Project Associates Resume.doc Resume.pdf Resume.txt | |
| Bob Watkins PMP, IT Project +, MCSE, MCP+I, MCP, CCNA, A+
Certified |
43 Sachem St. ·
Milford, CT
Office Phone: 203-381-2985
Home Phone: 203-783-3915
Consultantpm@gmail.com |
OBJECTIVE
PMP (PMI Certified) Project Management consultant
with 7 yrs of Fortune 500 and 8 yrs IT technical project
planning and implementation experience seeks
a position fully utilizing strong customer service attitude, exceptional
organizational ability and communication skills.
CAREER PROFILE
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Seasoned professional, with outstanding project
planning, execution, monitoring and resource balancing skills with ability
to support multiple simultaneous projects in a matrix organizational structure.
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Excel at communicating with stakeholders to provide
accurate reporting and information regarding the ongoing projects and
initiatives.
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Experienced in coordinating, negotiating and
motivating outside vendors and off-shore resources in support of timeline
and IT project deliverables.
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Effectively training, motivating and
mentoring onsite and offshore junior managers, engineers, developers and
technicians.
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Superior coordination of user acceptance testing of
final IT infrastructure and software development deliverables through
iterative evolutions.
SELECTED ACHIEVEMENTS
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Develop and QA/User Acceptance Test 1000+ Wise
application scripts, in support of 10,000 seat Windows 2000 rollout, using 12 project
resources.
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Managed script development project integration lab
in support of new OS and required client applications. This was a deployment
initiative for 8 separate North American locations, two business units’ sales
teams as well as other subsidiaries/business units, using 6 Digital India
offshore developer resources.
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Deliver Y2K Remediation solution to 13 Eastern
region manufacturing plants. This remediation included PLC, specialized
automation equipment as well as the office PCs and network equipment.
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Consolidate 25Million+ accounts receivable into one
central office DB and network. Included backup and back-out procedures,
validation of DB integrity, and physical movement of Server and data.
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Transfer multiple T-1 circuits to new ISP backbone
provider. This involved planning a parallel network for both providers until
transfer had been accomplished with seamless service delivery to the dialup and
hosting customers.
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Market and transferred 4300 ISP customers to
Mindspring.com supporting division divesture. Resulted in a $400,000.00 cash
infusion and refocusing of corporate purpose and strategic direction.
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Co-Authored two Technical Certification books for Syngress Media:
“MCSE Migrating from Windows NT to Windows 2000 Study Guide” (Exam 70-222)

“CCNA Test Yourself Practice Exams”, 2nd Edition (Exam 640-507)

| EXPERIENCE |
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Unilever
Global Infrastructure Organization
- CES (Customer Engagement Specialist) |
5/04– Present |
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Globally coordinate North American, Asian,
African/Arabian, European and Latin American End User Support (Help
Desk) design, develop and implement the Sun Identity Manager tool and
Service Request Automation Fulfillment process re-engineering. There
are total of 90+ stakeholders/contacts/resources involved in
requirement gathering and consensus negotiations to support this
project. Unilever plans to replace the thousands of non – ITIL
compliant processes in 90 different countries into a single common
multi-regional set of workflows.
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Unilever
Global Infrastructure Organization
- Project
Manager |
11/03 – 7/31/04 |
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PM the Design and
Implementation of a User Demographics Data Warehouse for the support
of End User Services, Customer Management, Service Development and
Service Delivery. This data warehouse will dynamically extract the SMS
2.0, User Support dB, Active Directory and LDAP server domain user
listings, application deployment data, HR data from PeopleSoft using
ACTA into an Oracle based normalized structure available for Business
Objects, Crystal Reports and ODBC reporting based on key stakeholders
needs.
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Unilever
Global Infrastructure Organization
- CES (Customer Engagement Specialist) |
6/03 – 10/03 |
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Central Messaging Migration is an
initiative to migrate 15,000+ North American email users to a global
messaging cluster. This was a regional project driven by global
objectives and planned in parallel across Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin
America. I was challenged to design, test and implement user delivery and
support of daily migration processes and then share these designs with
the global community. The final plan delivered 1200+ user migrations per
four day cycle. I designed a master user demographic database to
schedule, track and report this rapid migration pace. Resources managed
consisted of an indirect team of 4 Indian engineers and 2 direct Customer
Care Center analysts as well as global infrastructure engineers tasked to
the project.
Other Simultaneous Projects:
Lotus Notes POC, NA Digital Broadband, GIO NA UPlan Rollout of NIKU
software, Aelita Security Utilities, ATT NA, ATT Canada, ATT Global and the
British Telecom network operational support outsourcing project.
