Senior Analyst/Developer for the ultimate geeky job: developing software and standards to combine astronomical applications and data across the world.

The diverse disciplines within the astronomy community, along with some very difficult technical problems in associating and meaningfully combining data, makes this unusually interesting. Many standards do not exist, and those that do are being developed by astronomer committees, yet we have still succeeded in building a working distributed set of applications and datasets, tied into a 'grid' by registry and workflow.

Team Leader for the main development phase for publishing datasets. Design Authority for the 'Publishers AstroGrid Library', a codeset to help data owners publish their data to the Virtual Observatory. Contributed to setting international standards, mostly for data and metadata representation and querying. Deployed real-world datacenters to ROE, European Southern Observatory, Leicester, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

Using Java to create web services, XML for messaging and metadata, XSLT, Relational databases (eg SQL Server) accessed through JDBC, bespoke data formats, collaborative tools (Wikki, forums, CVS, BugZilla, etc), Grid concepts and recently wrote multi-threaded user interface applications using Java/Swing.

Served with the Joint Nuclear Biological Chemical Regiment in Iraq as part of Op Telic (early 2003). Responsible for maintaining radio hub (3 nets) for the Westminster Dragoons detached to 16 Air Assault; kept the net fully operational during the warfighting phase. Later kept peace, caught looters, gaurded people & things. Took part in night patrols and car chases. Successfully didn't get shot.

Analysed requirements for the Galileo navigation satellite public interface, including safety critical aspects for search & rescue, as well as scientific data and service analysis.

Technical ‘trouble shooter’ on battlespace visualiser and logistics support prototypes for DSEI show, demonstrating wireless information systems for ground troops. Acted as ‘technical integrater’, locating and resolving problems. These were written as Java Swing and C++ clients through java servlet web services to Access databases using JDBC.

Bid Manager on proposal for Launch & Early Orbit Phase control centre (eLEOP). Bid Manager on pre-bid study for ESA GOCE (Gravity field & Ocean Circulation Explorer). Technical Consultant on EUTELSAT (largest European satellite operator) database replacement study.

Satellite Control Centre (SCC) software porting

Managed this £500K 14-man project to analyse and prototype the full port of the EUTELSAT SCC software (see below) from VMS-based code to an ‘open systems’ application that could be used on other platforms. The project had a challenging timescale and was delivered (largely!) to the customer’s satisfaction. Carried out most technical and quality management, client contact and reported directly to the divisional management team.

Dual-role of Design Authority for the Java/Swing telemetry monitoring application (JUICE), leading a sub-team of 4 with procedural backgrounds. The application had to be very reliable and multithreaded to process multiple telemetry streams. It included a GUI builder so displays could be built by users (I wrote the GUI-Builder and SAX/XML bean loader), with a plug-in interface protocol to handle different server APIs and satellite missions.

This long-running Logica project built and maintains the European Telecommunication Satellite’s (EUTELSAT) Control Centre software and some support systems.EUTELSAT operates 16 satellites of 4 missions, and continuously add new missions. Roles included:

• Investigated evolving SCC software into a modern, portable, flexible, COTS product.Compared various technologies (language, comms, design tools, etc), and studied several spacecraft command & control designs. Produced in-depth technical study & design on object-oriented telecommanding and uplinking (STUF).
• Wrote several proposals, including one to modify the orbital operations subsystem for a new mission (Eurostar 2000+), and a costed design for a packet-based telemetry processor for the same satellite.
• Led development team of three (incl) for object-oriented ground station alarm facility - semi-RAD, real-time, multi-threaded C++ on NT.
• Various development and ‘anomaly’ fixing roles as part of the support team, working in C and FORTRAN on Open VMS. Y2k testing of Türksat SCC software in Ankara, Turkey, gaining familiarity with full satellite operations including orbital operations.
• On-site support, locating and fixing problems at both backup & live operational systems

Specialist Software Consultancy & Development (Kenya)

Set up and managed this business with the aim of filling part of the high demand for quality computer systems in this third world country. It consisted of consultancy to various businesses, configuration & system integration, training, and some complete system developments from requirements analysis, design, development, testing and training to support, including the following:

• Safari Rally Ltd – rally timings system for international car rally event. Live real time system requiring ‘immediate’ feedback via press-room terminals to international press.
• Ol Maisor Ranch – Camel Breeding, designed & developed a livestock recording system, including lineage details for breed analysis, medical & weight histories, a user-programmable reporting module, etc.
• Kilimanjaro Water Ltd – Invoicing, customer records and simple stock tracking
• Rongai Workshops – Bulk Transport, tracking container cargos & vehicles, driver, trip analysis, etc. Included from-scratch networked installation & training for computer-illiterate staff.  

The objective was to create a computer consultancy company that would be self-sustaining after my departure. Unfortunately, with the economic and political situation it was slow and difficult to expand, and I felt I would be better applying my skills in the UK.

Teambuilding & Leadership training centre (Kenya)

Employed to set up this Rotary charity dedicated to training young adults from all walks of life, from street-children to private school pupils, in self awareness, leadership, teamwork and creativity. When started, it had one employee, little equipment or capital, no course-work, an empty office and no transport.

Within nine months the office was equipped with (working) telephone and computers, there was transport both for the office and expeditions, direct access to funds, three trained instructors, office staff, resources to run two courses simultaneously, two expeditions to draw on as experience and eight paying courses booked for the last quarter, very close to our break-even target. Took part in much of the training, organised both expeditions and oversaw the last one, a 40-strong camel trek in Laikipia, north-mid Kenya.

Organised and oversaw the training & preparation for this two-man trip to Kenya. Abandoned when my co-driver crashed (and wrote-off) the Land Rover in southern Jordan. Oops.

Computer consultancy to small businesses (UK)

‘Kameleon’ is an office-automation/information system for small businesses, including contact details & histories, letter-writing, invoicing & overdue-account tracking, and options to add specialist modules.

• Sole designer & programmer.
• Written in Borland Pascal v7 using the event-driven Turbo Vision library
• Home-grown object database (not RDB-mapped), including indexes, trees, etc.
• Core approx 100k lines; specialist modules 300-400k
• Created most publicity material, incl company newsletters (Won WordPerfect Magazine's "Newsletter of the Year", 1994)
• Carried out most installations and one-one customer training.

Sundry computer support and consultancy for local small businesses, including network installation & configuration (LANtastic, Novel LAN v4, Sage Mainlan, OS/2 Warp connect) .

‘Practice’ 5-man expedition to discover the practical requirements for overland travel.

Ensured relevant paperwork was completed, training (incl medical) was carried out, my Series III Land Rover was in order and the equipment suitably prepared.Once underway co-ordinated navigation, food purchase and preparation, vehicle maintenance, etc

Physics applied to astronomy, cosmology, stellar & galactic structures, etc. Wrote astronomy data-processing tools and a star-formation simulator in Pascal. Extra-curriculur courses in Ancient History (merit), Economic History (merit) and Computing.President of the Astronomical Society, Committee Member of the Historical Society, Astrophysics Class Rep elected to University Senate, Debates Society Science Rep.

At the university's Officer Training Corps, introduced to formal teamwork & leadership training, planning and ‘appreciation’, and training others in lectures and practical sessions.

'PPMS' is an office-automation/information system for private medical consultants. This year between school and university I demoed the system to practices in Harley Street, trained staff in its use (many of whom had not used a computer before) and supported the users. Demos included stands at shows. The system was written in PowerBASIC on Intel PCs running DOS; I worked at rationalising the libraries (what today might be called 'refactoring') and adding some of the new features.