Professional Bio

Scott is an accomplished and seasoned professional with over 20+ years of diverse Information Technology and business experiences, along with providing leadership, guidance, and encouragement across a verity of roles to include: IT Field Sever Manager, Customer Engineer, Web Entrepreneur, multi-award-winning Technical Communicator, Information Architect, Software Developer, Solutions Architect, Project and Product Manager, and Vice President of Operations.

Field Service Manager: After college he started his career in Information Technology as a Field Service Manager responsible for the day-to-day operations of both a Computer Service Center and Field Service personnel for Radio Shack in Dayton Ohio.

Test Engineer: A year later he was hired away by IBM to support computerized test equipment used to validate IBM’s manufactured memory products in Burlington Vermont. While in Vermont he received an IBM Suggestion Award for improving the test yield on IBM manufactured memory chips.

Customer Engineer: During his ten years at IBM, he held additional positions including: Customer Engineer responsible for supporting the data centers for some of IBM’s Fortune 500 customers including GM, The Limit, and both Nationwide and Zurich Insurance; and as a Technical Writer / Course Developer / Instructor for the development of technical materials, courseware, and for the training of IBM’s marketing, sales, and service personnel.

Instructional Developer / Instructor: While at IBM he was involved in several unique projects including leading the team to develop the training courseware used to mobilize IBM’s marketing and sales workforce, and was the SME / liaison between Service Delivery and Service Education, course developer and lead instructor on an international team of course developers that created a nine (9) day training course used by IBM Service Education to train IBM employees to service and support IBM’s largest mainframe computer, the ES/9021. The international course development team received an IBM Service Education Team Work award and he also received an IBM Midwestern Area Mangers Award for his leadership in developing the courseware to mobilize the IBM Marketing and Sale force.

His career at IBM not only brought him to Burlington VT but also to Detroit MI, Columbus OH, Poughkeepsie NY, Atlanta GA and finally to Chicago IL.

Entrepreneur Certified Network Engineer: After IBM he became a Novell Certified Network Engineer and opened his own Web and network consulting business, creating Web sites and networking solutions for business in downtown Chicago.

Vice President of Operations: Through contacts and services made by his consulting business he was hired as the General Manager and then promoted to VP of Operations for Garrett Popcorn Shops where he was responsible for the operations of all specialty food locations, mail order production, and Internet business development. While at Garrett Popcorn Shops he created the initial Internet mail order business presence achieving over one (1) million in sales, resulting in an increase of 59000% over the previous mail order sales. Designed and built a new retail super store to handle both retail and the expanding mail order business. Efforts in improving product quality and operations, e-commerce Internet marketing, product branding, national product placement, product recognition and endorsements through requested appearances by the industry for product placement in movies, television shows, commercials, with additional appearances and being presented as part of International known award shows, resulted in a 400% overall retail sales growth

High Performing Driving Instructor: Outside of work, during his time at IBM and Garrett Popcorn Shops, as in his professional life, his pursuit for excellence carried over to his passion for auto racing as a high performance driving instructor for the BMW Car Club of America, as a three-time National Champion of the BMW North American Challenge Trophy in Motorsports and as a professional race car driver in the Speed World Challenge Touring Car Series.

Entrepreneur Online Communications: He moved to southern California and opened a photography business specializing in elevated photography for commercial and real estate applications. While launching the photography business he also reentered Information Technology as a Technical Writer / Technical Communicator redeveloping his craft and has created materials for Cymer, HP, Spare Backup, and Sony. While working at Spare Backup he was awarded the Society for Technical Communication Online Communication Award of Merit for Spare Backup’s Product Support Web Site. He co-branded this same award winning support site for HP and white labeled it for Sony as the My Memory Center Support Site.

Information Architect / XML Software Engineer: At TrellisWare he architected, engineered, and then implemented the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA), an XML-based end-to-end architecture, for the authoring of structured content that is then transformed into various formatted outputs including HTML, PDF, ePubs, and the implementation of multiple Eclipse Infocenters for use throughout the origination, as information portals. These architected solutions allowed for content reuse and conditional text, eliminating the need to maintain and updated the same content across multiple copies of tradition documentation, and to target content to an audience, platform, and / or to a specific product, reduces production and support cost, increases the speed of content delivery, and improves customer product satisfaction, allowing for the creation and delivery of highly tailored publications that are available anytime, anywhere, on any device.

Information Architect / XML Software Engineer: In a contractual role at Teradata, he created tools to programmatically create and import data into XML DITA topics and maps, automated the processes of converting HTML to XML DITA topics and the creation of DITA maps that are used to migrate the content into Content Management Systems. The processes and tools he created resulted in a reduction in the contract projected project time from one (1) year down to three (3) months, resulting in both a significant cost savings and allowed for unrealized resource reutilization of key resources.

Solution Architect / Senior Software Developer: At General Atomics across several unique projects, he project managed, collaborated with cross-functional stakeholders, and lead multifunctional teams through multi-year-phased projects, across the enterprise, to implement S1000D information architectures, authoring applications and supporting systems, resulting in a digital transformation to a common authoring system supporting multiple standards, digital thread PLM traceability, content reuse with additional cost reductions to produce and maintain. Architected and created solutions for the implementation and hardening of Enterprise class applications and information architectures, including the product and project management and delivery of over 100+ in-house solutions across business units and product vendors, resulting in a cost savings of over one million dollars.