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Unilever &
Home and Personal Care - CEM
(Customer Engagement Manager) |
3/03 – 6/03 |
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This contract was to CRM & PM the design
approval, hardware budget draft and acquisition, installation and
integration of PlumTree Portal, LiveLink (OpenText) and My Unilever
Web/Extranet. The subsequent legacy applications that would be integrated
as modules into this new extranet environment also needed project
planning.
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In addition to these projects, I owned the
project planning and execution for Project Phoenix, integrating three
Puerto Rico manufacturing facilities into the standard "Shared Services"
support model.
Other Simultaneous Projects:
Aztec 2.0 Canadian Application Deployment (Business units included were
Unilever Canada Retail, Unilever Best Foods Canada, Good Humor Breyers
Canada and UCI Canada) and Niku Methods Development.
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Unilever &
Best Foods- CES (Customer
Engagement Specialist) |
6/02 – 3/03 |
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I was assigned to perform Project Management
on behalf of the Supply Chain CRM and the HPC Sales Group CRM.
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North American Videoconferencing is an
initiative in response to September 11th and the need to
reduce travel and the costs associated with it. The project required
negotiations with Wire One, a Videoconferencing vendor who supplied
equipment as well as connection services to the sales offices targeted to
explore this new cost saving technology.
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Gentran for NT replacement entailed
detailed design, testing and transitioning of the current NT platform EDI
solution called “Gentran” to a single clustered technology on a UNIX
platform shared by both Best Foods and Home and Personal Care Business
Units. This system transfers the daily cash and order transactions for
Wal-Mart as well as other key retail partners for Unilever and is a
critical system.
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Manufacturing for the Millennium and Order
to Cash Projects integrated the Logistics from the Order intake into a
Central SAP module to the Manufacturing facility then on to the
Transportation Logistics planning and finally to retail delivery. These
Projects Utilized a Matrixes IT Group, IS Group and GIO resources to
complete the final deliverable. These systems are also mission critical.
Other Simultaneous Projects:
NA Sales Targeter, Bridge the Gap initiative, CCRS Integration, Saddle
brook Office Expansion, Business Objects Enhancement, Aztec 2.0 deployment
for Clinton, CT Customer Service Facility, E-Catalog, Enterprise
Forecasting – Manugisitics.
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Unilever &
Best Foods - Project Scripting
Technical Manager |
1/01 – 1/02 |
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This Unilever Project entailed the
gathering of business requirements for applications, planning the Wise
scripting process and managing 8, freshly imported, Off-shore (Digital
India) resources that were to be trained in Wise package development to
create the Application deployment scripts. Upon arrival of the Indian
resources I drafted training materials and delivered the same educating
these resources relating to the packaging process sanctioned by Unilever.
I mentored them in analyzing the User Acceptance Testing and QA
processes, planning the infrastructure required to support all these
phases and implementing it. These components were to be delivered in
overlapping stages to 8 Business Units and locations in North America
within one year. Communication and Coordination with all software Vendors
and Business Unit Stakeholders were Critical to this projects success. I
still manage and coordinate many of the Off-shore resources I trained in
2001 on the various PM assignments at Unilever up to and including the
present Central Messaging Migration Project above (2003). Others have
returned to India to staff a truly remote Scripting facility in support
of Global Unilever Initiatives.
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In parallel to this effort, the desktop OS
deployment team of Digital India resources required my team’s input
relating to the Wise package technology to ensure a complete un-attended
installation of OS and Applications to suit the particular user profile
intended.
Aztec 2.0 Application Scripting and
Deployments (Overlapping Business Unit Deployments):
HPC Sales, Unilever Best Foods Retail Sales, Military Sales, Franklin Park
Facility, Lyle Logistics Group, Somerset Research Facility as well as other
Aztec.
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Marathon Oil
- QA Manager - User Acceptance Testing Coordinator |
1/00 -1/01 |
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This project required the Wise scripting
of approximately 1700 applications for automated deployment, most of
which were in-house or non-COTS (Commercial off the Shelf) or legacy
software. There were 20+ scripters 4 of which were my direct reports in
the QA team and tasked with the UAT and Quality control relative to these
scripts. This project was to facilitate the migration of the 10,000+ seat
corp. offices to Windows 2000 Professional and desktop application suites
via SMS and Peregrine Asset Manager to complete asset monitoring and
licensing monitoring and automation. My Project Management
responsibilities were analysis, planning and implementation of a QA
process that met time requirements. Managing the QA team to meet the
Quality level required by the stakeholders was a key deliverable.
Communicating with the vendors’ developers and script developers to
determine error resolution plans was of prime importance to success on
this project.
