KEITH A. OXENRIDER

Education and Certifications. Management/Marketing Experience. Programming Experience.
Scientific Experience. List of Employers. List of Publications.

Synopsis:

Keith Oxenrider has a diverse background (business management, biotechnology, production management, and computer optimization) that he is eager to bring to bear on solving complex problems. He has developed a strong interest in using sophisticated programming techniques (such as Evolutionary and Genetic Algorithms, Genetic Programming, and Machine Learning) to provide solutions to problems that are currently handled by human experts. With a very strong technical background (BS Biochemistry with over seven years laboratory experience; over 7 years of programming and project management experience on Windows and UNIX platforms), Mr. Oxenrider is well prepared for quickly assimilating new situations and developing novel solutions to complex problems.

Education and Certifications:

Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) December 2003 - December 2006


Master in Business Administration May 1995
The R.B. Pamplin College of Business
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University

• Research Focus: The use of an Evolutionary Algorithm to optimize assembly line launch orders
• Educational Focus: Entrepreneurship, High Growth Companies, Negotiation, Awareness of Contract Law and Corporate Law, and Management Control Systems

Pursued Master in Biochemistry 1993-1994
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University

Thesis: To design a de novo pyrophosphatase.

B.S. Biochemistry May 1991
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University

Management and Marketing Experience:

• Work experience with Lockheed Martin (previously Management System Designers) (5/2001 - 4/2003, 2/2004 - Present)
  For Voice of America: (6/2002)
  • Wrote a white paper discussing alternatives for bypassing censorship called "Peer-to-Peer Alternative for Disseminating IBB Information to Censoring Countries". Please see http://sol-system.com/censor/censor.htm to view a revised version of that document.
• Work experience with Sol Biotech Inc (5/2003 - 1/2004)
  • Wrote and submitted two SBIR grants to the NIH.
• Work experience with Computer Extension Professionals, Inc.: (5/98 – 4/2001)
  • Project manager under contract to KoSa (formerly Hoechst-Celanese's Trevira) polyester fiber plant in Shelby, NC.
    • Success with the initial portion of a shop floor data collection system called Production Data Interchange (PDI) lead to a call from senior plant management to extend PDI throughout the entire plant’s manufacturing process. The extension of PDI reached the stage where almost 80% of the manufacturing was under tracking control of PDI and the remaining 20% was expected to be included by Summer 2001. This system includes the use of hand-held scanners accessing the network via a remote frequency (RF) radio interface. The PDI system was documented to reduce headcount by 8 and save over $300,000 per year in labor costs.
    • Managed the conversion of MOMS (Machine Operation Management System, an HP based program written in Transact) to a Windows based interface written in Visual Basic 6 accessing a SQLServer 7 database called PDI utilizing a touch-screen interface and barcode scanning data entry. Deployed mid November 1999.
• Work experience with Vector Research, Inc.: (11/96 - 5/98)
  • Managed design and development of Lotus Notes in-house marketing information database.
  • Team Leader for a group (9 people of diverse backgrounds) tasked to develop marketing material lauding the past works of Vector Research and projecting their Solution Capability into the future.
  • Deputy Director of Testing and Technical Lead. Provided mentoring and motivation for testing personnel (6 people). Reviewed team’s test cases and test plans to verify documents met the test requirements.
  • Chair of Code-reuse committee: prepared a proposal to present to senior division management detailing the implementation of the hardware, software, and policy needed to create an atmosphere where good programming code can be maintained in a useable format to be easily assimilated into new or ongoing programming projects.
  • Initiated and developed an in-house marketing proposal to build a Materials Requirements Planning software package that included a built-in optimizer based on the Evolutionary Production Sequencer (Please see www.sol-system.com/eps).
  • Beginning first as assistant project leader, became acting project leader when current leader began 3-month maternity leave. Managed the flurry of activity surrounding the run up to product release, then, when the release was put on hold, wrote a plan to address the perceived shortcomings of the product. Put into place the approved changes to the existing product.
• On own and with partners:
  • (Summer ‘96 - Fall ‘96) Developed and marketed Management and Accounting Services, a consulting company.
  • (Spring ‘95 - Summer ‘95) Organized a team (including a senior project manager for a Fortune 50 company and a Professor at a major US University) to market and distribute self-developed production optimization software (The Evolutionary Production Sequencer, please see www.sol-system.com/eps). Was speaker for on-site presentations to potential customers of software.
  • (Fall ‘93 - Summer ‘94) Developed and marketed a proposal for building an ice arena near the campus of Virginia Tech. Was featured on a regional televised news broadcast and in regional and on-campus newspapers.
• As part of MBA education: (8/93 - 5/95)
  • Prepared strategic management analysis on Genentech, Inc. (among the first biotech companies formed, and still among the largest in size and revenues.)
  • Prepared business plan for creating a management consulting business focusing on facilitating business between US and Chinese companies.
• As the Plant Manager at Premier Chemicals: (1/87 - 8/88)
  • Developed and maintained production scheduling to meet demand subject to availability of raw materials.
  • Was directly responsible for production line design and implementation.
  • Oversaw inventory control and product quality control.
  • Implemented changes in SOPs to improve inventory and product quality control.

