June 13, 2012

Dear Sir or Madam:

As an established IT versatilist, have an excellent track record and am confident I can quickly become an indispensable member of your team. Consider some of the honors I have received:

IBM mainframes—S/360s running DOS (early VSE)—were my introduction to IT, performing operations and programming in COBOL and ALC. Within five years I was a systems programmer supporting OS/MVT/HASP/TSO on S/370s and starting to learn MVS and VM/370. I moved into systems software development from there, working on products that included ALPHA (an alternative to TSO that beat TSO to market), CA-JARS, CA-ALARM, CA-APEX, DDN/MVS (the first commercially available TCP/IP stack for MVS), and CA-FastDASD for the XA and ESA mainframe architectures. More recently I supported (24/7) VM/ESA, VSE/ESA, and CICS/VSE on S/390 mainframes for almost four years, mostly as the only systems programmer. The typical responsibilities of this job description include user support, operations support (including resolving operations/performance issues), systems software maintenance, custom programming beyond the capability of the applications programmers, ensuring licensing compliance, security officer (intrusion detection and privilege/access administration), disaster planning, technical collaboration with others responsible for hardware maintenance or associated non-mainframe City infrastructure, and planning and executing hardware upgrades. Regarding that last duty, I worked with an IBM Business Partner to plan a much-needed upgrade that specified a z10 BC (2098-F01) to run z/VM, z/VSE, and CICS/TS. I went from that to highly technical zSeries support roles at IBM and New York Life Insurance Company. Thus, I qualify as a zSeries, z/VM, z/VSE, and z/OS expert, especially since I have been continuously studying the details and unfolding of zEnterprise products very closely.

I have been using and administering GNU/Linux systems continuously since the Spring of 1993 (my LinuxCounter.org number is 2419) plus most varieties of UNIX in my time. I have soldered DB25 TTY cables and rebuilt problem PCs' hardware and software as needed. I started working with TCP/IP back on the ARPANET before DNS had been deployed. In addition to my mainframe Assembler, Rexx, and COBOL programming expertise, I easily have over five intense years experience in C, mostly on UNIX platforms. Some of my code runs in kernel mode, mostly device drivers, and is also in some of the commercial products I have been associated with. During my six-year engagement at Group 1 Software, I ported their products for IBM mainframes written in COBOL II to UNIX and Windows NT Micro Focus COBOL environments. I even developed a database installation system written entirely in Micro Focus COBOL that ran from a universal CD-ROM under UNIX, Windows NT, and OS/2.

My career is highlighted by numerous technologies and responsibilities that are simultaneously wide-ranging and very deep (I recently discovered an article by the Gartner Group that coined the term versatilist to apply to such multi-specialists. Perhaps more importantly, however; I know much more than merely IT). This experience has accumulated by being engaged for some area(s) of expertise, then being requested to fill a gap in another area new to me with the expectation I would pick it up quickly. I have seldom failed in this stretching and recent experience proves I am still razor-sharp, energetic, and highly self-motivated.

Please contact me to arrange for a discussion of what profit we can mutually engender.

Very sincerely yours,

David L. Craig