Other Simultaneous Projects:
Syngress Media
-Technical Writer
9/00 –
10/01
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Syngress approached me to be a
contributing author for the below listed IT related study guides. The
work entailed using a basic guide for the Chapters, obtained from
Syngress, and creating content to aide certification candidates in
learning the in-depth info required to pass their CCNA and MCSE 2000
exams. These Book projects were started and completed during my spare
time at Marathon Oil Contract.
Deliverables:
“MCSE Migrating from Windows NT to Windows
2000 Study Guide” (Exam 70-222)
“CCNA Test Yourself Practice Exams”, 2nd Edition (Exam 640-507)
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NovaCare
Rehabilitation- Project
Manager/Engineer-Y2K Remediation |
3/99 – 9/99 |
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The Pittsburgh Office was the billing and
reimbursement central office for NovaCare. As such they maintained the
Accounts Payable Databases (records for 25Mil + in accounts receivable).
Upon arrival, there was no Y2K remediation completed, no Disaster recovery
plan in place, no backups being performed, and 56 offices had no links to
sync the database info to the home office in Philadelphia, PA.
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The first project included analyzing the
Y2K status of all 56 offices and remediation as required. Hardware as
well as software remediation was necessary.
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Next steps included diagnosing and
resolving network and server performance issues, implementing a backup,
off-site tape rotation/disaster plan and stabilization of the office
environment.
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Once this was accomplished, several remote
offices had duplicate databases on non-y2k compliant hardware/OS’s. These
were consolidated into the primary database from the Baltimore and
Chicago regions and all the office workers as well were installed into
the Pittsburgh Office space. As a background responsibility, all local
help desk and vendor coordination for this project was mine to manage.
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NovaCare acquired additional competitors
in the Chicago area and I was called to lead the project to link (Dialup
and Cisco WAN) their systems into the Pittsburgh Office infrastructure.
Other Simultaneous Projects:
Raintree DB Project installation project in Indiana, Illinois and Baltimore
offices and Desktop Support Duties.
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AKI Corp-
Corporate Business Manager |
12/98 – 1/02 |
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AKI Corp. is the corporate entity through
which I performed my contracting during the stated time period. As such the
duties of sales and marketing, negotiations, accounting and Tax filings
were mine. I also own several web sites, which required management and that
I maintain to broadcast and market my availability and skills as a
consultant so that I could maintain full employment.
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Kraft Foods
- Project Engineer-Y2K Remediation |
2/97 – 3/99 |
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Kraft Foods had several subsidiary sites
that needed to be remediated to Y2K compliancy. My team was the first, to
have the Y2K project completed on time.
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The Oscar Myer plant was still operating
on a serial network and required upgrading or replacing all of the PCs,
Allen Bradley PLC Chips and network infrastructure to reach compliance.
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The Stonebreakers packaging plant needed
Server and workstation remediation to bring it into compliance.
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Breyer’s ice cream and yogurt plants
needed PLC updates.
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Finally, the Capri Sun and Kool-Aid plant
were going through a major build-out and addition of the Lunchables
lines, Fiber installation on top of the Y2K remediation. These
assignments were through MI Corp., an integration service provider, as I
was an employee there at the time.
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MI
Corp. - Project Engineer |
2/97 – 3/99 |
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MI Corp needed a hands-on manager relative
to the ISP division including helpdesk, web mastering and vendor
coordination of troubleshooting WAN connections and e-mail issues. At that
time the web-farm had no backup plan and was poorly located. Therefore,
analysis, planning and implementation were done to correct these
situations.
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The ATT Transition Project assessed the
current Internet backbone vendor costs and was to plan a transition from
the current UUNet backbone to a qualified alternative. Through my
research and vendor solicitation AT&T was selected for this service and
their ISP division engaged. Once negotiations were complete, the
transition project was implemented which included setting up parallel WAN
networks during the transition period, duplicating mail and hosting
accounts and preparing the helpdesk staff to supply info to users.
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Shortly
after this transition, it was determined that the ISP division would be
divested to Mindspring. I coordinated the technical migration and
marketing of this transition to our current 4,300 dial-up customers. Upon
completion of this project an approximate 400,000.00 infusion was
attained.
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Internal
assignments included Allstate 5250 help desk support as well as off-site
integration projects with clients such as Kraft foods.
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Freelance
Computer Consultant-Internet
Consultant |
5/95 – 3/99 |
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Freelancing, I supported local consumers who
wanted to use the internet for personal and business purposes. Tasks
included setting up ISP accounts, mail accounts, designing web pages for
local small businesses and setting up new computers and installing
software.