Programming Experience:

• Work experience with Lockheed Martin (previously Management System Designers) (5/2001 - 4/2003, 2/2004 - Present)
  Under contract with the National Center for Biotechnology Information: (5/2001 - 4/2003, 2/2004 - Present)
  • Using NCBI’s C++ toolkit to write various programs to extract, process, and load ASN.1 formatted data into an Entrez database.
  • Loading, extracting, and prepping genome data to/from Sybase and SQLServer utilizing C/C++, Perl and SQL scripts.
  • Optimizing processes (modified one process that took 16 hours to take less than 10 minutes).
  
  For Voice of America: (6/2000)
  • Wrote a proof-of-concept program to demonstrate the feasibility of bypassing web censorship; please see http://sol-system.com/cgi-bin/censor/censor.cgi.
• Work experience with Sol Biotech Inc (5/2003 - 1/2004)
  • Began writing a shift scheduling program that is Java/Web-based. Targeted toward scheduling nurses.
  • Began design of a protein fold prediction algorithm.
  • Collected bits of program source (mostly C++) and a few writeups on secure and performance programming here.
  • Acted as a mentor on several C/C++ developer forums (over 4,500 posts total) primarily at the Dev Shed with the handle 'mitakeet'.
• Experience with Computer Extension Professionals under contract with KoSa: (5/98 – 4/2001)
  • Acted as technical lead for Visual Basic and SQLServer development, providing design, performing code reviews, and ensuring adherence to standards. Mentored other developers, teaching them implementation details of Visual Basic, C/C++, ADO, and SQLServer.
  • Designed and implemented a generic database maintenance tool (in VB) that allows users full access to the database information that is within their scope. Access is protected by passwords and tables are restricted by groups.
  • Wrote a Server program in C++ to act as an interface for hand-held scanners. This program uses ADO to access the SQLServer 7 database.
  • Designed and coded approximately 70% of a series of Visual Basic 6.0 application interfaces for collecting manufacturing run-time information representing more than 77,000 lines of code, 115 forms, 22 user controls, and 28 modules. The applications, called as a group Production Data Interchange (PDI), interface with a SQLServer 7.0 database with near real-time visual display of collected data.
  • Acted as DBA for SQLServer 7.0 database during development, including the writing of stored procedures and triggers, loading data, and ensuring backups and other database maintenance.
  • Designed a Java application (Java version 1.1.6) to track work hours by developer and project. Application places this information into a restricted access database via password authentication.
• At Vector Research: (11/96 - 5/98)
  • As Testing Technical Lead, designed and implemented scripts and C programs to enhance the reproducibility of testing process and to allow creation of test data that contained the entire range of expected and the expected unexpected values.
  • Wrote a program to compare data stored in an ASCII file (containing more than 2.7 million records) with the contents of other ASCII files and modify those other files based on matches found in the first file. The C program processed more than 2,500 files containing more than 1.5 gigabytes of information in 3 hours.
  • Have written several C utility programs: to modify large (GB) flat ASCII files; to parse positional and delimited records from flat files; to change the contents of positional and delimited records for use in testing database loading programs.
  • Experienced writing and modifying SQL scripts to interact with records in a multi-table database.
• At Eagle Design and Management: (12/95 - 3/96)
  • Experienced with UNIX, SED, and AWK scripting to modify large (up to 100 MB) ASCII files for loading into a database.
  • With another programmer, and under extreme time pressure (less than 2 weeks), learned a proprietary new language, new compiler, new debugger, and used that to modify a program written in this language to successfully add certain functionality to the program.
• Self taught during MBA studies: (12/94 - Summer ‘95)
  • Designed and developed a C application called The Evolutionary Production Sequencer (Please see www.sol-system.com/eps), an algorithm for sequencing product launch orders for a mixed model assembly line. Required the creation of code to simulate an assembly line environment both with and without components being built in a Just-In-Time manner. Required the creation of new evolutionary algorithm modules in order to successfully evolve toward a solution. This research has led to two published abstracts and a full paper in Decision Sciences (See below).
• Experience gained on own:
  • (2/2001) Have written an on-line DNA Analysis tool in C++ that will translate or perform a restriction digest on a DNA sequence.
  • (10/2000) Wrote a program in Visual C++ to perform restriction digests and translations of DNA sequences and to simplify the design of overlapping sequences for gene construction.
  • (6/2000) Wrote and installed a medical package for The Mendoza Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic. This Visual Basic 6 / SQLServer 7 package is user configurable, allowing the medical practice to alter and track drug inventories, patient diagnoses, and the charges for each. The system includes patient billing and accounts receivable.
  • (1/99) Wrote CGI programs in C that protected access of encrypted server data via password authentication.
  • (Ongoing) Established and maintained a web site http://www.sol-system.com/ to experiment with different web techniques.
  • (Summer ‘97) Wrote a C prototype for a JAVA implementation of a Visual Evolutionary Algorithm. Please see The Visual EA Site (www.sol-system.com/vis_ea).
  • (Spring ‘97) Conceived of, designed, and developed a proof of concept algorithm (in C) demonstrating encryption using chaos with a key that was up to 90 bits long and with a practical key twice as long.
  • (Work begun early ‘96) Designed and coding (in C) an Evolutionary Algorithm based learning program designed to elucidate the rules behind the precise folding of the three dimensional structure of proteins.

