I was born and raised in St. Louis where I have accumulated 21 years of programming experience in Microsoft development technologies at a variety of companies. When I'm not at work, I'm likely out playing pool; for me, this a serious hobby at which I continuously try to improve. I also consider myself something of a movie buff and enjoy good film theory discussions. Lastly, like any true nerd, I have always enjoyed gaming.
What I'm Looking For
I am NOT currently seeking new opportunities, but when I do I'm looking for a forever-home at a fun company, where the focus is on the people, working together to deliver excellent products and services. I'm a relic of the "work hard/play hard" era, so my ideal destination is a place with a laid back casual environment where everyone has an open-door policy and a common drive to succeed. This company promotes a healthy work/life balance and would afford me the opportunities to further my career.
Professional History at a Glance
[Local Financial Firm]
I started as a Senior Developer, then was promoted to Team Lead in 4 months. A year after that during a restructure I transitioned in an Application Architect role. I provide technical and logical guidance to four development teams and help drive the firm's technological future.
Trizetto Provider Solutions
TPS is a claims clearing house where I supported the primary data flow consisting of back-end services, driven by SQL Service Broker Queues. C#, WebAPI, MVC, WCF.
Modis
Worked on internal ASP.Net application used by factories around the world for building and managing recipes necessary to perform daily operations. VB.Net, MVP-based architecture running Oracle in the backend.
Teralogix
Refactored inbound data file management to streamline code and processing times. Enhanced customer-facing print manager web application to allow for custom design elements given by the user in real-time. C#
Ferguson Consulting
Designed/developed Windows application to pull existing college course instructional materials from in-house solution and migrate to 3rd party new system. Refactored and streamlined cable provider's website login process to consolidate and simplify code base. VB.Net, C#, SQL Server
Monsanto
Supported VB6 Labratory Inventory Management System (LIMS). Designed upgrade for .Net solution with documentation and integration paths with existing solution. Authored several lab utilities for data importing from lab devices.
Personal Projects
STLPool.Net
STLPool.net is a website specifically for pool players in the St. Louis area. The site offers tournament listings as well as results, in addition to a list of known locations that offer pool activities. It fills a much needed demand for a centralized location for information related to this great sport. Designed/developed all aspects of site.
C&C League Site
This is a public website I did for an in-house league management system. Features include the ability to manage multiple sessions, add/remove players from rosters, auto-generate league schedules, maintain match scores/results and show current/final session standings. League players can also sign-in to view contact information if they need to get in touch with their opponents for any reason.
Treadway Cues
After having several design talks with local cue-builder, Josh Treadway, I developed a website for him to showcase his wonderful work. The site offers an adminstration section where he can upload new pics and details of his cues.
Fitness Tracker
A complete online fitness management application which allows users to enter their daily activity, duration, distance, burned calories, etc. A user-managed list of products can also be selected, as well as measurements. It can create a number of workout regimens and assign them to the calendar as users plan their month. (Private Use Only - Pre-MyFitnessPal)
Web VSS
I grouped together with a couple of friends to work on some side projects we were contacted about. When it came to source control, there was no readily available solution we liked, so I wrote an ASP (vbscript) interface and automated the Visual Source Safe libraries to allow for code check out, download, upload, and check in with comments.
Training & Awards
Agile Methods
3 days of Agile methodology training provided by 3rd party training company to all IT staff as part of re-org efforts.
Innovator's Award
As part of a 4-person team doing a 24-hour hackathon, our finished project was chosen as the most beneficial to the company by our peers. Our parent company then recognized our efforts and flew us out to New York and we joined other company winners for a celebratory dinner and awards ceremony.
Days of .Net
I've attended the Day of .Net (rebranded to DevUp) to keep up with technology and current practices.
StLVBUG
I joined the St. Louis Visual Basic User Group board as webmaster in 1998 once I saw the outdated website and attended a meeting offering to help out. A year later, the existing board had phased out and I took on the role of President. As such it fell to me to provide monthly demonstrations, organize speakers, and coordinating giveaways from sponsors to attendees.
Microsoft Certified Solution Developer
After completing 4 weeks of in-class training in the evenings after work, I spent the next 8 months studying and taking practice tests to prepare for the (then) toughest certification a developer could achieve offered by Microsoft.
BS Mathematics
Graduated from Webster University with Bachelor of Science in Mathematics. Minor in Music.
Contact Options
Email
John@JohnPirkey.net
Mobile
Contact me via email for my phone number.