Ricky Ricks Email & Phone Number

Cary, Nc

Support Fuels and Power Optimization Department with business and technology initiatives utilizing Lean best practices for continuous improvement.* Led cross-functional team including Coal Procurement, Strategic Engineering, and IT through initial business requirements, management approval, and enhancement phases for Coal Fuel Evaluator application, which is used for evaluating hundred-million dollar coal purchases.* Facilitated Lean Rapid Improvement Events that mapped current and future state process flows and identified gaps. Managed completion of Lean Value Stream Analysis projects.* Served as Business Liaison between business functions and IT to determine requirements, conduct testing, and implement multiple technology upgrades.* Led team through evaluation and reduction of ICE licenses, resulting in savings of $6000/month.

Served as liaison across business leaders in Operations, IT, Risk, Compliance, and Legal departments to understand business strategy and goals and translate them into actionable technological solutions.* Led cross-functional team from specification through testing and delivery of the largest Mortgage Insurance software initiative at the time - a comprehensive underwriting platform that increased underwriter productivity and lowered underwriting errors by 75%.* Initiated standardization of functional specifications and test planning, tracking, and measurability across the team that led to 30% boost in efficiency.* Created and implemented "Packaged Support" that provided centralization of 2nd Tier Call Support for all supported systems and vastly improved support documentation across the systems resulting in improved cross-training and knowledge transfer.* Led 5-person team through nearly 300 annual projects that resulted in well supported and maintained systems across Operations.* Initiated efforts to adopt automated testing using Compuware's QA Center suite of tools in order to raise the best practice standard across the Operations Technology team.* Took over software and relationship management with external LOS vendor Dexma that resulted in revitalized business relationship, greatly improved software quality, significant reduction of production issues, maximizing business operations availability and minimizing support costs by 70%. This included key contract renewal negotiations.* Trained and mentored team members, end users, other managers, and support personnel regarding best practices for requirements and testing, new system functionality, and system enhancements.

Performed business analysis, ascertained system objectives, requirements, and specifications, managed software application project status and timelines, coordinated internal and external resources, communicated across departments and management.* Created system requirements documents and process maps for multiple system interfaces for a new underwriting system and a new billing system; The resulting documents led to adoption of new project rigor efficiencies within the organization.* Delivered extensive billing system for NCEMC, Raleigh, NC within tight deadlines that resulted in accurate billing for a new electrical power cost structure for negotiated blocks of power.

Determined system requirements, wrote web applications and business object components for various industries, including pharmaceutical, construction, and chemical. The applications employed ASP, server-side scripting with VB script, client-side scripting with VB script and Java script, HTML, cascading style sheets, VB com objects, COM+, and IIS.* Developed processes for transferring, importing, and exporting files and data for the Center for Creative Learning through use of FTP, SQL Server DTS packages/stored procedures, and VB.* Managed internal, mission-critical time and expense entry, reporting, and billing system for consulting company OnSphere. Designed and developed expense reporting components for the system, supported users, and provided necessary maintenance and enhancements.

Managed programmers and project leaders in dynamic organization, facilitated work efficiency and career development, held annual performance reviews, and recommended salary action. Also managed client relationships/expectations, staffed projects, and tracked project/budget status.* Performed system analysis and wrote system requirements documents that resulted in customer satisfaction through meeting customer requirements.

Performed project management, estimating, database and system analysis/design, programming, customer support, maintenance, software testing, technical writing, and end-user training for multiple customers and industries.