Toby Erkson

Portland, Oregon       air_cooled_nut@pobox.com

 

Computer Experience

   Operating Systems:   MS-DOS, ORACLE, Palm OS, WANG VS, and Windows

   Languages:      6502 Assembly, AWK, BASIC, C, COBOL (1985 Standard and WANG VS 1974), dBase III+, DOS, FORTRAN, FoxPro 2.5(DOS), HTML, SQL, and VBA (Excel)

   Software:          Microsoft:  Access, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Word

                           Cognos:  Impromptu Admin 7, Impromptu Web Reports 7, PowerPlay 6.6, Transformer, and Upfront 7

 

Professional Experience

Hewlett-Packard Case Manager (Call Center Support), Stream, Beaverton, OR

My responsibility as 3rd tier support was to handle customers whose issues could not be resolved by front line technical support and owning them until the issue was resolved. I made every attempt possible to resolve customers' issues and turn a customer's negative experience with HP into a positive one. Responsibilities include authorization of repairing or replacing damaged/faulty notebooks, issuing refunds, and adding warranties. Customer data was entered into SAP through a Java interface. Excel was used for tracking cases owned.


Programmer/Analyst (Reporting Specialist), Business Intelligence, Inc., Tigard, OR

Performed quality assurance and product testing for in-house software development and also wrote reporting solutions in Microsoft Excel for customer services, relying on a combination of spreadsheet functions, ODBC, the company’s data acquisition software, and Visual Basic for Applications code.  One of my successes that the company sells is an Excel workbook which will automatically create the key performance indicator graphs for a business in only a few minutes and it’s simple enough that the business user won’t need IT’s help.

 

Programmer, Volt Technologies, Wilsonville, OR

Contracted out to InFocus to operate and stream-line their monthly commissions payout process as well as operate and stream-line their weekly channel inventory reports.  I also had to learn and document both processes and then pass this knowledge to the full-time Commissions Analyst they hired three weeks after my contract began.  The commissions process was a mixture of Access databases and Excel reports.  Though I was able to reduce some of the Excel reporting by using VBA, the bigger job was thoroughly documenting the process for the incoming analyst.  Since the weekly channel inventory reports heavily relied on Excel, I was able to take this extremely manual 14 hour process and reduce it to under 2 hours.

 

Programmer/Data Entry, Volt Technologies, Beaverton, OR

Contracted out to Columbia Sportswear for USA catalog data entry into an Excel order form as well as tune the Visual Basic code behind the order form generation process.  This required trouble-shooting someone else’s code and making adjustments, additions, and correcting already present errors.  The International Department wanted to have the same order form for their international distributors so my contract was extended to adjust the order form and the code behind it to meet their requirements.  I also produced documentation and trained the international liaisons on how to generate order forms, update them, read the output error log and other basic trouble-shooting steps and solutions should complications arise during the process.

 

Programmer/Analyst (Reporting Specialist), Business Intelligence, Inc., Tigard, OR

I was contracted out to various local businesses to provide executive level reports, both graphical and numeric.  My primary goal was to automate as much of the reporting as possible, thus reducing time spent gathering data and composing reports.

·         Automated daily executive level financial reports.

-   Enabled CFO to reduce report generating time by 10 hours per month.

-   Created condensed report for Blackberry device capability that was e-mailed automatically.

·         Automated daily customer account statistics.

-   Reduced daily report creation time from two hours to ten minutes.

·         Set up a ‘reporting server’ for scheduling data gathering and report updating.

-   Automated report refresh and dissemination processes with a desktop computer, third-party scheduler, and Visual Basic coding within Microsoft Excel.

-   Ensured reports were updated after the data sources had been updated.

-   Automatically sent out an error report of any failed processes so the reporting engineer could quickly resolve the issue before the end user is affected.

·         Produced an automated customer quote tool for calculating the lowest price for software and services.

-   Sales agents no longer had to manually figure out lengthy customer quotes.

-   Eliminated human error as customer would always get the lowest price.

 

Volunteer IT Technician, Imlay Elementary School, Hillsboro, OR

I performed various computer and software maintenance tasks to ease the load on the district IT administration and teaching staff.  I instructed students on how to use software, write simple documentation for software administration and use, install/update software and hardware as directed, trouble-shoot problems and escalate issues beyond my skills to district IT administration as necessary.

 

Programmer/Analyst (Metrics Engineer), Intel Corporation, Hillsboro, OR

I developed, implemented, deployed and maintained computer-based systems supporting business customer reporting requirements that integrated with existing contact management and content management systems.

·         Created a reporting environment with Cognos business intelligence software.

-   Established standardized reporting processes for the Intel Customer Support group.

-   Greatly reduced report generation time for end users i.e. from 13 hours per week to 30 minutes.

-   Designed ad-hoc (OLAP) and standard reports.

-   Trained end users on how to use the tools for business analysis.

·         Implemented and maintained 3rd party scheduling software to automate data gathering and reporting operations.

-   Eliminated manual run times and provided current information to all time zones world wide, including weekends.

-   Proactively checked application outputs to insure transformed data and published reports were current.  Appropriate personnel automatically notified by email if there was a problem.

·         Self-taught Microsoft Access 95 and Thompson’s AWK (TAWK) to extract data from various sources outside the company standard Oracle and SQL Server databases.

-   Expanded the information warehouse which reduced end user time spent generating reports.

·         Documented reporting processes and development techniques for all reporting capabilities.

-   Provided critical operational instruction for back-up personnel during vacation and other Out Of Office periods.

·         Created detailed reporting capability and technical user guide documentation for end users.

-   Reduced interruptions and reduced wasted time by allowing users self-help functionality.

·         Ability to work in highly independent as well as team environments.

-   Worked with IT to successfully deploy required reporting system application components and interfaces to related databases to meet customer requirements.

-   Maintained a centralized reporting web site, assisted publishing a monthly internal newsletter, and held meetings in virtual and face-to-face formats to keep management and team members constantly updated.

 

Sonar Technician Surface, Third Class Petty Officer, U.S. Navy

Education

   BS in Computer Information Systems, Southern Oregon University, Ashland, OR

   Minors: Business Administration; Photography