Scientific Experience:

• Work experience with Sol Biotech Inc (5/2003 - 1/2004)
  • Began design work on an anti-freeze protein.
  • Began design work on a class of metal ion binding proteins.
  • Continued work on pyrophosphatase (see below).
  • Continued design work for the construction of molecular scale computing components.
• As a free-lance researcher (‘95):

  A second (first described below) de novo protein project was begun in spring of 1995 to design and express a synthetic anti- freeze protein. After similar design work as below, the gene was created by ligation of overlapping oligos, inserted into an E. coli plasmid and the production of the protein was induced. This effort was rewarded by the production of large (2-5% total protein) amounts of the de novo protein.

• As a student in the Master of Biochemistry program ('93-'94):

  Thesis project was to design and express a de novo protein that would fold into a three dimensional form that would have an active site for the catalysis of pyrophosphate into phosphate. The protein was first designed with accurate physical plastic models, then translated into coordinates to be used in a computer model. The computer model was subjected to simulated annealing. Modifications to the primary structure of the protein were made until the simulation indicated that the structure was stable. The primary sequence of the protein was translated into codons common to highly expressed E. coli proteins, oligos selected to represent the gene of the protein, the oligos PCRed to create the gene. After the gene was inserted into an E. coli plasmid the sequence was verified and the protein was induced.

• As a student and as a full-time laboratory employee (‘89-‘93):

  Various experience working with molecular biology techniques; DNA sequencing; PCR; extensive experience working with radioisotopes; normal and transformed animal cell culture; Archeabacterial, bacterial, and yeast cell culture; and protein purification.

• Published 4 papers. (See below)

List of Employers:

Senior Systems Analyst Feb. '04 - Present    Management System Designers Inc., Vienna, VA
President, PI          May  '03 - Jan. '04   Sol Biotech Inc., Silver Spring, MD
Senior Systems Analyst May  '01 - Apr. '03   Management System Designers Inc., Vienna, VA
Project Manager        May  '98 - Apr. '01   Computer Extension Professionals Inc., Columbia, SC
Senior Scientist       Nov. '96 - Apr. '98   Vector Research Inc., Arlington, VA
Computer Consultant    July '96 - Oct. '96   Management and Acct. Services, Fairfax, VA
Programmer II          Dec. '95 - Mar. '96   Eagle Design and Management, Bethesda, MD
Laboratory Specialist  May  '91 - Aug. '93   Virginia Tech, Blacksburg VA
Dragon Gunner          Feb. '89 - Oct. '92   VA Army National Guard
Plant Manager          Jan. '87 - Aug. '88   Premier Chemicals, Burke, VA
Compound Preparation   May  '87 - Nov. '87   Hazelton Labs, Vienna VA
Armorer                May  '82 - May  '88   US Marine Corps Reserve

List of Publications:

Robert T. Sumichrast, Keith A. Oxenrider, and Edward R. Clayton. "An Evolutionary Algorithm for Sequencing Production on a Paced Assembly Line". Decision Sciences Winter 2000 edition, 31(1): 149-172.

Robert T. Sumichrast, Keith A. Oxenrider, and Edward R. Clayton. "Assembly Lines: Aligning Assumptions with Reality". Pages 249-250. The Proceedings of the 24th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Chapter of DSI.

Keith A. Oxenrider, Eugene L. Oxenrider, Edward R. Clayton, and Robert T. Sumichrast. "Use of a Genetic Algorithm to Generate Product Sequences for a Mixed-Model Assembly Line". Pages 337-339. Proceedings of the 31st annual meeting of the Southeastern Chapter of the Institute of Management Sciences.

Keith A. Oxenrider, Madeline E. Rasche, Marc V. Thorsteinsson, and Peter J. Kennelly. "Inhibition of an Archeal Protein Phosphatase Activity by Okadaic Acid, Microcystin LR,or Calyculin A". 331(3): 291-295. FEBS Letters, 1993.

Keith A. Oxenrider and Peter J. Kennelly. "A Protein-serine Phosphatase from the Halophilic Archeon Haloferax volcanii". 194(3):1330-1335. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, 1993.

Peter J. Kennelly, Keith A. Oxenrider, Jei Leng, John S. Cantwell, and Ningyue Zhao. "Identification of a Serine/Threoning-specific Protein Phosphatase for the Archeabacterium Sulfolobus solfataricus". 268(9):6505-6510. The Journal of Biological Chemistry, 1993.

Keith A. Oxenrider, Guojun Bu, and Tomas O. Sitz. "Adenosine Analogs Inhibit the Guanine-7-Methylation of mRNA Cap Structures". 316(3):273-277. FEBS Letters, 1993.