Charles R. Berg

1150 Pointe Hope Landing

San Jose, CA 95131

ChuckBerg@Covad.net

(408) 499-8425

269 Dark Forest Ave

Las Vegas, NV

 

Career Objective

A senior level software project lead, architect, or “hands-on” manager developing multimedia, imaging, entertainment, or communications products.

Professional Highlights

§   A business-savvy technologist, a competent and creative engineering professional, and a self-motivated problem solver, decision maker and leader, with demonstrated interpersonal and communications skills. 

§   Development experience encompasses a wide range of technologies, industries, systems, languages, and tools. 

§   Business experience extends from startup to Fortune 100 companies and from non-profit to venture-funded organizations.

Technical Highlights

§   Managed the development of MailSite® - named Windows & .NET Magazine’s 2002 Readers' Choice Award for Best Mail Server, and Review Board Magazine’s 2004 Editor’s Choice Award for Best Enterprise Mail Server.

§   Led the development of “Family Feud Slots,” named one of the 10 most innovative products in 2000 by the American Gaming Summit, and described by Slot Player Magazine as “the most innovative slot machine of all time.”

§   Built over 75 different Windows products, using a wide range of Microsoft technologies, for 35 different client companies.

§   Granted Microsoft's "Most Valued Professional" Award.

§   Developed the process control industry's first object-oriented client/server process animation display system, incorporating several technology aspects of DHTML, including a markup language, scripting, links, and URL's, years before the World-Wide Web was "invented."

§   Architected the firmware for a multi-processor imaging workstation capable of a 4096:1 zoom in 12 seconds, 360° rotation in 3 seconds, and 2048 pixel translation in 2 seconds, while maintaining 1/16 pixel accuracy at 30 frames/second.

Management Highlights

§   Built a cohesive team out of developers working in 5 different offices, 3 different time zones, and 4 different countries.

§   Recruited and managed many different development teams, ranging from 3 to 15 in size, on dozens of different projects.

§   Stabilized and rebuilt engineering and IS/IT teams recently downsized from 48 people to 16.

§   At one company, managed 5 different projects over a seven-year period ranging from 1.5 man-years to 9 man-years in size, each one completed within days of scheduled delivery dates and within 5% of budget.

§   Re-architected and led a 5 person team that rewrote 800,000 lines of code, reducing it in half, in less than 1 year, saving a multi-billion dollar project from certain cancellation.

§   Played a major role in the merger of two non-profit professional organizations and the building of a unified staff/volunteer team.

Business Highlights

§   Led the engineering contribution to the turn-around and successful sale of a casino gaming equipment manufacturer.

§   In 2 years, built a 1-man consulting business into a profitable contract development company employing 7 full-time and 5 contract developers, with a strong reputation for quality and on-time deliveries.

§   Participated in raising almost $2,000,000 in seed capital for three different startup companies.

§   Made numerous presentations to venture capitalists, corporate investors, investment bankers, and major corporate clients.

§   Co-authored a business plan described by several venture capital investors as "a model for the ideal business plan."

§   Authored market research reports on Computer-Aided Design/Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) and Computer-Aided Publishing (CAP) that were published by leading Market Research firms.

Patent Portfolio

§   6,863,606    Method of playing a game involving questions and answers

§   6,823,419    Method and apparatus for inhibiting a selected IDE command

§   6,729,618    Method and apparatus for playing a game utilizing a plurality of sound lines which are components of a song or ensemble

§   Pending     System for and method of capturing a player's image for incorporation into a game

 

Systems Experience

DOS, Windows 3.1/95/98,
Windows NT, 2000, 2003, XP & CE

Tandem/Compaq/HP Non-Stop

pSOS, pSOS +, & VRTX

RSX11-M, VMS & Unix

Language Experience

C/C++/C#, .NET, MFC, ATL, Basic, Fortran, Cobol, Pascal, PL/1, PostScript, REXX, VBScript, & assembly languages for DEC PDP11, Motorola 680xx,
Intel 80x86, and TI-9900.

