42Co LLC

CEO/Founder 7/06 - Present

Provo Labs LLC

Chief Operations Officer      9/05 - 7/06

Sentry Financial Corp, Contractor

Project Lead     10/02 – 09/05

Lead Designer and Architect for TeamWork, an N-Tier Lease Management CRM written entirely in VB.Net.  Responsibilities include assisting the CIO with Project Management, Leading the Design (both software and database) Team, and Leading the Architecting Team.  TeamWork is a complete replacement system for 3 commercial software packages intended to manage all aspects of Sentry’s business (Accounting, Payroll and Leasing).   TeamWork is an OOP based application using VB.Net and SQL Server for database access.  It manages all aspects of corporate Leasing and has a comprehensive Accounting package which includes Invoicing, Cash Receipts, Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable.  Its architecture requirements included an Internet ready Business Layer and a Web Service ready Data/Business Layer. 

CDI Corp, Contractor (LDS Church Office Bldg)

Senior Architectural Engineer     6/01 – 10/02

Jan 02 – Oct 02 Church Scheduling System (CSS), N-Tier Architect

CSS is responsible for the schedule management of all church General Authorities.  Specifically, it manages the scheduling of all Stake, Regional and Area Conferences and who will be attending them from the Church Leadership.  It is a multi-tier Internet based application with an Oracle database written entirely in ASP.NET & VB.NET.  My responsibilities in this position include designing and writing a multi-tier architecture utilizing the advantages of Microsoft .NET, abstracting all business and data access from the front-end and some development of front-end web pages. 

Aug 0 1- Mar 02 Publications Information Network (PIN), Lead Engineer.

 PIN was designed to replace several mainframe and legacy applications for the LDS Church’s Curriculum Department.  It was written entirely in Visual Basic 6 and is a multi-tier Windows based application able to utilize Oracle, SQL Server, and Access databases.  It is responsible for the approval and management life cycle of all Official Church publications.  I was brought in to ensure the project, which was 2 years behind schedule, would be releasable within the following six months.  My responsibilities included re-designing and re-writing the data access and business layers and designing and writing a GUI Management interface to manage all data binding and appearance tasks for all forms in PIN.  PIN was released on time and is now a very stable and strong application in the process of being deployed worldwide.

Avysta Software  

Senior Software Engineer     2/00 – 6/01

Senior Architect in the development of Visual Front Office (VFO), a Customer Resource Management (CRM) application.  VFO is an extremely large application designed for several hundred concurrent users.  It includes 12 projects, over 100 forms, and several thousand lines of code.  It is a multi-tier application designed to work with Oracle, SQL Server, and SQLBase databases in an MTS and Citrix environment.  My team succeeded in meeting several extremely aggressive deadlines, sometimes requiring 120-hour workweeks, to get the product to market.  My responsibilities included Assistant Lead of the backend design/development team, Lead of design and programming of the installation software using InstallShield, Lead Programmer for the “Contact Center” which included Accounts, Tasks, Appointments, and Contact Management.  Revenue generated by VFO peaked at 3 million per year before Avysta was dissolved.

The Gatherers

CEO/Owner     11/98 – 09/06

The Gatherers is a consulting company focusing on advanced applications development and dynamic business solutions.  We often work in partnership with Bottom Line Services of North Carolina.  We’ve developed several applications covering a wide spectrum of business management including shipment building RF systems, traveling salesman inventory systems, Medical Records management, and several office management applications.  Well-known customers have included Corning Glass, General Marble, Hamilton Beach, Warner Lambert, Fuji Film and the SC Dept Mental Health.   

Aspen Distribution Services

Systems Developer     3/97 – 8/99

In an OS heterogeneous environment, was responsible for design and development of all Windows based solutions.  Projects focused on augmentation of their warehouse management system, generally in EDI and shipping applications. Major accomplishments included: Development of an automated EDI generation system that converted non-EDI files into full EDI transactions delivered via Internet mail.  Implementation of Compliance Labeling requirements and a complete RF system to build compliant shipments.  Full report creation, generation, and scheduling system to replace Crystal Reports.  Customer Service calls/issues management and tracking system.  HR management and several other small scale projects.  All programs were developed in VB 5\6 using Access, Informix or SQL Server as a database with ADO and MTS where appropriate.

