Brian Carey

Skills and Experiences

I have an unusually diverse range of skills, knowledge and experience. From my first job as a stock boy at Kmart, where I was asked to join the Point of Sale implementation team at the store, later traveling to other stores as part of the corporate team, most of my experience revolves around the themes of new technology, process development and teaching.

I am project-oriented. In every professional role I’ve held, I have had to address challenges which required the development and introduction of new processes and technologies. Once things are running smoothly, or goals have been met, I’m ready to move on.

With the exception of Chinese Medicine and foreign languages, I have had no formal education in any of these topics, but over this time, I’ve acquired various knowledge and skills, including.

Most of my experiences here come from working at Autodesk in the 1990s, where I was first hired as Sr. Consolidations Account at the corporate headquarters in Marin County, California. There I was responsible for the consolidated financial statements and world-wide sales reporting. I then moved to the European Operations and Software Center in Neuchâtel, Switzerland where I first served as Sr. Financial Analyst, primarily responsible, among other things, for budgeting and forecasting. Subsequently I took a role in software development where I was world-wide manager of translation services, much of which was done through external vendors.

For context, Autodesk was a fast growing company with around $250 million in revenue when I joined in the early 1990’s and growing to nearly a billion when I left at the end of the decade. A new chairman and CEO, Carol Bartz, had just been hired, and systems and processes were rapidly changing and developing. In each position, there were initial challenges in designing these processes and selecting appropriate tools for each challenge.

I also owned and operated a medical clinic for 15 years which provided services to private patients as well as for the major insurance providers in New Mexico, including Blue Cross Blue Shield, United Health Care and Presbyterian, the largest New Mexico provider.

These are some significant professional achievements. Most involved both people management and technological challenges, all required novel solutions.

  • Reduced the time to close the corporate books each month by nearly half by providing subsidiaries, each having separate financial systems and local currencies, with appropriate tools for monthly reporting.
  • Developed a database system to process raw data from operational software and produce the monthly, world-wide sales reporting book containing summary and detailed unit and revenue sales and tracked the installed base of each product
  • Instituted a collaborative budgeting and forecasting process in Europe to empower managers to both meet targets and not miss opportunities
  • Wrote the successful business plan which was submitted to the Neuchâtel government to obtain a renewal of favorable tax treatment for research and development and operations. When I ultimately resigned, I was asked to do the same in Singapore before leaving
  • Successfully negotiated millions of dollars of refunds from and payments to external vendors who provided translation and engineering services while maintaining important relationships
  • Streamlined and rationalized the internal vendor selection process while developing a standard contract and bidding process for the vendors themselves
  • Created a team of Switzerland-based linguists responsible for glossaries and quality for the key languages German, French, Italian and Spanish. This presented significant motivational challenges due to internal reorganization.
  • Developed documentation for ISO 9000 certification and internal implementation of SAP

I’ve been engaged with computers since I started learning BASIC on a Commodore64 in the 1970s. Since then, the universe of computing has exploded, and I have remained constantly engaged with emerging technologies, learning new languages, operating systems, database systems, web applications, and more. Most of my work over the past few years is available in my GitHub repository. If you have questions or want details you can send me an email.

Using Linux I have run web servers and web apps, done system administration, programming in half a dozen languages, managed databases and APIs, built custom kernels, and many other things including day-to-day desktop applications. The answer to the common question “How do I learn Linux?” is simply “use it”.

I adopted Linux in the early ’90s when desktop it was just beginning to explode and chose Slackware, the oldest currently-maintaned distribution, as my distro of choice, which I kept with for two decades. Slackware had a reputation for rock-solid stability and configuration through text-file editing, meaning you must get under the hood and learn how everything works. At the time, it ran a large portion of the web servers on the internet.

I spent a year each with Debian and Ubuntu, and stuck with Fedora for a while after that, both the mutable and immutable versions.

Currently I run NixOS, a Linux entirely different in design than all of the others, based on graph storage for packages rather than relying on the FHS, and which is configured with a functional programming language. I have a number of articles on this site about why this is good and a major advance for Linux systems.

I began programming 40 years ago, and have learned and used many languages, including functional ones.

Python

My strongest language, I have used it for data science with the pandas/numpy ecosystem, web sites and applications in the Django framework, hosting APIs, and writing discord bots. I am comfortable with most of the advanced features, many having been ported from functional programming, which I also know. There are many examples of Python here on the site.

R

The first language I used for data science, and still my preferred for data science work. The “pipe” paradigm in particular allows for natural expression and clear workflows, and ggplot2 is fantastic. Using R is like using a tool very much fit-to-purpose.

Haskell

I learned Haskell in order to understand functional programming, and stuck with it because I found it to be perhaps the best language I have used. My experience here is purely academic, beyond designing a web site, and I would rate my skills as intermediate

JavaScript

I have used JavaScript primarily via frameworks including React/React Router, Svelte/Sveltekit and NextJS, as well as NodeJS. Beyond using it for websites and apps, my first data visualization projects used D3 with React and later Svelte. Examples can be found in my repository.