 

Education

Master of Electrical Engineering
(Minor in Computer Science)

University of Delaware

BS Electrical Engineering
(Minor in Math & Computer Science)

University of Missouri - Rolla

Technology Experience

IDE, SCSI, ISA, PCI, 1394, NDIS, WDM, VxD's, NT-Kernel, Embedded Systems

Win32, TCP/IP, FTP, COM/DCOM, DirectShow, ActiveX Scripting, Video & Still Imaging, IIS, ASP, XML, .NET

Tools Experience

Developer Studio, SourceSafe, Perforce
Windows SDK & DDK, VtoolsD,
Windows NT SDK & DDK,
Soft-Ice/Windows, Soft-Ice/NT
 

Professional Activities

Software Development Forum
Executive Council &
Windows SIG Chairman

IEEE


Employment History

7/04 – Present     MetaLINCS Corporation – Mountain View, CA

                                Lead Engineer – Messaging Systems

Responsible for interfacing a high-performance search and analysis facility to a variety of electronic messaging systems (via POP3, IMAP, and SMTP protocols, and via proprietary MAPI and NSF import libraries), and to identity databases via LDAP and proprietary HR and CRM interfaces.  The application is written primarily in C#, with some managed and unmanaged C/C++, on the Microsoft .NET platform.

1/04 – Present     Softech Consulting – San Jose, CA

                                Consultant

Providing software technology, management, and business consulting services to the entrepreneurial community in Silicon Valley.

7/01 – 10/03         Rockliffe Systems, Inc – Campbell, CA

                                VP Engineering & Information Systems

Managed the US & UK engineering team developing MailSite® e-mail server, Express/Pocket web-mail clients, and Team groupware solution on Windows NT/2000/XP platforms, as well as a joint development project with Compaq porting the MailSite message store and user database to the Non-Stop platform.  Released 3 major new versions of the MailSite product, and brought virus and spam filtering, dictionary harvest prevention, web-based calendaring, and many other new features to the market; and launched MailSite NS – the industry’s first complete standards-based, continuously available email solution for the NonStop platform, and MailSite Team – an Outlook plug-in providing shared calendars, contacts, and public folders on an IMAP email platform.  MailSite was named Windows & .NET Magazine’s 2002 Readers' Choice Award for Best Mail Server, and Review Board Magazine’s 2004 Editor’s Choice Award for Best Enterprise Mail Server.

Originally architected as 7 protocol Services and written entirely in C, led migrating the product to C++ and a re-architected threading model, and providing much more administrative instrumentation using Event Tracing for Windows, performance counters, and MMC snap-ins.  The Express/Pocket web clients were originally built in ASP & VBScript, and were being completely redesigned in ASP.NET and C#.

Also managed the corporate computing infrastructure across offices in US, Canada, England, and Scotland.

1/01 – 12/01         Wagering Technology Studio, Inc – San Jose, CA

                                President & CTO

Contracted with the Gaming Standards Association (GSA – formerly GAMMA) to “fast track” the development of communication standards for the casino industry.  Project cancelled by a new Board of Directors.

8/99 – 12/00         Silicon Gaming, Inc – Palo Alto, CA

                                VP Engineering & QA, and Director of IS/IT

At a company that combined Silicon Valley technology with Hollywood production skills to develop revolutionary one-of-a-kind wagering attractions for the casino industry, led an engineering team of 10 software, math, hardware, and packaging developers, and coordinated with producers, art directors, and artists, responsible for creating 8 new games, 3 major platform releases, and executing “Family Feud Slots,” all within 14 months.  A major part of this responsibility was creating and maintaining the tools and processes that allowed art directors, graphic designers, audio and video producers, and artists to create the world-class games that set a new standard for gaming attractions.   “Family Feud Slots” was named one of the 10 most innovative products in 2000 by the American Gaming Summit, and was described by Slot Player Magazine as “the most innovative slot machine of all time.”

Managed a QA staff of 3, and an IS/IT staff of 4.  Served as chair of the Gaming Manufacturer’s Association (GAMMA) committee standardizing communication on the casino floor.  Company acquired by IGT – the largest manufacturer in the gaming industry.

4/96 – Present     Software Development Forum - San Jose, CA

                                Executive Council, Windows SIG Chair

As a volunteer member of the Board of Directors (1/99-9/01), assisted with strategic planning and financial oversight of a 2,500 member non-profit organization hosting 20-30 events every month.  As Executive Council President (4/98-4/00), directed the 14-person Executive Council coordinating the efforts of approximately 60 volunteers, and assisted on the merger with Center for Software Development.  As Windows SIG Chair (2/98-present), plan monthly meetings of interest to Windows developer community.