US Air Force

Information Manager     1/92 – 4/96

Primary Duties included supporting all squadron computer systems and providing data management for the squadron.  Completely automated a previously manual office with VB 4\5, developing databases, spreadsheets and forms for all functions of the Information Management Offices.  Several of these solutions were adopted Air Force wide.  Received high recognition’s within the Air Force and was given an Honorable Discharge.

Feel free to contact me via any of the following methods.

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           Main Email

Phone: (435)494-4279 (mobile)

Skype: phil_801

GoogleTalk: philbburns@gmail.com

MSN Messenger: thegatherers@hotmail.com

Yahoo: Phil_8_0_1

My IName: =phil801

My LinkedIn Profile: Phil801

My main blog is here: http://www.phil801.com/wpblog.  If you’re seeing this, my redirects are still messed up.  Sorry!

My programming Interests are:

• VB.Net - My main area of programming, I have been working professionally in it since the original beta 2.

• C# - I would like to get some professional experience working in C# but all the jobs I’ve had lately are in VB.Net! 

• ASP.Net - When I work on the web, it’s most often in ASP.Net, though I have worked in Flash and PHP.  Like C#, I would like to get some professional experience in ASP.Net.

• SQL Server - I’ve worked with several DBMS’ including MySQL and Oracle, but SQL Server is my favorite by far. 

Some of my hobbies/extra-curricular activities include:

• Kids! - I have 8 kids ages 16 - 3 months including 2 twins.  My family PhLog is here.

• Hobby Farming - A farm for fun, not profit. I live on a 2 1/2 acre farm with a large ‘petting zoo’ style barnyard.  I PhLog about it here.

• Church - I teach Primary for 8 year olds at my Church. 

• Utah .Net User Group - I’m a member of the UDNUG that meets in SLC.

• Utah County .Net User Group - I was recently made the speaker coordinator for the UCDNUG.

• Wrestling - I love wrestling!  Both my boys wrestle in local clubs.  I’m an Assistant Coach for the Springville Jr High Wrestling Team.

• Gardening - I maintain a fairly large garden, about half an acre and a 40 tree orchard.

• Hiking - the Wasatch Mountains are a second home to me.  I love to spend time hiking through them!

• Camping - When we don’t have newborns that make it difficult, our family loves to camp as much as possible.

• I am interested in several technology areas in addition to programming.  They include relevancy systems, cybernetics, virtual reality, wearable computers, nanotechnology and quantum computing to name a few.

Born in California and raised in Utah, Missouri and Tennessee I went on to live in Hawaii, then joined the Air Force and saw a chunk of the world.  I grew up loving and living in the outdoors and I continue that passion today with my family.  In my youth I worked on ranches and began breaking horses when I was 14, today I live on a small 2 1/2 acre farm where we have an acre garden and raise about 40 animals including horses, a Llama, sheep, goats, chickens and rabbits.  I am the oldest of 7 kids, my Mother comes from a family of 9 kids.  I currently have 8 and we’re not declaring ourselves done yet. 

When I was young I was heavily exposed to computers and began learning QBasic.  By the time I was 12 I was writing my own programs.  When I joined the Air Force at 19 I became an Information Specialist and began refining my programming skills.  After the military I attended College studying Computer Science and Business.  I soon began working as a Business Analyst and Software Engineer.  Over the years I became an expert at analyzing a business’ processes and creating solutions for them, then I would write the software to implement that solution.  Along the way I started The Gatherers (General Automation Technology, Human Error Removal, E-Commerce Resolutions Specialists) and worked independently as a contractor.  This continued for 6 years until Paul Allen offered me a position as the COO for his Internet Incubator, Provo Labs.  After Provo Labs was realigned to a holding company, I started my own venture, 42Co.

I am currently the CEO of 42Co where we are building an awesome new product called TagJungle.

Welcome to my personal site.  My name is Phil Burns, on the web I go as Phil801 (801 is my area code) in order to distinguish myself from several other Phil Burns’ out there. 

I am an internet entrepreneur, currently running a new company called 42Co where we are hard at work getting ready to launch TagJungle, a relevancy categorization engine for the blogoshpere.  Once we are finished with that, we have several other relevancy oriented technologies we are planning to launch.

I have been very heavily involved with technology all my life, have 8 kids and live on a small farm - see my profile, Interests and career page for more. 

I maintain (sometimes) 2 blogs - a personal one and a technical or business one. 

If you would like to get in touch with me, there are multiple ways listed on my contact page.  Thanks for visiting!