress themes and plugins to meet project requirements.
•Develop custom plugins and functionalities to enhance user experience.
Hancock Home Audit, Chicago IL 01/2011-01/2012
Project Manager
Managed CodeFab team which converted raw sql code to Core Data and moved all business logic to core objects managed by MOGenerator. Cleaned and optimized REST and sync calls between the server and the iOS App. Helped with overall code / design. This was a complete code refactor from database to display. We worked with a team of four developers to develop this sophisticated auditing app. The use of CoreData and business objects allowed us to reduce the lines of code by over 50% while adding reuse and code legibility.
ThinkECO, Chicago IL 01/2010-01/2011
Project Manager
Managed CodeFab team to develop the ThinkECO iPhone home monitoring app. This convenience app queried a back end system designed by the client. It was written in iOS / Objective-C and incorporated the CorePlot open source framework for charting. This version of the app monitored home electrical and gas usage.
Codefab, Chicago IL 01/2009-01/2015
Principal / Cloud Engineer at Codefab
Managed seasoned team as dev-ops for projects from clinical trial app for Cmed to legacy WebObjects app for Sungard, mobile game marketing app, Forbes Magazine mobile app, Barnes and Noble and others. Codefab hosted first dev camps for iOS in NYC and hosted first Chicago iOS Dev Camp in my home in Wicker Park. Manage and host projects on AWS.
•Design, develop, and maintain WordPress websites and platforms.
•Customize WordPress themes and plugins to meet project requirements.
•Develop custom plugins and functionalities to enhance user experience.
AudrinC LTD. Chicago IL 01/2012 - Present
President/Owner
As President and CEO of AudrinC.com have implemented many open source and proprietary Internet solutions for B2B clients, from Apple to Financial Times, for Steve Jobs to Roger Ebert from e-commerce to mobile apps and cloud services.
•Design, develop, and maintain WordPress websites and platforms.
•Customize WordPress themes and plugins to meet project requirements.
•Develop custom plugins and functionalities to enhance user experience.
ThoughtPort Authority - SpeedSite.com - Chicago IL 01/1995-01/2012
President/Owner
Acquired ISP SpeedSite Chicago 9/10/01 to merge with ThoughtPort Authority B2B nationwide business services offering co-location, fiber, DS3, T1, DSL, ISDN and dialup services along with web design and hosting services while working with telecom and backbone providers like AT&T, Comcast, Ameritech, Agis. Clients included Steve Jobs, Roger Ebert, London Stock Exchange (eDOL AWS), Financial Times (eDOL AWS), Burger King, art.org, 4 state region of Veterans Affairs Hospitals… Acquired and integrated PowerWeb.com WI to expand from the Illinois market to include Wisconsin along with several other smaller regional ISP’s. Personally managed all systems, routing, DNS, security and data infrastructure for nationwide network over a dozen years. Personally dealt with international DNS DDoS and Dos attacks from Asia. Designed and hosted first Olympics website for SLC Winter 2002. Built and hosted first Ace Hardware website. Several data center migrations with acquisitions.
•One of the first ISP's in Chicago - DSL, Dialup, T1, ISDN
•Acquired about a dozen local ISP’s in Illinois and Wisconsin
•Built and hosted first Olympics web site for 2001 SLC games
•Pulled fiber OC3 to my basement to upgrade after using up all of the copper in the area.
•Hosted services for Roger Ebert and Steve Jobs.
NeXT Computers, Chicago IL 01/1987-01/1995
Premium Technical Support Engineer/Consultant
2nd field tech engineer (employee #186), then billable consultant for high-end clients; Abbott Labs, Chicago Board of Trade, Swiss Bank, and O’Connor Brothers. Diagnosed and fixed critical Mach messaging bug with custom kernel and deployed first arbitrage trading system to Singapore for O’Connor/Swiss Bank Corporation (SBC). Built NeXT’s internal WAN for field sales offices. Ported Serial Line Internet Protocol (SLIP) and Andrew File System (AFS) to NeXT Mach OS for Carnegie Mellon University. Retired over $11m Sun workstations for NeXT workstations. Based in Chicago for eight years just before Apple acquisition and closed its field offices. Hired by Steve Jobs after 15 minute interview and argument. Ported Sybase for Abbott to NeXT and received an award for Maestro project.
Sun Microsystems, Dallas TX 01/1982-01/1987
Technical Support Engineer/Consultant
Employee #247 first Sun field systems engineer, based in Dallas for 6yrs and first billable Sun consultant to clients like E-Systems, EDS, Rockwell, and Texas Instruments. Retired over $7m in Data General at O’Connor Brothers replacing with Sun workstations. Provided custom kernels and drivers for critical customers. Built initial internal WAN for Sun (SWAN) to augment Texsun, one of the region’s largest UUCP site for email and news.
Thixton Jr. and Associates, Tulsa OK 01/1980-01/1982
CEO Embedded Microprocessor Designer
CEO Embedded Microprocessor Designer - 4 yrs design, build and program custom embedded microprocessor control systems for test equipment, video control and satellite systems.
