I spearheaded the establishment of a corporation, and with my partners negotiated the purchase of IP and assets from a competitor in the event registration space. The core of the purchase was an online registration web application, which we added to our own products, methodologies, and clients.As a co-founder, I worked with my partners on high-level planning, hiring and financial oversight. I also managed some key vendor relationships, most importantly our credit card processing and merchant accounts.As technical lead, I took responsibility for our web-based products. I maintained the aging codebase we acquired. I acted as server administrator and database developer. I also led development of new products and services, as well as exceptional client projects.This position forced me to learn nearly everything at top speed, from multiple new programming languages to complex SQL reporting to data security. In particular, a number of experiences proved especially valuable: the ability to understand and refactor undocumented legacy code (ASP/COM); the knowledge to integrate e-commerce and credit card payment systems, and the ability to build ground-up applications using modern frameworks and practices (like REST, MVC, NoSQL, and single-page AJAX).I gained hands-on experience at each level of the web application stack, from DNS and HTTP to databases to business logic to presentation.

I served as lead user interface designer for Registration Assistant. I redesigned the company's entire visual identity, including its logo, public website, and marketing materials. I also executed a bottom-up interface redesign of Registration Assistant's online web application, a data portal through which client accessed and managed their collected data.Although I came from a nontechnical background, these projects taught me a tremendous amount about the technical side of interface design for web applications: Standards-based HTML and CSS, interactivity with Javascript, and working hand-in-hand with back-end developers to produce a finished product.

I worked with Registration Assistant's clients to produce fully-branded web pages and data collection forms. I was responsible for all visual design and front-end development undertaken on behalf of the company's clients. I was also the primary point of contact for service and support requests.This was a very service-oriented position, and I developed a strong rapport with the clients under my care. I learned how to quickly find, assess and fix problems, how to defuse irate customers, and how to translate nontechnical needs into technical requirements. My client projects almost always resulted in repeat business, and quite often word-of-mouth referral.