Brian Cryer’s Career
Career Summary
In reverse chronological order:
- Active Informatics
- De La Rue
- National Remote Sensing Centre
- Racal Communications Systems Limited
- Comsult
Active Informatics Ltd (From March 2003)
Active Informatics Ltd (Active) are a GIS consultancy specialising in "Geographic and demographic data, systems and consultancy". They provide innovative and powerful geographic and demographic information systems and consultancy.
Active Informatics was formerly known as ACTIVE Solutions Europe Ltd, having changed their name in May 2012.
Significant projects include:
| October 2012 | Commissioned a new Windows 2012 server to replace the old
Windows 2003/Exchange 2003 server.
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| September 2012 | Initiated the successful introduction of Agile/Scrum to
Active. Started a new project to enhanced Active's Intuition (student services) product to introduce budgeting capabilities. |
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| April 2012 | Rolled out a significant enhancement to the error reporting
framework used in each of Active's web-based products.
Previously errors and warnings (not that there should be any!)
were logged to the event log. The enhancement means that in
addition, these are now (subject to some filtering) emailed back
to the relevant developer. Allowing alerting of issues in near
real-time.
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| February 2012 | Project to re-launch Active Profiler, replacing the old
Education Profiler with a new totally refreshed site with new
functionality. New site went live May 2012 (www.activeprofiler.co.uk)
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| February 2012 | Started to deploy dedicated virtual test servers, with each
one being a close image for each of our dedicated servers.
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| May 2011 | Development of a small application to assist customers with
regular data uploads to our servers. Multithreaded, supporting FTPS and
web-services for the upload (some clients could not use FTPS
because of firewall issues at their end), running off the
Windows task scheduler. The idea being to make the regular data
upload as idiot proof as reasonably possible.
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| December 2010 | Production of a small suite of desktop data conversion tools
for converting between different (US state plane) coordinate projection systems.
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| March 2010 | Mini project to commission a new server for internal use.
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| December 2009 | Intuition Student Services - sole developer for a new
product aimed at Student Services. Intuition provides
coordinated record keeping and reporting on students, taking
data feeds from the college's management information systems to
provide a single source of information for student services. http://intuition.activesol.co.uk
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| February 2009 | World Class Skills website tool - to allow education
providers to identify their effectiveness in engaging with local
businesses.
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| June 2008 | Extending the SEERA Data-Hub to allow local authorities to enter their own data for regional questionnaires. | ||||
| March 2008 | Extending desktop mapping products to include background
raster mapping. This included Travel Time Boundaries and other
desktop products.
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| January 2008 | Mini project to ensure that a backup of databases on remote
servers was always available in the office. Using logic to
generate deltas of backup files on the server, compressing these
and then FTP'ing them each night.
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| June 2007 | Successfully delivered a new website data tool for SEEDA.
This tool allows uses to upload their own data and interrogate
it on a map, chart or tabulate it.
Migrated previously developed mapping engine from using SVG to Flash for map rendering.
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| September 2006 | Completed a new website for Active which allows profiles of
students within the catchment radius of schools, colleges and
universities to be profiled, thereby providing better market
intelligence to those establishments. This information is
presented on maps using SVG (subsequently upgraded to Flash).
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| November 2005 | Migration of email system from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2003. | ||||
| October 2005 | Responsible for the orderly migration of IT systems as the company relocated to new offices, and migration of user accounts from NT4 domain to new Windows 2003 AD domain. | ||||
| May 2005 | Design and development of a web based mapping and reporting
modules to be used internally by a consultancy client as part of
a bigger system.
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| November 2004 | Design and development of a secure intranet website providing
indicator data for various URCs in England. This allows a URC to
monitor its effect on urban regeneration for their target geographic
area over time.
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| July 2004 | Design and development of a web site for the London Development
Agency, providing views of demographic data across London by interactive
map, chart or tabular report. Requiring conformance to W3C (AA)
accessibility standards.
