About This

In a paper resume, the rule is as space permits. After a certain point it gets a little tight, stuff gets deleted that you wish could stay in, and something is lost. On the other hand, the only purpose of the resume is to get you in for the interview, where presumably you can make your case.

After graduating college, I migrated out to New York in hopes of becoming a musician. It didn't work out as a living, but it's a good hobby. I landed my first real "day job" shortly thereafter at Ogilvy & Mather Direct Response (later Ogilvy & Mather Direct, still later Ogilvy One).

Agency Days

There I moved from typing copy, to one of the old word processing systems, to print forwarding, to traffic. I spent the biggest chunk of my time there working on the American Express account, but also worked on TWA and Vanguard.

After four years there I moved over to Levine, Huntley, Schmidt & Beaver advertising, a hot creative shop at the time. In seven-plus years there I did traffic and learned the ropes of production; specifically, preparing black-and-white and color ads from photography and mechanicals through release to publications.

LHS&B was a classic example of sic transit gloria mundi. For two years running we were Advertising Age's "Agency of the Year". The third year, we were out of business. In the way of agencies back then, the big account walked out the door, and that was all she wrote.

The Financial Sector

A couple of years of freelancing later, I found myself at the Public Securities Association (later The Bond Market Association); soon to probably be something else as they are merging with the SIA). TBMA is the trade association of dealers and brokers in bonds, and its members include all the biggest banks and brokerages in the world. The first few years of my 12 1/2-year stay were doing print production for their publications, conference mailings, speeches and investor materials. Around 1995 I jumped on the internet project and made it my own.

After a few reorganizations I was supervising a good graphics group and expanding the web presence of the organization as we moved 90% of what had been formerly printed over to the Web. In the process, we worked with some of the members and other data providers to build a best-of-class investor web site, with the unique (still) feature of offering free real-time bond transaction prices over the web to individuals.

A lot of people worked on this long-term project. Every year the format, frequency or quantity of data changed, and vendors came and went. But it earned awards from Forbes and Money, and got great press on financial pages across the country. The best for me was when a tax-equivalent calculator I designed and programmed, working with our tax counsel to get the calculations right, was highlighted on the front page of The Wall Street Journal.

But no matter what you do, sic transit gloria mundi. A couple of reorganizations later, my position was eliminated. And shortly after, the entire company was folded into a merger and became a (small) part of SIFMA. Many good people were lost along the way.

Freelancing

A couple of stints, including a good one at Merrill, Lynch, where I did a lot of very cool Javascript/DOM/CSS coding. After that, a brief period at Pearson Publishing, where I did a design analysis of their many, many online services.

SHU

Since the beginning of 2008 I've been working at the Teaching, Learning & Technology Center at Seton Hall University. Most of what I do is behind the firewall, but I've been working primarily in a LAMP environment. One big project that's finally coming through the pipeline is our institutional repository, a dSpace implementation. This is a Tomcat/Java/Oracle application, which we installed from scratch. Using XSLT and the "Manakin" platform, I've customized the look-and-feel to sort of match the overall SHU design standards.

The actual distributed text of my resume is on the right. You can download an MS Word version if you'd like to as well.

Check out the blog for updates on other activities, including some interesting sites I've been developing.

©2009 Tom McGee

Resume

Internet Professional who combines a strong understanding of business, technical and end-user needs, and communications objectives to develop and manage effective web sites. A creative thinker with visual sense and technical skills, along with a track record of maximizing opportunities to build elegant solutions. Effective at communicating with all levels across an organization as well as with clients and vendors. Experienced in public speaking, writing and training.

Professional Experience

SETON HALL UNIVERSITY 2008
Digital Media Specialist

Content management systems, digital repositories, cluster computing, LAMP.

INTERNET CONSULTANT 2006–2007

User interface design for major financial corporation, part of a major system to allow global users to implement real-time transactional choices on elections. Produced detailed working prototypes replicating the workflow through various screens using DOM scripting and AJAX.

Developed sites for retail and financial clients with an emphasis on content management, e-commerce and interactivity. Services provided included managing hosting, software selection and customization, programming, photography, retouching and design. Built sites in several different content management systems.

THE BOND MARKET ASSOCIATION, New York 1993-2005
Director, Internet and Print Production Services (1997-2005)

• Built original version and managed two total overhauls of bondmarkets.com, the Association’s flagship site for members, developing specifications and taxonomy in a move to the Ektron content management system. This accelerated and streamlined internal workflow, and increased member usage to 1 million page views a month.
• Implemented free public bond trade price services on InvestingInBonds.com. Working with regulators, industry specialists and multiple data providers built an easy-to-use service for investors and managed progression from delayed composite information in 1998 through actual real-time dissemination of individual trades in 2005. Developed and tested user workflows through several tiers of information for a very large data set, while developing tools and features to enhance the value of the data. Monitored usage patterns and fielded user inquiries to refine the user experience. Worked with IT to ensure robust Ektron/MSSQL platforms for delivery.
• Spoke at industry conferences and association events, and participated in press conferences and presentations to legislators in Washington. Developed training programs, and led group and one-on-one sessions, improving the brand and increasing staff productivity.
• Worked with banks, brokerages and data providers to build investinginbonds.com, which greatly enhanced the Association’s advocacy efforts with Congress and regulators, raised public profile. The site won a Forbes “Best of the Web” site for investors, and was a Money magazine feature. Conceived and developed an online calculator, which was featured on the front page of The Wall Street Journal.
• Created productivity tools and features, for bond calculations, word search, surveys, calendars, real-time data graphing, password systems, and subscriptions. Negotiated with data vendors to reduce price schedules by as much as 90%..
• Ran a group of seven sites over multiple generations for affiliated organizations, including LSTA, EMTA and The American Securitization Forum.
• Part of a consultative group working with regulatory agencies on standardized data formats.
• Greatly reduced costs by moving contracts, manuals, newsletters, research reports and promotional materials to Web and e-mail channels.
• Supervised a staff of graphic designers and a print production manager.
• Implemented backup and redundancy procedures, which kept the sites up and running through various severe disruptions; served as the Association’s industry point person after 9/11, running the site as a clearinghouse for critical information on the industry’s backup locations.

THE BOND MARKET ASSOCIATION
Manager, Production (1993-1997)

• Developed first Association web sites in 1995, reducing the group's printing costs by hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
• Implemented changes in mailing procedures, cutting postage costs by 25%.
• Worked with outside consultant to successfully implement a major corporate identity shift.
• Oversaw production of newsletters, binders, mailings, brochures, conference materials, annual reports and collateral materials.
• Managed staff of designers. Led ongoing changes in department technology.

Consultant/Production Manager (1991-1993)
Produced catalogs, advertisements, collateral materials for Olympus cameras and various fashion and resort accounts.

LEVINE, HUNTLEY, SCHMIDT & BEAVER ADVERTISING, New York 1984-1991
Traffic and Production Manager

• Scheduled, managed workflow and estimated for a wide variety of consumer and B-to-B accounts.
• Worked with color separators, retouchers, typographers, photographers and illustrators in production of high-quality color and black-and-white newspaper and magazine ads for national clients.

EDUCATION

Baldwin-Wallace College, Berea, Ohio

Professional Training and Continuing Education

Classes in SQL, VB.NET, management, content-management systems, Win2003 server, Internet security, usability, and data presentation.

Professional Affiliations

Board Member, The Broadway Bach Ensemble