Perl

I learned Perl and CGI to design a browser-based, application for the local public schools. This was prior to JavaScript becoming dominant in web applications.

Other

My first programming job used Clipper, a dBase variant, in which I wrote a scheduling module for a chain of learning centers. The only computer class I ever took was in Pascal. I have a general knowledge of Rust.

I have been working with data analysis and modeling for two years, with a focus on geospatial applications. I am comfortable working in both R and Python, and am thoroughly familiar with a wide range of libraries and modules.

My primary focus is on comparative demographic and structural analysis such as income distribution, access to services, environmental and land use issues, and am currently working on projects for the Albuquerque area.

I’m currently writing a series comparing the use of R and Python for working with GPS data.

Databases

Comfortable with database design and interaction with relational databases including PostgreSQL, mariadb, and Sqlite. For example, I designed a system in Paradox to process raw shipping data into consolidated sales and unit reports, and a system in PostgreSQL to process testing data. I have used PostgreSQL for big data, and have also worked with non-relational databases.

\(LaTeX\)

I have used \(LaTeX\) for many purposes, including designing a 3 semester course covering over 1,000 medicinal substances.

HTML/CSS

I am comfortable and proficient in both, although CSS is changing so fast it is hard to keep up.

Multimedia

I work with GIMP, Krita, Inkscape, Audacity, Openshot and OBS Studio.

I have taught a wide variety of topics in settings large and small.

  • For over 10 years I taught Chinese Medicine at Southwest Acupuncture College, specializing in herbal medicine, diagnosis and differentiation. Most known for a three-semester cycle covering over 1,000 herbs, widely considered the most challenging classes in the curriculum. I describe the course in detail here
  • Conducted individual and small group trainings and workshops on topics including Linux, mathematics, literacy. Both in-person and on-line.
  • Wrote numerous articles on software use and programming, some aimed at beginners, some more advanced
  • Developed and delivered training materials for in-house use of both general and specialized software
  • Conducted on-going Qi Gong and Tai Chi classes at a local community center
  • Taught English at a language school Guatemala in a small-group setting

I am interested in linguistic studies including, but not limited to, human languages.

Regarding human languages, I am particularly interested, for example in the distinctions between dialects and languages, and in the ways genetic testing and linguistics can be used to trace human migration. Personally, I speak English and French fluently, and am proficient in Spanish and Italian. I have studied, but am not conversational in, German, Russian, Chinese, Yoruba and Egyptian heiroglyphics.

I speak Python and R with ease, and am proficient in Haskell and JavaScript. I have programmed in Perl, and have a working knowledge of Rust. Linguistically, I am interested in functional programming versus imperative programming, and in the linguistic borrowings between languages, Python’s increasing inclusion of functional paradigms being an example.

I am also interested in non-linguistic fields which have strong linguistic aspects. In particular, as a former professor of Chinese Herbal Medicine, I think that a didactic approach which recognizes the linguistic aspects of the field would be beneficial. I’m writing about it here

Here are some significant achievements from my professional life.

Title Description Categories Reading Time
Business Plan for Neuchâtel Government To obtain a new agreement for favorable tax treatment from the cantonal government, it was necessary to convince them that our activites were truly research and development. Financial, Technology 2 min
Closing the books Getting enthusiastic buy-in from international subsidiaries for new, aggressive reporting requirements. Management, Technology, Financial 3 min
Collaborative Forecasts Fostering financial literacy among department heads so as not to miss opportunities, and never miss targets. Management, Technology, Financial 2 min
High stakes negotiation As the Worldwide Vendor Manager for localization services at Autodesk, negotiation was a regular part of my job. My primary goals in that role were to control costs and… Financial, Management 6 min
Managing External Partnerships Developing a framework for externally-supplied translation and localzatin services at Autodesk required creating new internal processes and both controlling and cultivating vendors. Financial, Management 3 min
Motivating through change Major corporate reorganizations can be devastating to teams and individuals. I describe such a situation, and how I forged a highly-functioning team. Management 4 min
Sales Reporting The second major responsibility I had as Sr. Consolidations Accountant at Autodesk’s corporate headquarters was the monthly production of the Sales Book, a publication… Financial, Technology 2 min
TCM Clinic While practicing as a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, I ran a clinic which offered acupuncture, massage, and herbal therapy which served private and insured patients. Financial, Management, Chinese Medicine 2 min
Teaching Chinese Herbs Students must learn over 1,000 herbs before learning herbal prescriptions. They are required to learn Chinese names and Latin names, a huge challenge for American students. I describe techniques I used to aid them. Education, Chinese Medicine, Technology 3 min
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Footnotes

  1. Python, R, JavaScript, Haskell, Perl↩︎

  2. Including international complex corporate structures↩︎

  3. College professor, writer, conducted internal trainings, workshops↩︎

  4. I speak English, French, Spanish and Italian. I have studied Russian, Chinese, Yoruba and Egyptian hieroglyphics↩︎

  5. corporate, academic, non-profit↩︎