Embedded Software Engineer

Dennis A. Ruffer

*** *** ** *., #*** Winona, MN *5987 408-***-**** *******@********.***.***

Engineering Manager – Firmware / Embedded Software

Strategy Definition and Execution / Project Management / Systems Design

Testing / Solutions / Quality Control / Technical Writing / Training

Cross-Functional Teams / Business Process Optimization

Fortune 500 technical expert with a pioneering career using imagination and technical skill to extend the man-machine interface to a “mind-machine interface”. Background with $7.5B Jabil Circuit and Apple Computer. Maintain focus on achieving bottom-line results, while formulating and implementing advanced technology and business solutions to meet a diversity of needs. Superior record of delivering large-scale, mission-critical projects on time and under budget.

¦ Invented timing analysis tool for multi-process communication.

¦ Provided software solution, removing obstacle and avoiding derailing of major contract.

¦ Completed major project at Apple within strict deadlines, six months of 16-hour, seven-day weeks.

¦ Designed tool to fix chronic problem, creating Apple standard for configuration management.

¦ Defused potential problem and avoided costly flood of expensive tech support calls.

¦ Dealt with disgruntled team member at Apple, ensuring projects remained on track.

¦ Quickly resolved buffer malfunction, keeping multi-million dollar project on target and profitable.

¦ Wrote 30-page manual at FORTH, Inc., aiding in integration of production monitoring software.

¦ Chosen by management at FORTH, Inc. to help several foreign counterparts make SMART cards completely compatible with POS systems.

¦ Served key role at FORTH in exploiting new market, process control systems.

¦ Guided the effort that simulated an entire factory’s production line.

¦ Invented and implemented an AI system with minimal hardware.

Highlighted Accomplishments

Invented timing analysis tool for multi-process communication, significantly reducing time to market for embedded applications. Team members were unable to see the communication delays between asynchronous processes. Designed and packaged a patent-pending system that plotted comparative event timings. Tool became an essential step in debugging real-time embedded radio frequency applications. Patent application 200******** Method of generating internode timing diagrams for a multiprocessor array 05-21-2009

Provided software solution, removing obstacle and avoiding derailing of major contract. Recruited by Jabil Circuit to write software to test new design for existing circuit board. Jabil assumed existing test software could be used but owner of that software did not want it used on this product. Both wanted new approach. Analyzed situation, determining effort to be one year, yet they needed completion in three weeks. Convinced them that using existing software was only viable alternative. Jabil used in-house resources to upgrade their client’s existing software, covering the production demands for this new board.

Completed major project at Apple within strict deadlines, working six months of 16-hour, seven-day weeks. Sought out by Senior VP to help transition from 32-bit to 64-bit processors. Served key role in building new ROM boot routines, accomplishing this in half the normal time allotted. Pulled together an unofficial team of seven people to solve hundreds of problems ranging from hardware, to OS integration to QA related problems and more. Accomplished task within time and budget guidelines, with no employee turnover.

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Designed tool to fix chronic problem, creating Apple standard for configuration management. Team members were making undocumented improvements that skewed the QA reject rate. Designed, tested and fielded a system that isolated configuration changes. Tool became an Apple standard practice and kept innovation and productivity high among personnel.

Defused potential problem and avoided costly flood of expensive tech support calls at Apple Computer, Inc. Recognized that vendors were not using the same version of Apple’s constantly changing compiler. Potential incompatibility problems were magnified due to Apple’s rolling out of new operating system. Worked closely with software group, ensuring all parties used the same compiler. Offset potential problems and protected brand identity / reliability.

Dealt with disgruntled team member at Apple, ensuring projects remained on track. Complaints were escalating due to team member causing problems and sidetracking efforts of group. Recognizing his technical expertise, dealt with him in appropriate manner, yet held him accountable for results. Complaints from other team members dropped and all projects were back on track.

Quickly resolved buffer malfunction, keeping multi-million dollar project on target and profitable. Buffer malfunction in vendor’s interface seemed certain to undermine success of product rollout at FORTH, Inc. International bankers were ready to fund project, which was now in jeopardy. Captured all the transactions tied up in ten machines, smoothly transmitting them to the right server. Fixed buffer well before product was deployed, saving project.

Wrote 30-page operating manual at FORTH, aiding customer in integration of production monitoring software. Chosen by senior management to help Korean customer integrate FORTH production monitoring software. Wrote comprehensive operating manual, offsetting customer need for frequent technical support. Used “train-the-trainer” system, ensuring ongoing effectiveness of training. Due to success, customer engaged major, follow-on contracts.

Chosen by management at FORTH, Inc. to help several foreign counterparts make SMART cards completely compatible with POS systems. Quickly gained trust of this international consortium by proving skills in leveraging tested solutions. Integrated our firmware with the POS vendor’s interfaces, enabling their terminals to smoothly account for constantly changing currency differences, exchange rates and credit balances.

Served key role at FORTH in exploiting new market, process control systems. Designed new common language any hardware vendor could use, even though we had no input to hardware configuration. Produced an interface so flexible and powerful that users got all the information they needed without costly training. New product soon produced 90% of company revenue.

Guided the effort that simulated an entire factory’s production line. Redesigned the software interface. Rationalized the vendor’s I/O processes. For the first time at FORTH, process control software could be tested without risking costly shutdowns in the plant. Led to significant cost savings for our customers and a competitive advantage for us.

Invented and implemented an AI system with minimal hardware. Complaints of shoddy diagnostics within the automotive service industry were rampant. Collected standardized diagnostic techniques into an expert system to give consistent results. Produced a reproducible service report using a 2 Mhz, 8-bit processor with 64K of memory (Patent # 4,373,186).