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U.S. Navy-
Lotus 123 Database Programmer – Asset Database Project |
10/89–10/91 |
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At the request of the OIC at Balboa San
Diego Naval Hospital, I program a database to track the laboratory facility
assets. This lab had 350 staff members and performed brunt of the blood
testing, on the west coast for the Aids virus and supported Operation
Desert Storm. There were 40,000 plus items in the database to catalog and
track. Lotus 123 for DOS was the software used to build this DB. Upon
completion, of analysis, planning and programming the DB was used for its
intended purpose.
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| EDUCATION |
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Cheetah Learning PMP Exam
Preparation Course |
4/25/05 - 4/29/05 |
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I attended the Project Management
Professional (PMP) Exam Preparation course at Cheetah Learning Centers
in Hartford-Windsor, CT April 24th through the 28th 2005. On that Friday
April 29th, I took the PMI PMP Exam and passed. |
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MS Project
2003 – Unilever Corporate Training |
1/05 |
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This course was
presented as part of a corporate transition to a PMO standard MS Project
2003. The training included the basics of the MS Project Interface and
general usage as it related to Unilever integration with the Niku and
Clarity tool set. |
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Niku &
Clarity: Teams and Tasks – Unilever Corporate Training |
1/05 |
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This course was provided to Unilever Project
Managers to assist them in using these tools to manage their resources
within a corporate PMIS. Adding tasks and requesting/assigning resources in
the Matrix environment was the focus. |
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Niku &
Clarity: Look and Feel – Unilever Corporate Training |
1/05 |
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This course was a familiarization with the
tool interface which is web/java based. Maneuvering through the tabs and
obtaining key information from with the PMIS was the skill to be acquired. |
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Niku &
Clarity: Properties and Document Manager – Unilever Corporate Training |
1/05 |
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This course taught navigating the document
manager and creating appropriate structure to maintain all project
documents. Additionally, how setup personal preferences, attributes and key
features were discussed. |
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Niku &
Clarity: Project Lifecycle Awareness – Unilever Corporate Training |
1/05 |
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Within Unilever there is a unique project
lifecycle that had been developed using the Clarity tool within Niku. This
course mapped out the initiation, planning, executing, controlling and
closing processes and how they were to be used and reported against within
this PMIS. |
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Niku &
Clarity: Process Workflows – Unilever Corporate Training |
1/05 |
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This course taught the gates and workflows
that enabled work authorization to occur within Unilever and how it was to
be used in Niku/Clarity to progress projects through to successful and
standard-compliant completion. |
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Bachelor of
Science in Business Administration (In Progress) |
started 4/04 |
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I am currently progressing through my junior
year toward my Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree. My
goal is to be complete with this degree by December 2006. |
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Microsoft
Technical Training Course |
12/00 |
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I Attended "Pre-installing and Deploying
Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" Training course # MS 1567 and
"Installing and Configuring Microsoft Windows 2000 File, Print, and Web
Server" Training course # MS 1594.
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ICTS NT 4.0
Boot camp |
3/98 - 4/98 |
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I Studied the Windows NT 4.0 MCSE Track
under Dr. Margaret Smith. I graduated second in my class. June 29th
– July 3rd, 1998 took all 6 of the MSCE NT 4.0 test and passed
all on the first attempt.
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Ricks
College, NAU and FSU |
9/84–6/95 |
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Continuing education courses in Philosophy,
Chemistry, Physics, Biology, and other Chiropractic pre-med requirements.
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US Navy |
10/89 –9/91 |
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I attended and graduated with honors as a
Hospital Corpsman. Because of my ranking in my studies, I was rewarded with
advancement and enrollment in the Naval School of Health Sciences as an
Advanced Medical Laboratory Technician. I also graduated with honors from
this school. I was the class Educational Petty Officer (Class Tutor/Mentor)
for 23 naval medical students. |
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| OPERATING
SYSTEM & ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE SKILLS |
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- MS Windows XP Pro
- MS Windows 3.11
- MS Project 98 - 2000
- MS FrontPage 98 – 2002
- Remedy 4.0
- Allaire Homesite 3.0 – 4.0
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- MS Windows 2000 Pro and Server
- MS DOS 5.0 – 6.22
- Norton Ghost 5.0 – 2000
- Adobe Acrobat 4 & 5
- Quickbooks 1999 Pro
- Paint Shop Pro 3.0 – 6.0
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- MS Windows 95
- MS Office 95 – XP 2002
- MS Visio Enterprise 5.0 – 2000
- MS Access 97 – 2002
- Wise InstallMaster 7.0 – 9.0
- Adobe PhotoShop 5.0
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| SPECIAL SKILLS |
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| Medical
Laboratory Technician (Medical terminology and process skills) –
(1989-1991) |
| Missionary in
Sapporo, Japan (Japanese Language and Culture skills)– (1982 –1984) |
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