7/92 – 8/99           The Software Studio, Inc - Cupertino, CA

                                Founder & Director of Development

Built and managed a contract software development organization specializing in core technology, application specific systems software, and device drivers for the Windows™ family of operating environments.  Maintained technical leadership responsibilities and provided  "hands-on" development effort on over 75 different Windows products, using a wide range of Microsoft technologies, for 35 different client companies.  Projects included:

§   A family of WDM kernel streaming video acquisition, filter, and playback drivers with associated user-mode DirectShow filters and property sheets.

§   Added support for COM automation control to existing REXX language interpreter and extended it to become an ActiveX Scripting Engine.

§   High-end workflow management, RIP integration, and device drivers for color copiers - A suite of COM servers provide customizable job processing through multiple queues, configurable queue sorting and scheduling, and dynamic property management.  Integrated with NT printing subsystem and Adobe's PostScript RIP to create high-end printing subsystem.

§   OPC (OLE for Process Control) COM server with custom network interface driver communicates with a QNX system.  A Shell Extension DLL to the Windows Explorer exposes configuration information.  Real-time data exposed by OPC COM interfaces.

§   Digital camera and scanner applications, TWAIN data sources, and device drivers support 23 different cameras and scanners from 6 different manufacturers.  End-user applications provide slide table viewing, picture transfer, annotation, and storage functions.

§   Kernel Device Drivers, SDKs, and utilities for:

- Ultra-high precision time clock

- 20-bit, 80MHz A/D and D/A converter board.

- PCI bridge chip

- 3-D coordinate input device

- High-speed imaging coprocessor

- DNA gene scanner

- CD-ROM auto-changer

- Mass Spectrometer

- E-IDE bus master DMA disk controller

- High-speed microfilm scanner

- High-speed SCSI paper scanner

- SCSI RAID management utility

10/90 - 7/92          Document Technologies Inc. - Mt. View, CA

                                Software Project Manager

Lead the software development of a second-generation distributed document image processing subsystem hosted by DOS, X-Windows, and Windows 3.1.  Managed a team of 8 developers, 4 of whom were off-site.  Developed SCSI hard drive and optical disk drivers, networking, display, scanner, and printer drivers, and a proprietary high-performance distributed file system.  Implemented several TCP/IP protocols, including an FTP client and server, a Telnet client and server, and BOOTP server.

5/87 - 7/90            Lockheed Missile & Space Co. - Sunnyvale, CA

                                Consulting Engineer

Brought experience in image processing applications, disk drive technology, software development, and project management skills to a troubled program involving 12 real-time subsystems utilizing 19 M680xx processors running pSOS.  Completely re-wrote the control firmware for an off-line sub-system that assembled down-sampled image tiles into full-sized tiles. Re-engineered and led the re-write of the 3-tiered cache management firmware that maintained a 3-D cache of compressed image tiles, a 3-D cache of uncompressed tiles, and a 2-D 2K x 2K cache of display pixels.

2/85 - 1/88            Anray, Inc. - Sunnyvale, CA

                                Founder & VP Engineering

Co-founded a company developing a color pre-press system for the commercial printing industry. Designed a system integrating typography, line art, and photo-images with page layout and press-sheet imposition.  The system was based on Sun NeWS and DisplayPostscript, and incorporated many advanced graphic design features, including 2-D constructive geometry, and proprietary algorithms for color separation, black printer creation, under-color removal, and gray-component replacement.

1/82 - 2/85            Tower Hill Enterprises, LTD - Wilmington, DE

                                Founder & President

Designed and implemented the control and user interface software for a nuclear fuel rod inspection facility. Designed and implemented the hardware and software for a commercial building security and monitoring system.  Researched CAD/CAM and CAP markets in preparation for starting Anray.

1/75 - 1/82            E I duPont de Nemours & Co. - Newark, DE

                                Development Engineer

Performed requirements specification, high-level hardware and software design and implementation, engineering supervision, budgeting, and manpower scheduling on several chemical control systems projects. Developed the industry's first object-oriented client/server process animation display system.

6/70 - 9/74            McDonnell-Douglas Corporation - St. Louis, MO

                                Co-op Student/Engineer

Worked on several hardware and software development projects in support of flight, missile, and electromagnetic environment (radar) simulation facilities.

I am a US Citizen.

References are available upon request.