Christopher Robison

Turning ideas into reality.

Summary

I love to code. There I've said it. Sure, I have a unique blend of technical know-how, leadership skills, and business acumen but my lifelong love is for coding. A little background about me: I have extensive experience in software engineering plus I've learned that I have a special skill: leading groups of unruly programmers. I am also skilled in a wide range of programming languages, including JavaScript, C, C++, Java, Python, Swift, Kotlin, Rust, Go and others. I have a proven track record of successfully meeting deadlines and delivering code that is robust and well tested. Most recently, I brought D. Harris Tours, a small transportation company, into the 21st century by modernizing their operations, resulting in a fleet expansion from 2 to 12 buses and a corresponding 10X increase in revenue. I could go on but I'm afraid I've said too much already 😁

Experience

CTO

D. Harris Tours, Inc. | https://dharristours.com/ | Feb 2020 - Jun 2024 (4 years 4 months)

Designed and implemented a end-to-end transportation management system
- CRM
- Scheduling (Drivers & Buses)
- Automated Notifications (Phone, Email or SMS)
- GPS Tracking of Assets
- Invoicing
- Payment Collection
- Customer Portal
Spearheaded technological transformation and business processes that allowed D Harris to grow from a fleet of two buses to 14(!) buses.
Updated and enhanced the company's systems with modern tools to better manage the growing business, including real-time bus data, automated maintenance notifications, and automated trip confirmations and notifications via email and SMS.
Implemented route optimization algorithm to identify opportunities for one bus to handle multiple trips, increasing their daily revenue by 30%.
Implemented automated notifications for trips, bus maintenance, and billing and invoicing.

(Re)defined processes and procedures for quoting, fulfilling and invoicing trips
Automated email/SMS notifications for trips, driver confirmations, bus maintenance
Automated billing and invoicing
Implemented USDOT required digital format driver logs
Increased daily revenue with better trip optimization

Manager, Software Engineering

Conversant, Inc. | https://conversantmedia.com | Jul 2010 - Feb 2020 (9 years 7 months)

Designed, developed, and maintained the infrastructure and code-base that served many millions of mobile and rich media ads each day. Led the Rich Media effort and helped modernize the ad serving infrastructure and metric collection. Designed and implemented a RESTful API for serving rich media ads and built out scalable backend services to handle integration with existing servers and infrastructure.

Contributed to IAB MRAID 2.0 standard
Implemented MRAID SDK's on iOS and Android platforms
Developed and deployed mobile ad solutions for multiple platforms.
Designed and deployed 'Rich Media' ad delivery and reporting infrastructure.
Architected and deployed RESTful API for ad serving, tracking metrics and reporting.
Developed client-side Javascript 'ad controller' for mobile and web
Developed flexible metrics tracking with non-blocking endpoints
10 years

Web Architect

Mindjet | https://www.mindjet.com | Sep 2007 - Jul 2010 (2 years 10 months)

Led Mindjet's initial Software as a Service (SaaS) product, Mindjet Catalyst. Transformed Mindjet's business model with the new service nearly doubling monthly revenue.

Ported PHP website to ASP.NET
Ported Catalyst Flash client to standards based HTML5/canvas
Architected and led the team that implemented Mindjet Catalyst

CEO / Founder

Simple Software, Inc. | http://simplesoftwaresf.com | Apr 2006 - Sep 2007 (1 year 5 months)

Mr. Robison provided contracted software development and consulting, developed the Simple Software Application Platform that provided content management systems and business process management applications to small to mid-sized businesses.

GC Homes - Contractor documents and blueprints online.
Bay Docs - Document preparation services and tools for generating documentation for reverse mortgages
HUD Calculator - calculates potential reverse mortgage values
Tzero Technology - Custom content management system
Metrika - Custom content management system

VP Engineering

Genetic Savings & Clone | Jun 2004 - Apr 2006 (1 year 10 months)

Genetic Savings & Clone was a genetic services company that offered commercial banking of genetic material as well as cloning services for cats. Responsible for architecting, developing and deploying Clonesoft, a bespoke business process automation software that ran every aspect of the company including employee and customer management, order tracking, tracking clone progress, and delivering the cloned pet to the customer.

