Daniel Karas Email & Phone Number

Central Florida

Tallahassee, Florida Area

Sebastian, Florida

Tampa, Florida

Oversaw Information Systems for Parking & Transportation Services at USF, the third largest University in the Southeast. Do you ever watch the cars driving around, or stuck in traffic during peak hours, and wonder where they are all going? It doesn’t really matter, because wherever it is, they will eventually need to park!Take a large metropolitan campus, with 41,000 students and 8,800 faculty/staff jockeying for 23,000 parking spaces and there’s no wonder PATS is the second most hated department on-campus. My department used an Oracle-SQL based parking control system (T2 PowerPark) to manage permit inventory, space allocation, sales, and the inevitable ticket payment and appeals. In addition, we supported a 36-vehicle campus bus fleet.We successfully implemented a web e-commerce solution for permit allocation, sales, & distribution. This was based on vendor-supplied templates, custom modified with VB, ASP, .NET, and SQL to suit our needs, interacting with University enterprise systems like PeopleSoft and SCT-Banner. I also developed several web-based applications such as Content Management for the department website, apps to automate redundant time consuming tasks, like daily permit/cash drawer reconciliation, and a library of campus parking maps using Photoshop layers which allowed managers to create custom event maps & flyers with little effort.Our biggest project was the preliminary design and implementation of the BullTracker shuttle bus tracking & mapping system, a real-time updated interactive map showing all active buses on six routes on & off campus, with real-time ridership stats and arrival times: www.usfbullrunner.com which is now active.

Kennedy Space Center, Florida

Have you ever wondered who it is who determines exactly how much electricity you used when you send your check to the power company each month? Wonder no longer. The "volt" is maintained at the NIST/NASA primary standards lab at Kennedy Space Center. Who knew? Measurement science (aka metrology) is something almost everybody takes for granted. But it's real, and here. When we're sending people into space, the great unknown, precision becomes even more important. There is no "wiggle room". At Wyle, I was in charge of the Metrology Labs network, not only connecting computers, keeping things running smoothly, but also maintaining the very programs the technicians and engineers were using on a daily basis to ensure the success of our nation's space program. We had an operation where we had to keep track of over forty thousand instruments in use throughout the center, any thousand of which were being serviced at a given time. We needed to be able to not only report on the status of any piece, but also give its history. As a Primary Standards Lab, we were also responsible for comparing, calibrating, servicing and tracking secondary measurement standards used around the world. When I started there, it was done mostly with paper. Today, it's done in real-time and electronically.

Gainesville, Florida

While attending the University of Florida, I joined SDI as a part-time Engineer-In-Training, primarily to do drafting, tech writing, and errands. Being the only staff member without a PhD was awkward at best, but intellectually stimulating--absorbing more on the job than in class. All of the principal engineers were also adjunct professors at UF. We developed guidance & stabilization systems for weapons systems and other technologies that today keep our troops safe and now everybody uses, so commonly that it's taken for granted. Ever heard of the "steady-cam"? That was developed so helicopter pilots could see using infra-red and designate targets in flight. Those gyros and accelerometers in your i-Phone? Yep.With growth, the company bought its first computer, a DEC PDP-11, and I started taking system manuals home to study and soon became the company's programmer, doing coding (from engineer's equations), debug, & testing, and administration. When Sun workstations, PC's, and servers came along, that was all it took for a new career direction.

Kennedy Space Center, Florida

I was blessed with the opportunity to be able actually work hands-on on the space shuttle. Really build it. Very cool. Because at the time, there was only one, and Columbia was it. OV-102. I worked Thermal Protection Systems installation & repair for the forward-fuselage section - just ahead of the wing cove & payload bay, including the hatch and windows.

Software Engineering

Certificate, Computer Network Technology

Work also led to certification as Microsoft Certified System Engineer (MCSE)

Materials Engineering

Education record