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Career History

Senior Engineer, Watlow Controls, Winona, MN, Mar 2008 to May 2009. Watlow is a manufacturer of temperature control and monitoring equipment. Within their Thermo King department, upgraded a legacy application to a new hardware and software environment. Designed interfaces that enabled the legacy software to be used almost completely.

Computers: ColdFire 5253, TI MSC1202 ADC, ARM9, CAN, SPI, I2C and RS-232

Languages: Freescale CodeWarrior and Keil uVision2 C, Python and Lua

Sr. Embedded Systems Programmer, IntellaSys, A TPLGroup Company, Castle Rock, CO, Sep 2006 to Nov 2007. Start-up manufacturer of an innovative multi-core processor. Within their radio and RF division, created and enhanced their software development environment. Invented tools that enabled development of cutting edge applications under prototype conditions.

Computers: SEAforth, Mac OSX, Parallels Desktop, Altera Stratix II DSP, SPI, RS-232, ARM7

Languages: C, Python, VHDL, Forth, Eclipse, SVG, PDF, OpenGL, FFT, LaTeX

Firmware Test Engineer, Jabil Circuit, St. Petersburg, FL, Jan-Mar 2006. Manufacturer of circuit boards with embedded firmware for computer, printer and IT hardware manufacturers. Write bring up and production test code to characterize a system with PCI-Express, DDR-SDRAM memory systems, a PMC Sierra processor, NAND flash, USB, UMAC, CAN, GPIO, SATA, I2C and RS-232 hardware. Working with the ficl dialect and familiarity with memory testing algorithms and languages (MTL), such as walking address / data, Mat-S, March B, SSO, Burst, etc. Understanding chip specifications, schematics and block diagrams.

Computers: PCI-Express, DDR-SDRAM, PMC Sierra, NAND, USB, UMAC, CAN, SATA, I2C and RS-232.

Languages: C, ficl, memory testing Mat-S, March B, SSO, Burst, etc.

Senior Scientist, Apple Computer, Inc., Cupertino, CA, Jan 2000 to Nov 2005. Managed and implemented the Open Firmware boot environment for the CRT iMac, G5 Towers, and Xserve systems. Conducted collaborative interdepartmental work in a fast-paced environment dealing with software and hardware integration and testing phases. Successfully managed the delivery of the G5 BootROM in less than nine months, with contributions from the entire open firmware group.

Directed the G5 towers through three major upgrades, including the quad processor version, while managing the Xserve’s migration to G5 processors. Experienced with the full life-cycle development, including multi-release shipments, source code management and servicing existing products. Contributed to InfoWorld’s 2006 Technology of the Year Award for Best Workstation.

Computers: PowerPC, OSX, OS9, iMac, eMac, iBook, Xserve, OS9, OSX, Darwin, UNIX, cygwin

Languages: C, Forth, Open Firmware, EFI BIOS, C++, ObjC, Assembler, make, sh, gnu

Senior Software Engineer / Project Coordinator, FORTH, Inc., Manhattan Beach, CA, Aug 1988 to Jan 2000. Developer of the Forth language, providing development systems for customers in the aerospace, instrumentation, control and transportation industries. Designed and implemented production monitoring and computer control systems. Exercised technical writing skills with international customers in a vertical market bringing innovative ideas to fruition for on-time delivery. Led team in the Open Terminal Architecture project for Smart Cards with Europay in Belgium.

Computers: VME68000, RTX1000, WINDOWS 3.11/95/98/NT, AVR, HC11/12, 8051

Languages: C, C++. VBA, UML, Forth, Assembler, BIOS, DOS, OTA, InstallShield,

Robotics http://www.forth.com/resources/appNotes/app-rmss.html

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Earlier Experience

Board Of Directors, Financial Secretary, Forth Interest Group, November 1987 to November 1994. Kept the accounting records, promoted Forth and the Forth Interest Group.

Lead Sysop, Forth Interest Group, August 1987 to November 1994. Setup and managed their online presence on a Special Interest Group on GEnie. GEnie was GE's network for information exchange.

Sole Proprietor, Software Specialists, Kalamazoo, MI, May 1981 to August 1988. Computer consulting and contract programming. Part time work setting up computer systems.

Computers: Custom engineering network, MS-DOS

Languages: C, Forth, BASIC

Engineering Software Group Manager , Allen Test Products, Kalamazoo, MI, June 1978 to August 1988. Managed the software group in their engineering department. Took part in the design and implementation of all the computerized products sold by Allen Test products. Co-inventor of the patent entitled "AND MATRIX METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ENGINE ANALYSIS" #4,373,186 Feb. 8, 1983

Computers: BLC MULTIBUS 8080A, IBM PC, and IBM XT

Languages: C, Forth, Assembler, BIOS, DOS

Data Processing Programmer Analyst, Allen Test Products, Kalamazoo, MI, August 1977 to June 1978. Wrote and maintained the company's accounting packages. Primarily, Order Entry and Commissions.

Computers: IBM System 3 and 3741

Languages: RPG II

Programmer Analyst, Diversified Business Systems, Kalamazoo, MI, September 1975 to June 1977. Wrote and maintained accounting packages. Primarily Payroll and Project Control.

Computers: IBM 32, 370 and System 3, BURROUGHS B700, CASCADE 80.

Languages: RPG II, COBOL, and BAL

Education / Key Skills

BA, Mathematics and Computer Science, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI

Computer: DIGITAL PDP-10

Languages: COBOL, FORTRAN, MACRO-10, BASIC

Key Skills: Analyze complex technology challenges and develop solutions. Spearhead and facilitate ongoing process improvements. Anticipate obstacles and employ sound judgment in making decisions. Tactful and diplomatic in all communications. Adaptable, rapidly adjust to change. Results-driven, focused, detail-oriented.

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