Don Strong Email & Phone Number

West Sacramento, Ca

Developed, tested, and implemented code to upgrade the California Medicaid Management Information Systems (CA-MMIS) to ICD-10 compliance. Created ad hoc reports and extract files to meet the specifications of the business partners. Following a state audit of ACA compliance, performed extensive analysis of claims system, seeking gaps in the code where the process didn't conform to the law. CA-MMIS is a wide-reaching system with online, batch and point-of-sale components, implemented using CICS and VSAM. Ad hoc projects were often done using DYL280, Easytrieve, and DFSort. System changes were implemented using Endevor.

Greater Pittsburgh Area

At Highmark in Pittsburgh, coded, tested, and implemented changes assigned by a business analyst for an IMS DB/DC health care claims system. Changes were implemented with Endevor.

Leading a team of three; I coordinated and assigned tasks for the support of a legacy system in the process of being sundowned. In addition, we were assigned two new system feeds to critical vendors for Medicare coverage. My duties included coordinating my team, designing the system flow for the new feeds, doing specific analysis for the individual programs and implementing the system. A requirement for working at US Steel was learning their proprietary job control and scheduling system, CHORE, which worked hand-in-hand with their proprietary dataset indexing system.In a prior engagement with the State of; I worked with a team implementing the changes required by the Federal financial recovery plan. Unusual in that the mainframe in question was a Honeywell Bull, but all coding was COBOL implementations using a database system similar to IMS, and a user interface system similar to CICS.

In a nine-month engagement at Chrysler, I was responsible for coordinating the work of a five-person team deployed both in the US and in India. The focus was on learning the Chrysler's mission critical, Sarbanes-Oxley compliant AP systems and taking over system support. I worked daily with COBOL, DB2, CICS and IMS DB/DC, as well as with the IBM tool suite designed to aid programming and support in those areas, specifically Fault Analyzer, File Manager, and Debug Tool. The systems were built largely on Stored Procedures containing secure code. Two ongoing assignments focused heavily on Easytrieve Plus, using its ability to access flat files, DB2 tables and IMS databases along with its report output capabilities.

I was deployed to Federal Express on two consecutive contracts. The first was a time and materials contract focused on developing three new subsystems: an audit subsystem which tracked changes to various data; a security subsystem which replaced generalized Organization-Code-based security with employee-number-specific security; a subsystem to facilitate multi-package shipment tracking. It has been initially employed to track the progress of International Revenue records through the system. Altogether, the subsystems required six new DB2 tables. To access them for inquiry and update, I created, in total, five dynamic subroutines, five IMS online programs, five batch processes, and transitioned 28 online programs to the new security system. To comply with Sarbanes-Oxley requirements, I drafted and implemented test plans and other documentation for each subsystem. The second contract was fixed-price and was focused on developing a specialized mainframe invoicing module that was called by a PC-based revenue system. At the same time, I continued support on the modules developed in the previous contract, and did maintenance work on existing revenue submodules.

Responsible for all aspects of running a movie theatre complex, including personnel decisions, customer relations, maintenance, and day-to-day operations.

I was brought in to take over support of Bayer's legacy General Ledger and Accounts Payable systems, systems consisting of more than 300 programs (COBOL, COBOL II, and other languages), transactions and jobs. With no accounting background, I took over the position as first point of contact for support of both systems within a year, and was the point man for our across-the-board disaster recovery testing. Support included creation and maintenance of JCL for the batch systems, and coding and maintaining 35+ programs that were either IMS-based, DB2-based, or a hybrid of the two. I also participated in a team effort to save Bayer nearly $1M in software fees by evaluating several software support products with an eye toward replacing the more expensive products we already use. As the user's primary point of contact, the job requires handling dozens of phone calls daily, regular face-to-face meetings, user training, and handling typically 7 ad hoc reports or maintenance requests per week, along with keeping the system running smoothly on a pro-active basis.

In a limited-term contract position with the State of Indiana welfare system, I designed and implemented an online submodule to automatically schedule claims against clients for recoupment. This involved accessing 5 IMS databases. Additionally, performed routine maintenance analysis and coding on the Benefit Recovery and Application Entry subsystems.Desired FX/Temporal Arts

Within my own company, I have worn over a dozen hats: I landed contracts to do multimedia design and programming, 3D modeling and animation, hardware and software instruction, video directing and editing, Web site development, and network administration. In 1993, I completed design and development of TAMPER, a proprietary Multimedia kiosk development system that includes network update capability. Desired FX's most recent major project, PROGRESSIVE DINNER (a feature length movie I wrote and directed) was completed in May, 2003.

Designed and developed a turnkey multimedia system for NASA.

Designed, implemented, and maintained three COBOL IMS DB/DC systems in a two-year period; two of these systems included several EasyTrieve reporting modules. As part of a team of two, designed and implemented a large-scale online database system in ten work-weeks-six work-weeks ahead of schedule. Worked on-site for Acustar, a division of Chrysler that manufactured radios, automatic transaxle controllers, and other automobile electronics.

Primarily focused on maintaining and updating COBOL IMS DB/DC proprietary freight rating and routing systems for several international chemical companies. Worked on-site for FMC, DuPont, and ICI. Learned EasyTrieve while working for FMC, using it to create report programs and batch IMS database update programs. Also received exposure to DB2.

Associate, Information Technology

Focused courses on COBOL, JCL, and Mainframe Assembly language.

Bachelor Arts Degree, English/Theatre Concentrations

Left to join workforce prior to completion.

Education record