paul l. tomlinson

Professional		Personal
resume technology ⌊ torpor contact me I work in technology because I love it. I started tinkering at a very young age, disassembling and reverse-engineering everything I could until I understood how and why it worked. Eventually that tinkering included (often functional) re-assembly, then modification and synthesis, and finally a proficient skill. Computers opened up new levels of exploration, opportunities to tinker with logical execution in low-cost and low-risk environments; we were fortunate to have one in the home well in advance of the curve due to my father's university affiliations, and I was hooked. So much so that the family locked me out of the system for my own good (which only lasted until I wrote a program which mimicked the authentication and used it to capture the credentials). I started building my own machines out of scrounged hardware, mostly by working as a tech on those of others, and formalized my entry into the world of software development at age 14. Some time later, as BBSs and networks came into vogue I was plugged into the academic web, witnessing the introduction of HTML and browsers (an endeavor I wrote off as folly, requiring a “helper app” to decode and display, in turn requiring maintenance of a cross-platform code base in a world where the desktop OS had yet to be decided; I'm happy to have been wrong, of course). The tinkering tendencies remained as I entered software development as a profession, this time focused on the process and organization of development itself. In an effort to improve not only the task at hand but also the means of its genesis I rose quickly through the ranks into areas of technical leadership. Finally I was in a position where the only additional improvement to be had required better integration of software development as a functional resource into the business organization, with appropriate business experience and acumen as a gateway to that undertaking. The tech-economy crunch touched off by the dot-com bust in 2001 provided ample opportunity to improve on this effort: by observing the commonalities and differences in various managerial themes at several organizations and how they addressed their challenges, I learned from a broad range of successes and failures. Armed with this diverse exposure I have since been able to repeatedly earn the respect of peers and assume positions of leadership, build teams and departments from scratch, and continue the analyze—improve—ascend cycle in progressive responsibilities and commensurate seniority in some of the largest and most advanced companies on the globe (see resume for details). I look forward to more of the same in the years to come, and making the associations and connections that are the natural extension. If there's anything I can do to be of service please let me know! ~ fin ~	bio blog music photography writing contact me Hello and welcome! Glad you could make it; are you new here? Let me show you around. At left is short professional teaser / introduction, and related “you should hire me” links. To the right are those links of a less professional nature, meaning both “amateur” and “not especially affiliated with my employment nor employability.” Not all of them are strictly part of this site, either; the blog is nearby, hosted on the same server though at a different subdomain, and has a pronouncedly different look and feel (the Wordpress templates have better design skills than I), and the photography actually belongs to my wife (and is professional, just not mine — I simply help with post production and tech support). I specifically refer you to the bio, which gives nice facts and details about who and where I am (generally useful for verifying that you've got the right Paul Tomlinson, of which there are apparently a great many) and the contact form, which provides the means and tokens to get in touch with me however may seem best to you. The blog will contain the most regularly updated information while the rest of this is fairly static, capturing distilled bits every now and then but is otherwise a very slowly growing self-satisfied museum (not trying to be vain, but it is a website about me after all; how else would you classify it?). The music and writing sections house some of my works in their respective media, along with metadata about their synthesis and my affiliations and preferences generally. Beyond that, thank you for taking the time to visit, and especially for making it to the end of my drivel! Look around, have a good time, drop me a line and let me know what I can do for you (or if anything's broken). ~ fin ~

Professional

Personal

I work in technology because I love it. I started tinkering at a very young age, disassembling and reverse-engineering everything I could until I understood how and why it worked. Eventually that tinkering included (often functional) re-assembly, then modification and synthesis, and finally a proficient skill.

Computers opened up new levels of exploration, opportunities to tinker with logical execution in low-cost and low-risk environments; we were fortunate to have one in the home well in advance of the curve due to my father's university affiliations, and I was hooked. So much so that the family locked me out of the system for my own good (which only lasted until I wrote a program which mimicked the authentication and used it to capture the credentials).

I started building my own machines out of scrounged hardware, mostly by working as a tech on those of others, and formalized my entry into the world of software development at age 14. Some time later, as BBSs and networks came into vogue I was plugged into the academic web, witnessing the introduction of HTML and browsers (an endeavor I wrote off as folly, requiring a “helper app” to decode and display, in turn requiring maintenance of a cross-platform code base in a world where the desktop OS had yet to be decided; I'm happy to have been wrong, of course).

The tinkering tendencies remained as I entered software development as a profession, this time focused on the process and organization of development itself. In an effort to improve not only the task at hand but also the means of its genesis I rose quickly through the ranks into areas of technical leadership. Finally I was in a position where the only additional improvement to be had required better integration of software development as a functional resource into the business organization, with appropriate business experience and acumen as a gateway to that undertaking.

The tech-economy crunch touched off by the dot-com bust in 2001 provided ample opportunity to improve on this effort: by observing the commonalities and differences in various managerial themes at several organizations and how they addressed their challenges, I learned from a broad range of successes and failures. Armed with this diverse exposure I have since been able to repeatedly earn the respect of peers and assume positions of leadership, build teams and departments from scratch, and continue the analyze—improve—ascend cycle in progressive responsibilities and commensurate seniority in some of the largest and most advanced companies on the globe (see resume for details).

I look forward to more of the same in the years to come, and making the associations and connections that are the natural extension. If there's anything I can do to be of service please let me know!

~ fin ~

bio blog music photography writing contact me

Hello and welcome! Glad you could make it; are you new here? Let me show you around.

At left is short professional teaser / introduction, and related “you should hire me” links. To the right are those links of a less professional nature, meaning both “amateur” and “not especially affiliated with my employment nor employability.” Not all of them are strictly part of this site, either; the blog is nearby, hosted on the same server though at a different subdomain, and has a pronouncedly different look and feel (the Wordpress templates have better design skills than I), and the photography actually belongs to my wife (and is professional, just not mine — I simply help with post production and tech support).

I specifically refer you to the bio, which gives nice facts and details about who and where I am (generally useful for verifying that you've got the right Paul Tomlinson, of which there are apparently a great many) and the contact form, which provides the means and tokens to get in touch with me however may seem best to you.

The blog will contain the most regularly updated information while the rest of this is fairly static, capturing distilled bits every now and then but is otherwise a very slowly growing self-satisfied museum (not trying to be vain, but it is a website about me after all; how else would you classify it?). The music and writing sections house some of my works in their respective media, along with metadata about their synthesis and my affiliations and preferences generally.

Beyond that, thank you for taking the time to visit, and especially for making it to the end of my drivel! Look around, have a good time, drop me a line and let me know what I can do for you (or if anything's broken).

~ fin ~