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| January 2004 | Development of a CD based application ("Active Profiler") for
the sales force of a large pharmaceutical company. This provided
reporting functions and interactive maps utilising geographic based
incident data, demographic data and sales data across the UK.
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| December 2003 | Seconded to the Professional Services team to provide key skill
consultancy and support for a number of projects.
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| October 2003 | Taken on the additional role of IT Manager within Active. This
is in addition to the development role, which remains the primary
focus. New role gives responsibility for maintaining the IT infrastructure
and equipment within Active, including support for broadband and
providing VPN access to select individuals.
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| September 2003 | Responsible for writing the company's Software Development Strategy and, in consultation with others, for developing the strategic developments plan setting out where Active's software development will take the company over the coming years. | ||||
| March 2003 | Initial focus has been to take on the future development of
Active's Travel Time
Boundary product. This product provides planning and routing
capabilities, one of its main strengths is the ability to accurately
plot detailed travel time information from points on a map - an
example of this would be for planning the location of ambulance
sites to minimize travel time to incidents, another example would
be to help plan the location of new facilities by taking into account
the travel times of the local population.
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De La Rue (August 1997 to August 2002)
Initially with De La Rue Identity Systems which after a restructure because part of De La Rue Global Services. Located in Basingstoke, Hampshire, they develop and sell passport, ID card, Driving License and similar identity production systems to governments around the world.
Initially a team leader role, subsequently promoted to Software Engineering Manager. Variety of projects, some on-going. Bid-support as necessary. Process improvements. Staff recruitment.
Significant project work and career development:
| July 2002 | Design and initial implementation of upgrade to Angola Passport
system, including link to airport immigration system. The intention
being for the system to verify against the passport system the legitimacy
of all Angolan passports and display the holder's image when an
Angolan passes through immigration.
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| March 2002 | Enhancements to Immigration system at Luanda Airport (Angola).
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| February 2002 | Revamp of department backup policy, specifically to allow work on laptops (which may only have intermittent network connection) to be backed up as part of the regular backup. | ||||||
| August 2001 | Confirmed in new role as Software Engineering Manager. Primary responsibilities now management, planning, mentoring and support of other engineers. Secondary responsibilities include technical support for bids, staff recruitment, process improvements and support. | ||||||
| May 2001 |
Reduced hands-on work, more emphasis on mentoring junior team members and overseeing project work.
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| December 2000 |
Passport and ID card system for Bahrain. Central site with one remote image capture and data entry station, utilising their existing WAN. ID card incorporating a PDF417 2D barcode containing a portion of the individual's data.
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| May 2000 | Promoted to Senior Team Leader.
Distributed Driving License and ID Card system for Jamaica. Six sites plus central archive, utilising the Government’s existing WAN. Replicated, distributed database.
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| April 2000 |
Stoplist and Stoplist Manager. Complete reengineering of existing stoplist and stoplist Manager. The stoplist (sometimes called a black-list) is a list of people who should not be permitted to enter or leave a country or who should not be issued with a document. Reengineering provided more efficient and maintainable system. Work included: Schema re-design, stored procedures, triggers, data import, text and image manipulation.
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| February 2000 |
Upgrade to Malta passport system. Upgrade to database from Oracle 7.3.4 to Oracle 8.1.5. System upgrade to incorporate digital imaging. Work included: data migration and schema updates.
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| September 1999 |
Swaziland Passport and ID Card system. Development based around De La Rue's internally developed MIDIS system (Multiple Identity Document Issuing System).
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| November 1998 |
Singapore Passport Project. Primary areas of responsibility: Oracle Parallel Server, Oracle Standby Server, proving performance and fault tolerance of system to customer’s satisfaction.
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| August 1997 | Joined as a team leader.
Immigration system for Luanda Airport, Angola. IMMIS: Integrated Multiple Module Immigration System. Generic system intended as optional extra to customers buying a system for producing machine readable passports.
