Resume: Edward S. Marshall

I am seeking opportunities in the IT field, specifically working with UNIX- and Internet-oriented network infrastructures. I bring to the table over eight years of hands-on experience with critical hosting environments and specialized development needs, spanning employee, mentorship, and managerial roles. I work well within, or at the head of, a team operation, but perform at my best while working independently, or in a smaller group coordinating with other teams.

Work Status

I hold citizenship in both Canada and the United States, and I do not require sponsorship to work in either country.

Recent/Current Positions

My BrainBench transcript (#3036509) is available for viewing online at www.brainbench.com.

BrainBench Job Role Certifications

Big fat warning: This skills grid is out of date. You might want to take a look at the Microsoft Word version instead, which is far more up-to-date. Or better yet, just ask me if I know something about a particular technology.

Please note that this is not intended to be a complete representation of all concepts with which I am familiar, but instead to be show the general areas in which I have competance, by providing examples. I would be happy to discuss my familiarity with topics not covered below as well.

Skill levels: Excellent, Very Good, Good, Average, Poor, Very Poor, Terrible
Operating Systems
	Description	Years	Last Used	Skill Level
UNIX	Linux (Red Hat, Debian, Slackware, Custom)	8	Current	Excellent
	Solaris 2.5.1, 2.6, 7, 8	5	Current	Excellent
	IRIX 5.3, 6.2, 6.5	1	Current	Excellent
	AIX 4.3.2, 4.3.3	1	Current	Excellent
	FreeBSD 2.2.8 - 4.3	1	Current	Excellent
	BSD/OS 3.0, 4.0, 4.1	1	Current	Excellent
	Digital UNIX 4.0D	1	Current	Excellent
	HP HP-UX 10.20, 11.00	1	Current	Excellent
	SCO UnixWare	Occasional	1997	Average
Microsoft Windows	2000	1	Current	Very Good
	NT Server/Workstation 3.51, 4.0	5	Current	Very Good
	95/98/ME	5	Current	Very Good
	3.1(1), Workgroups	3	1997	Very Good
DOS	MS-DOS 3.3 to 7.0	10	Current	Excellent
VMS	OpenVMS	4	1997	Average
MacOS	7.x through X	Occasional	Current	Average
OS/2	IBM OS/2	Occasional	1997	Average
Specific UNIX Software
	Description	Years	Last Used	Skill Level
Web	Apache (with various SSL patches) 1.0 through 1.3, StrongHold, NCSA HTTPd	8	Current	Excellent
Mail	Qualcomm Qpopper, University of Washington IMAP/POP, Sendmail, QMail, Postfix, Procmail, Taylor UUCP	7	Current	Excellent
Groupware	INN, ListProc, Mailman, Majordomo, ezmlm	7	Current	Excellent
File Serving	WU-FTPD, ProFTPD, NcFTPd, Samba, NFS	7	Current	Excellent
E-Commerce	InterShop 2/3, Mercantec SoftCart, CyberCash	4	Current	Very Good
Data Warehousing	Oracle, Sybase PostgreSQL, MySQL, mSQL	7	Current	Good
Backup	Legato Networker, ARCserve, Amanda	3	Current	Good
Specific Windows Software
	Description	Years	Last Used	Skill Level
Groupware	Exchange	Occasional	Current	Average
Web	IIS	Occasional	Current	Average
Programming Languages
	Description	Years	Last Used	Skill Level
Web	HTML, CSS, Javascript	6	Current	Good
	General CGI concepts	6	Current	Excellent
Pascal	Borland Delphi	2	1996	Good
	Borland Turbo Pascal	5	1995	Good
	LightningSpeed Pascal (MacOS)	1	1994	Good
C/C++	GNU C Compiler (GCC/EGCS)	8	Current	Excellent
	Sun Pro*C	2	Current	Excellent
	Borland Turbo C++	2	1995	Good
Perl	4.036, 5.001 through 5.005_03	4	Current	Excellent
Python	1.4, 1.5.x, 1.6	3	1998	Good
Awk/Sed	awk, gawk, nawk, sed	6	Current	Excellent
Shells	sh, ksh, bash	8	Current	Excellent
	csh, tcsh	8	Current	Very Good
Regexp	Regular Expressions	8	Current	Excellent
Make	GNU Make	8	Current	Excellent
Hardware
	Description	Years	Last Used	Skill Level
PC	286 to Pentium III/Xeon (Intel, AMD, Cyrix), ISA/VESA/PCI	10	Current	Excellent
SPARC	Sun/Integrix/Axil, SPARC 10/20, Ultra I/II	3	Current	Very Good
MIPS	Cobalt Qube	Occasional	1998	Very Good
Networking	Cisco 25xx, 26xx, 4xxx, 7500, Catalyst 5xxx, LightStream 1010 (IOS 9.x through 12.x)	3	Current	Good
	Lucent PortMaster 2/3/4	5	Current	Very Good
	ArrowPoint, F5 Big/IP load balancers	1	Current	Good
Backup	StorageTek TimberWolf library	2	Current	Good
Networking
	Description	Years	Last Used	Skill Level
Concepts	Routers, routed links, tunnels	8	Current	Excellent
	Hubs, switches, ethernet	8	Current	Excellent
	IP load balancing	2	Current	Excellent
	ATM, LAN emulation	4	Current	Very Good
	Frame relay, PVCs	Occasional	Current	Good
Routing	RIP/RIPv2	6	1997	Good
	OSPF2	4	Current	Good
	BGP4	4	Current	Average
	GateD, Zebra, routed	4	Current	Average
Internet	IP (addressing, ARIN, subnetting, CIDR, VLSM), TCP, UDP, T/TCP	8	Current	Excellent
	DNS, InterNIC/ICANN	8	Current	Excellent
	HTTP 0.9/1.0/1.1, HTTPS/SSL	7	Current	Excellent
	IMAP4, POP3, SMTP	7	Current	Excellent
	UUCP, NFS, FTP, rcp, scp, FSP, DCC	7	Current	Excellent
	Telnet, SSH, rlogin/rsh, XDMCP	7	Current	Excellent
Other	Novell Netware	3	1997	Average
	NT SMB, WINS, Samba	4	Current	Very Good

