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Professional Resumé

Bob Ahern

Certified Technical Trainer
Web Developer and Programmer
Courseware Author

Career Summary

Bob’s 30 year professional career in the computer software industry has encompassed computer programming, software design and development, management consulting, project management, database design and development, web application design and development, technical training, training management and courseware design and authoring.

Bob learned the computer training business with the two largest computer training organizations in the world: New Horizons Learning Centers and ExecuTrain Corporation, and as an independent trainer teaching Certified Internet Webmaster and other development classes across the U.S.


2006 - present

Founded Thoughtware Technologies, a new training center teaching web development, web accessibility, software development and databases.


2003 - 2006

Training Manager of Computer Tutors of Tallahassee, Florida.  Agreed to become the Training Manager when this Microsoft Certified Training Center changed ownership.  Doubled training revenue and maintained steady growth while also teaching a full schedule of technical classes including SQL Server, Visual Basic and C# Programming, ASP.Net Web Development, the Macromedia Studio of web development tools and all internet technologies.


1999 - 2003

Independent Trainer, traveling across the United States teaching web development, programming and database classes in commercial training centers and private corporations.  Corporate clients included FedEx, International Paper, AutoZone, MCI WorldCom, Alltel, John Hancock, St. Joe Company, the United States Navy.  Commercial training centers included ExecuTrain and New Horizons, Knowledge Alliance, Software Solutions, Computer Tutors, Focus Learning Systems, Athena Learning Centers and Productivity Point International.


1996 - 1999

Technical Trainer, Technical Training Manager, then Director of Training with ExecuTrain of Memphis.  Became a Certified Technical Trainer and Certified Internet Webmaster at advanced levels.


1995 - 1996

Technical Trainer - New Horizons Learning Centers in Memphis, Tennessee, learning and teaching Office, FrontPage, html, JavaScript, DreamWeaver, PhotoShop, PHP, Perl and other web technologies.  Obtained certifications and began teaching foundation-level Certified Internet Webmaster classes.


1986 - 1995

Founded and managed Management Systems, Inc., a software development and consulting company in Memphis, Tennessee, which grew to a 13 person organization providing software design and programming services in RPG, Cobol and AS/400 relational databases, Synon Rapid Application Development tools, Windows and web based development environments in html, JavaScript, CGI/Perl, PHP, MySQL, ColdFusion, and ASP.


1982 - 1986

Systems Consultant and Software Project Manager with Ernst & Young in Nashville, Tennessee.


1977 - 1982

Starting as a programmer trainee and working up to MIS Manager in five years with two different private companies in Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee, learning and working with IBM mainframe and midrange systems in Assembler language, CICS, Cobol, RPG and relational databases.  Also began teaching programming classes at Nashville State Technical Institute.


Education

  • Bachelor of Business Administration, Cum Laude, University of Memphis.
  • Many IBM Programming and Database Development classes.
  • Ernst and Young Professional Development Internal Education classes.
  • Synon Rapid Application Development training classes
  • ExecuTrain Professional Instructor Certification Training classes
  • Certified Internet Webmaster training and certification classes.
  • Many Microsoft Certification classes in SQL Server, ASP.Net, VB and C#.
  • Masters classes in Instructional Design and Technology, University of Memphis.


Course Repertoire

A summary of the courses Bob teaches on a regular basis includes the following:

  • HTML / XHTML beginning through advanced*
  • Web Development with Cascading Style Sheets*
  • JavaScript beginning and advanced*
  • Designing and Developing Accessible Web Sites*
  • Creating Accessible PDFs*

  • Web Development with Adobe Dreamweaver beginning through advanced
  • Web Graphics with Adobe Fireworks
  • Using and Administering Adobe Contribute*
  • Adobe Flash Development beginning through advanced
  • Adobe PhotoShop beginning and advanced

  • Web Application Development with ColdFusion
  • Web Application Development with PHP and MySQL
  • Web Development with classic Active Server Pages
  • CGI Programming with Perl*
  • Perl Programming
  • Unix Shell Scripting

  • SQL Server beginning through advanced plus administration
  • Oracle SQL and PL/SQL Programming
  • Crystal Reports beginning through advanced

  • Visual Basic and VB.Net programming beginning through advanced
  • C#.Net programming beginning through advanced
  • ASP.Net Web Development with C# or VB beginning through advanced

  • Microsoft IIS Web Server Administration
  • Apache Web Server Administration

  • Project Management with Microsoft Project

*Bob is also the courseware author for these classes.


Additional Information

Bob also works as a consultant and software developer in SQL Server / ASP.Net projects.

Recent projects have included the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, a Conservation Threats and Actions database maintained by FWC biologists, and accessed over the web by US Fish and Wildlife and biologists from wildlife agencies in other states, and Florida First Capital Finance Corporation, a business loan application and tracking system used by Business Development Offices across the state.