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Other non-project responsibilities:
- Internal auditor (for the Quality System, 1999 to 2002)
- Fire Warden (2000-2002)
- Health and Safety staff representative (2001-2002)
National Remote Sensing Centre (August 1996 to August 1997)
The National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC, now known as 'Infoterra', ) is located in Farnborough. They are involved in most aspects of remote sensing, notably satellite and aircraft imaging.www.infoterra-global.com
| April 1997 to August 1997 |
Promoted to role of Software Manager. Working on
the same project as before. Same responsibilities for software component
within the ARF System, but in addition:
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| August 1996 to March 1997 |
Analyst to develop the architectural and detailed
design of the Manage Archive component of the Envisat ARF. The ARF
is an archiving and retrieval facility, forming part of the ground
segment for the European Space Agency’s Envisat satellite scheduled
to be launched at the end of the decade. The Manage Archive component
provides the major system interfaces to other ground segment facilities
and is responsible for co-ordination and control of the other major
components within the ARF.
Responsibilities include:
The software was developed on a combination of Suns and AIX machines, with PCs being used for project documentation. The system was designed using Yourdon and implemented using C++. |
Racal Communications (December 1993 to July 1996)
Racal Communications Systems Limited (RCSL) are located in Bracknell, although initially the work was based at Reading.
| January 1995 to July 1996 |
Principal Engineer. Leader of a new team to produce
embedded software for a circuit card assembly to be installed in
customer equipment. The card provides external interfaces to a radio
via a cryptographic unit and uses a shared memory interface to communicate
with another card in the customer equipment. The software also includes
a protocol for near error free (radio) transmission to a second
unit in a fading environment. Responsibilities included:
The SRS, SDD and software development proceeded primarily using the object-oriented development tool ‘OMT/StP’. The target system was 68000 based and the software was developed using C++. |
| December 1993 to December 1994 |
Senior Engineer. Joined an existing team working
to produce a suite of embedded systems that would form part of a
secure communications network for military use (SCRA - Single Channel
Radio Access).
Responsibilities included:
The target system is 68000 based (68332). Most of the software development was performed on Sun Sparc workstations running OpenLook windows and Unix IV. Development was undertaken using C++ (using ObjectCenter GUI and command line tools) and a Microtec cross compiler. Other tools used included a HP 68332 emulator and FrameMaker for documentation. |
Comsult (October 1988 to November 1993)
Comsult (www.comsult.co.uk) is a partnership based in Bedford. Most of my time working for Comsult was spent at a customer site in Tadley, Buckinghamshire.
| June 1993 to November 1993 |
Analyst Programmer. Joined an existing team working
to provide accurate vehicle position information based on GPS and
Dead Reckoning. Responsibilities included:
The target system used an embedded 80186 processor. Software development proceeded primarily on PC/ATs using Borland C++. |
| December 1990 to May 1993 |
Analyst Programmer. Acting Project Manager on a
project to replace an existing customer system with an enhanced,
quality assured and expandable system. The replacement was required
to be based around a portable PC, which drives an external stepper
motor and interface with various detectors. The system collects
time critical data, makes decisions and drives the motor whilst
simultaneously providing the user with the facility to review or
analyse data already collected. Three customer staff were made available
on an as-required basis for support and development of the necessary
hardware.
Responsibilities included:
The system was designed using an Object Oriented approach and implemented using Borland C++. |
| March 1989 to November 1990 |
Senior Programmer. Relocated to work on a customer
site at AWE (Aldermaston). Highly classified work requiring security
clearance. Working within a small team on a data capture, analysis
and retrieval system on a Micro VAX II running VAX/VMS. Primarily
using VAX Fortran with some PC work using Microsoft C.
Responsibilities included:
These required use of Asynchronous System Traps, VAX Screen Manager, System and Library routines. |
| October 1988 to February 1989 |
Responsible for software design, documentation and (later) software support, including customer liaison, for a PC/AT based flight simulator. This was a two man project using Turbo Pascal. The system was required to operate either standalone or interfaced with external customer equipment. |