Cloned a cat and delivered it to customer
Clonesoft - Architected and implemented web-based business process application that was used to manage the animal gene banking and feline cloning business and automated many processes.
CatBank - http://www.catbank.org/ Designed and developed database driven feline DNA identification website. Back-end requirements included integration with specialized gene analysis hardware which included the Applied Biosystem Genetic Analyser 3130.
Created and analized pet genotyping database, identifying 7 unique markers for traits such as Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD), fur color, and polydactylism (6-toed cat).
Integration with gene analysis and sequencing hardware.
Retro vs. Metro - http://www.retrovsmetro.org/ Implemented all backend code for this online companion website to the New York Time's bestseller: Retro vs. Metro - The Great Political Divide in America. Required access and aggregation of various data items scattered across the Internet (such as the Iraq war dead count and real-time government deficit counter)

Technical Director

Inter@ctivate, Inc. | Dec 2001 - Jun 2004 (2 years 6 months)

As Technical Director for Interactivate, Inc., Mr. Robison's responsibilities were extensive and included, but were not limited to managing and maintaining IT resources including customer applications and websites. Help grow the company from 10 to 65 employees.

Designed and architected network infrastructure using both Windows servers and various legacy Unix boxes. Built out server clusters and managed a farm of over 60 machines including a SAN.
Designed and implemented web-based network management, monitoring & systems analysis tools
Developed web-based tools for creation and maintenance of customer websites, DNS, and email services.
Designed and developed email marketing application using 3 tier architecture and XML and XSLT for transporting and rendering email messages and associated web pages. As of December, 2003, the Activatemail system sends and tracks over 1,000,000 requested messages per day between 89 clients including Sunkist Growers, The California Avocado Commission, San Diego Zoo and many more.
Setup automated development environment which allows Interactivate developers to create their own dedicated web sandboxes via a web interface. Automated CVS checkouts and local network mounts to development sandboxes rounded out this implementation.
Installation & administration of Solaris, FreeBSD & Windows NT in a heterogeneous environment
Design, implementation, migration and maintenance for Interactivate's internal and external network infrastructure.
Working with vendors, developers & 3rd party integrators.
Maintain and monitor over 50 hosted client web sites and dozens of web applications
Identifying & resolving network related problems
Responsible for backup implementation and recovery strategy & procedures
Required to support high volume access & availability characteristics as well as identifying & resolving system hardware & software problems
Responsible for the full availability of DNS, SMTP, HTTP, POP & IMAP servers
Maintaining security for all Interactivate networks

Volunteer

Esteemed Leading Knight / House Committee Chair

San Francisco Elks Lodge #3 | Apr 2010 - Apr 2011 (1 year)

As Leading Knight and House Committee Chair I was responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Lodge restaurant and bar as well as organizing and holding events to raise money for local underprivileged children. During my tenure as House Committee Chair, with the help of the SFPD, we were able to build 100 bicycles to give as Christmas presents to children which were very well received. We raised over $34,000 for the children in that year.

Awards

Computer Science Award | Jun 1988 | Paradise High School

First recipient of the Paradise High School "Computer Science Award" for developing a data application to track school resources that ran on an Apple IIe.

Languages

English | Native or bilingual

Interests

Hobbies

Making stuff 3D Printing Raspberry Pi Arduino Laser engraving Electronics
Recreation

Golf Recreational Programming Karaoke

References

Chris has a broad understanding of Internet technologies and is generous with knowledge sharing. Equally at home working with Web Services, XMPP and server-side applications as he is working with CSS, JavaScript and the most recent HTML5 for devices. He brings a lot to a Web dev team and can pinch hit in a number of chairs.

— Kevin Ready (Software Developer and Consultant)

This guy has some seriously mad coding skills.

— Thomas Weaver (Network Provisioner at Twitch)

His system is well oil; all my web services are working with no downtime. He offers all the greatest gadgets, ideal environment for a programmer like me.

— Benoit Marsot (Senior Developer R&D at Medsphere Systems Corporation)

Extreme knowledge of Perl and UNIX environment, fast programmer, brilliant manager.