Tinker AFB / University of Oklahoma (OU) 01/1981-01/1984
Research Assistant
University of Oklahoma (OU) - 1981-1984 Research Assistant - Tinker AFB - 3 yrs -
Assisted Dr. John C. Thompson with proposal writing and project planning for porting team of C compiler to QM-1 Nanodata computer for testing cruise missile firmware. Designed, built and maintained network between OU engineering campus and computers at Tinker campus in Oklahoma City. Designed and implemented Intel 8080 emulator for testing with ported C compiler from his dorm room.
Vamco Engineering / Versatech Industries, Inc. 1978-1983
Technician - Tulsa - tested and repaired electronic video components and systems. Re-designed and implemented replacement mobile microprocessor based embedded diagnostic test unit for Mapco supporting pipeline and pump stations nationwide.
Clay Bernard Systems International 1975-1980
Technician - Tulsa
Tested and repaired electronic components and processor cards for automated forklifts and pneumatically driven parts distribution and management systems.
Education
University of Oklahoma, Norman OK, BS of Computing Science. 2yrs Masters CS.
Skills
Project Management, Remote Project Management, Agile, iOS, WebObjects, WordPress, Tomcat, PHP, mySQL, SQLite, UX/UI, HTML, Node.js, CSS, AWS (S3, EC2, Lambda, Route 53, Lightsail, RDS, Cloudfront, CodeCommit, AWS Device Farm, Selenium, Robot, IAM, DNS, EKS, EMR, Kubernetes, CDK, Glue and ETL), Apple, Google, Firebase, Security, VMWare, Android, Heroku, Slack, BIND, Linux, MachOS, MacOS, Debian, ubuntu, RHEL, Red Hat, Centos, Bash/zsh/csh/sh, PowerShell, Dreamfactory, C, Objective-C, Swift, Core Data, Core Animation, React Native, Angular/Ionic, Cocoa, assembler, Bluetooth, crypto/virtual currencies, REST, git, github, embedded, embedded medical, LPAM, KiwiSDR, NFT, firmware, EEPROM, microprocessor, SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, shell script, internationalization/localization, DevOps, RTOS, Jira, Zendesk, Bitbucket, Docker, Heroku, Postgres, Python, GCP, Unix, Azure, scrum, agile, Teams, Excel, Agile, Jira, DDos, Jenkins, OpenShift, Ansible, Microsoft Windows Admin, Linux/RHEL Admin, Copilot, ChatGPT, OpenAI, Stripe, Paypal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, kernels, device drivers, terraform, CI/CD, AWS cost management, monitoring and observability, payment systems, localization, AWS Cloud Engineer, AWS CDK, IoT, Xamarin, full stack, Apache HTTP, Nagios, Median, TCP/UDP, tcpdump, BGP, co-location, fiber, DS3, T1, DSL, ISDN and dialup, telecom, Abbott, Maestro, C, C++, Webkit, Yocto, data center migrations, Flutter, Dart, Median.co.
Personal
Wicker Park resident 30+yrs. Noted vineyard, urban free range chickens, took in over two dozen homeless youth and advocate 25yrs, proud god-father (and occasional day care provider) of brilliant urban youth with some now running Linkedin, with lead engineers at Apple and Amazon and even a current Cook County Prosecutor. Hosted several Boy Scout Explorer Post computer coed career youth groups at Sun and NeXT for 10+yrs and re-elected to Chicago Local School Council boards Pritzker and Sabin Elementary school boards member 20yrs. One of my kids built cps.edu and I put the first elementary school in the country on the internet.
Ron Lachman - Venture Partner: “what would I’d say is Cal’s greatest strength?” He’s a generalist. From hardware to software programming he’s got 40++ years of experience in the foundation history of today’s platforms. He’s done it all and worked with everybody... from directly with Steve Jobs at NeXT to small startups.”
Trivia
Designed and hosted first Olympics website for SLC Winter 2002 from a server in the basement of his Chicago home over OC3 fiber.
Hosted first iOS dev-camp in the midwest in his Chicago home living-room in Wicker Park instructed by Alex Cone of Codefab.
Chauffeured and host Steve Jobs from airport to Chicago Board of Trade for meetings with O’Connor Brothers as they developed the first arbitrage trading platform based on NeXT Computers and WebObjects. Had to fix a bug for O’Connor when platform was deployed to Hong Kong over ISDN Centrex.
Brought DSL to Chicago.
Yelled at by Steve Jobs a few times.
Put Roger Ebert on the Internet.
Put first first public school on the internet - Pritzker Elementary sponsored by Penny Pritzker and have remained on the school board for last 25yrs.
Taken in about two dozen local homeless youth over 30yrs to become good parents, lawyers, actors and strong members of the community.
80% of the business community and professionals have a login on his kid’s website.
Gave Steve Job’s his first internet email account while at NeXT and put up his first web site.
Built and hosted first Ace Hardware website (O’Donnell - Old Town Chicago).
Kicked out $7m of DG equipment at the Chicago Board of Trade to bring in Sun, then kicked out $11m of Sun equipment to bring in NeXT.
References
VP - Linkedin
VP - Amazon
Venture Partner
ex-VP Apple
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