References will be made available upon request for specific opportunities.

Have you ever hired anyone? What qualities do you seek?
As the owner of an Internet Service Provider, I was resposible for bringing on new employees in technical roles. I've become convinced over time that skills and experience are merely a starting point when seeking a new hire; while new skills can be taught, a solid work ethic and a personality pre-disposed to creative problem solving is much harder to come by. Give me a team of people who can think beyond their job description, and ferret out innovative solutions to the problems any business will face over time, and we can collectively achieve anything.

How can you help our company be more profitable?
I'm a stickler for the bottom line. With typical IT budgets being squeezed in response to current economic forcasts, I have a responsibilty to my company to be consistantly searching for more effective ways to perform critical tasks, finding and establishing relationships with more affordable vendors, and carefully reviewing technology spending requests that are channeled through my group to ensure that everyone is taking an equally-hard look at spending. This doesn't mean "never spend anything"; this means being frugal, and spending in such a manner as to maximize the overall benefit to the company.

How do you go about making important decisions?
Research, then debate, followed by "compassionate dictatorship". No major decision should be entered into without a solid understanding of the options involved. Those most impacted by decision must feel as though they are a part of the process, and be given a chance to interject their thoughts. Finally, an individual or a group must take all of this into account, and take ownership of the decision and it's ramifications. By ensuring that all three steps have been completed in a visible and credible manner, while you may never reach universal agreement, you will have achieved a consensus that those affected can accept.

How have your technical skills been an asset?
Having a broad set of skills to call upon has helped immensely in the past, usually to keep me from reinventing the wheel. While I specialize in UNIX and Internet technologies, having a software development background and an understanding of the business lifecycle are invaluable when making purchasing and deployment decisions. This quote sums up my feelings on the matter far better than I could state them myself:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Robert A. Heinlein

Without the ability to adapt, and without a wide array of skills to draw on, you will never be an innovator.

How would you describe your philosophy about management?
There is no one answer to this question, despite the many pundits who would love to sell you a single all-encompassing approach. If a single philosophy is needed, it is this: "always remain flexible". Employees take on any number of different personality traits, all requiring slightly different approaches to help them find their most effective road. Projects within a company never fit a well-defined description; they change and improve over time, and so must those who oversee them. Budgets can change from week to week, so a competant manager will constantly strive to find the most cost-effective approach, while never compromising the integrity and vision of the company. Companies are constantly reinventing themselves; the management staff must be equally flexible if they are to lead the company to success.

Tell me something about yourself that I didn't know from reading your resume.
I'm an avid software developer and researcher. One of my pasttimes is getting involved in Open Source projects to "scratch an itch", and learning new languages and development methodologies. I am currently most comfortable with C, Python, Perl, and the majority of typical UNIX "scripting" commands (sh, awk, sed, etc), and I'm comfortable navigating C++, Java, Ruby, Tcl, Scheme, and few others. I'm familiar with the Extreme Programming approach to the software development lifecycle, and am a strong proponent of the pair-programming and refactoring aspects of the model; I think "Design Patterns" from the "Gang of Four" was a wonderful book put to terrible uses by programmers who can't look beyond it. I understand the difference between forced-induction and naturally-aspirated engines, and can do amazing things with a can of tuna, a pot of macaroni, and some white cheddar cheese. I've also been told that I have a slightly odd sense of humor, but I have not yet confirmed this.

What aspects of your job do you consider most crucial?
The single most important aspect of good systems architecture and administration is planning, at both the project and technical level. Balancing time between multiple (often opposing) tasks is key, as well as being able to plan the growth and needs of your systems and users.

What do you do for fun?
You can usually find me doing a wide range of activities; playing video games, working on Open Source projects, camping, playing with my dog, and scuba diving. I'm an avid hobbyist mechanic, finding new and usually expensive ways to squeeze a little more performance (along with a few broken parts) out of my car at the track. You can often find me sitting at a local bookstore in the evenings, usually with a pile of technology books and a cup of some highly-caffienated beverage.

Please note: This information is provided for the use of prospective employers only. Please do not use the following contact data for purposes other than employment offerings.

Edward S. Marshall
1713 Cumberland Drive
Aurora, Illinois, 60504
Phone: (630) 978-9697
Email: esm@logic.net
URL: http://esm.logic.net/