Heidi Beckham Email & Phone Number

Dallas, Texas, Us

I converted to an employee in Feb 2009 and officially launched the rating engine that I designed and built in May 2009. Since then, I have led many projects for launching this rating engine into all currently existing states as well as many new states. In that time, I have learned to work with XML and JSON in the AS400 with primary programming language being COBOL with occasional use of RPG including the new fully free format RPG that was needed to work with JSON in our current version of iSeries OS. In 2016, I was honored to be named one of GAINSCO's Circle of Champions quarterly winners. Beginning in 2018, I began online training via Pluralsight to learn .Net (C#) and mid-2019 I developed and deployed my first official changes in that language. In Oct 2019, I earned Mastery Level Certification (perfect score in all areas) from Duck Creek University in their Basic Author training course as part of our initiative to transition to the Duck Creek platform for our Policy Administration and Billing Systems. I am currently working on assisting the vendor with what they need to know to attempt to recreate our rating functionality in the new system as well helping to design, build, and test various integrations using both AS400 and Web technologies.

I was hired as a contractor to work at GAINSCO, Inc. My first project was a 90-day initiative to help clean up and correct programs which were causing frequent issues in the nightly cycle due to bad error handling. The rest of the contract involved designing and building a new rating engine for their new Engineered Pricing Algorithm. This rating engine set the stage for more flexibility and reliability in enacting rate changes by utilizing a table-driven plug-n-play methodology and data validation of all table loads for rates and factors and other control variables.

Fort Lauderdale, Fl, Us

When the contract with Majesco ended at Hotels.com, I was shifted to Technisource so that I could continue my AS400/COBOL programming work at Hotels.com. I continued my work on the maintenance team until late October when I was shifted to the projects team. I am currently Technical Lead on several projects.

I was hired in December 2004 as Product Manager for On Center Software. My primary goal was to try to get control over the development and quality assurance processes to try to position the company for timely deliveries of their product suite. As my first management-only position, it was quite a learning experience. The first year was spent getting new processes and procedures in place in all areas of my department to better manage the product development cycle. The second year was spent trying to make the company as a whole more date-oriented so that deadlines became more real and more trusted. I had three Quality Assurance Resources, one Technical Writer, and one Development Manager reporting to me directly. I assisted the Development Manager with management of the development team consisting of 19 resources.

I was hired in June 2004, at the client’s request, as an employee of Majesco to work on the Hotels.com project which I had previously transitioned my work to while working for Resulte Universal. The work continued to be maintenance of their COBOL/AS400 applications. My role was somewhat confusing due to the entities involved. I was a developer above all. I was the Onsite Project Lead according to Majesco India. I was given the designation of Project Manager for Hotels.com when they took their own person out of the process and gave me their responsibilities. I was later deemed the Project Manager according to Majesco US. I had one resource reporting to me in the US and 8 resources reporting to me in India. I worked from home since the beginning of the assignment so that I could balance my time between the two time zones according to each group’s needs.

I was hired as an employee when the previous contract with Aon Direct Group ended and the system was taken over by Affinity. I was Technical Team Lead on this system and was instrumental in the startup of four countries, twelve business partners, and seven telemarketing agencies. I continued to learn about the AS/400 environments and became more comfortable with RPG IV which I learned during my last two years. I worked remotely from the beginning of this position based on previous history while a consultant. I made periodic visits to the office in Pennsylvania when needed. The users were spread around the world and I was accustomed to communicating via phone and email and translating technical information to meet the comfort level of the person I was communicating with. My final project was to assist an outsource company with replacing the system that I built and caused my job to end in July 2004.

Us

I was contracted via Resulte to Hotels.com to work on their COBOL/AS400 systems. I worked primarily in their maintenance group fixing things in the system that were reported by the users. Was given role of Technical Lead and participated in a transition team to transition work to a company in India.

Under my own company’s name, I was contracted to Aon Direct Group to build a telemarketing leads management system and roll it out to support two countries at startup. This was developed on an AS/400 using COBOL with embedded SQL and AS/400 knowledge was obtained at that time. This system was designed and built with one other consultant with minimal user intervention and delivered on schedule with minimal problems. Also worked closely with Marketing and the telemarketing agencies to start telemarketing operations in those two countries. Beginning in July 1999, I worked remotely until the end of the contract with occasional face to face visits as needed.

I was contracted through JTA to Enron for Y2K conversion effort. During that time became key resource to the Business Analysts in support and maintenance of their key systems exceeding expectations by consistently delivering projects under budget and ahead of schedule. This was an IBM Mainframe environment.

Plano, Texas, Us

I worked in an IBM Mainframe environment coding in COBOL with extensive use of JCL, TSO, ISPF, and DB2 with some exposure to IMS. Primary responsibility was implementing, maintaining, and enhancing a telemarketing leads management system playing a critical role in the analysis, design, and implementation of the projects related to that system. Additionally worked on their financial and policy administration systems.