BizRules Blog

I’m a very lucky guy.

First, I met my lovely wife Michelle. That was the luckiest thing and the best thing that ever happened to me.

Second, I have been lucky and fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to work on many advanced technologies and be on the leading edge of technology.

2000 – present

• Served as IBM’s Business Rules SME and Business Rules Architect on the largest civilian systems modernization plan in history, the 15-year $10 billion IRS PRIME CADE Business Systems Modernization Project
• Assisting companies, such as a Fortune 500 transportation company, with their BRE evaluation, short-list and BRE RFP selection projects
• Leading BIZRULES business rule consulting engagements. See: Customer list

1999 – CES started doing business as BizRules.com

1998-1999

• Learned about real-time OLTP reservation systems while consulting for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines (RCCL)

1997

• Served as EDS Canada's AION Business Rules Consultant. Helped design and program the Business Rules in Canada's $400 million Income Security Program Redesign (ISPR) Project. (ISP is equivalent to the United States Social Security System). This was my Y2K project, and my first business systems modernization project

1995-1996

• Learned how to manage offshore/outsourced projects while consulting for Burger King

1995 – Founded Competitive Edge Systems Inc. (CES)

1994 June-Dec

• Learned how to manage offshore projects while working for BAESA, the Pepsi-Cola bottler in Brazil

During six years at Mobil Oil between 1988-1994:

• Learned how to work with and interview subject matter experts
• Learned object-oriented analysis & design (OOA/OOD) and object oriented programming (OOP)
• Learned how to program object-oriented systems using AION, a completely object-oriented programming language
• Learned how to program expert systems using AION
• Learned how to do Knowledge Acquisition, Knowledge Representation, and Knowledge Engineering
• Learned how to plan, estimate, control, manage, and deliver international projects

1986-1988 While working on a Master of Science in Computer Information Systems with a Concentration in Artificial Intelligence from the UM School of Business (this was equivalent to an MBA degree and studying AI from the practical, business perspective)

• Learned a lot about A.I, expert systems, knowledge engineering, and knowledge management during graduate school
• Started developing a knowledge engineering methodology that would later evolve into the BIZRULES® VISION™ business rule methodology
• Started free-lance writing

1983-1986 While working on a Bachelor of Science in Systems Analysis from the University of Miami School Business:

• Became an INGRES DBA
• Apple released the Lisa computer. I played with Lisa. It had a GUI and a mouse. Forget the amber screen on the VT-100 and the VAX. Lisa was cool and it was the new thing
• Apple released the Mac. My first personal computer was a Mac Plus
• Started learning about Expert Systems, and Artificial Intelligence. This was the new new thing in the 1980s. This was the beginning of the Expert System Hype Cycle. I was hooked again.

1980-1983 During high school in Miami-Dade County:

• My best friend Marc had a TRS-80 and we both got hooked on micro-computers and computer games
• Learned to use the Xerox Star. This had an Ethernet network, the first laser printer, a mouse, a real GUI, the works. This was the first truly object–oriented system that I had ever seen. This is the same system that Steve Jobs saw at Xerox, that inspired him to invent the Mac.
• Learned to program INGRES relational database management systems (RDBMS)
• Learned how to do Digital BASIC programming on a DEC VAX 11/780
• Learned how to do event-driven programming on the Mac