Technical Operations Manager, Spire.com; Author: DaveWrites.com, Founder: WestwoodBlog.org
Greater Boston Area
- Current
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- Technical Operations Manager at Spire
- Past
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- Engineering Manager at QuitNet.com, Inc.
- Director, Engineering Operations at ConsumerReview.com, Inc.
- Manager, Operations at RealCommunities, Inc.
- Director, Online Services at Decisive Technology Corporation
- Online Projects Director at Smart Valley, Inc.
- Editorial Assistant/Director at US Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs
- Education
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- Seattle University School of Law
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Recommended
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1 person has recommended Dave - Connections
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66
connections
- Industry
- Internet
- Websites
Dave Atkins’s Summary
I have worked in internet startup companies since 1995 as a developer, team leader, and manager, typically building and managing the servers or leading a team to create online community-oriented web applications.
Dave Atkins’s Specialties:
Jack of all trades; master of many.
Dave Atkins’s Experience
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Technical Operations Manager
Spire
(Privately Held; 501-1000 employees; Internet industry)
December 2006 — Present (1 year 8 months)
My principal responsibility is to manage the technology operations--the linux servers, mysql databases, java-based applications, etc. that host our website.
http://www.spire.com/web/guest/about -
Engineering Manager
QuitNet.com, Inc.
(Privately Held; 501-1000 employees; Internet industry)
July 2002 — December 2006 (4 years 6 months)
My team built and maintained www.quitnet.com, an online smoking cessation community of over 1/2 million members. As the business grew and evolved from its non profit origins through profitability and ultimately acquisition by Healthways, I worked with a systems engineer to move our infrastructure from internally-hosted beige-box servers to load-balanced, hosted services incrementally with limited budget and resources. I administered our data and reporting services which grew to include over a dozen databases and complex reporting used to prove the effectiveness of our service and provide day to day metrics on business objectives. I automated wherever possible and pitched in to support and troubleshoot technical issues on a daily basis.
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Director, Engineering Operations
ConsumerReview.com, Inc.
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)
November 2000 — June 2002 (1 year 8 months)
Managed a team of 9 engineers to develop web applications and operate the internal and external company networks. In my initial role as a product manager, I led the migration process from older technologies (ASP Classic) to one of the first implementations of Microsoft.NET. During development, following a series of company layoffs and reorganizations, I took direct leadership of the effort as Director of Engineering and completed the project with dramatically-reduced staff. When I left the company, the completed application was successfully managed by two developers and a single systems engineer.
My key accomplishment was to lead the development team through a difficult time of layoffs while keeping focused on a technology project necessary for the survival of the company. -
Manager, Operations
RealCommunities, Inc.
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)
November 1999 — November 2000 (1 year 1 month)
My friend and I attempted to start our own company after leaving Decisive Technology in early 1999, but I learned several valuable lessons; principally that I was not ready to be an entrepreneur. I worked hard at the technology behind our idea, but I did not really do justice to what was necessary to truly start something like this. I found I needed a job again, and after a brief stint as a program manager at a now-forgettable dotcom failure, I decided to take a large pay cut and join a startup focused on building web community.
At RealCommunities, I worked with the first software engineer to get his prototype running on a Netscape web server and Oracle back end. As the company grew, I managed QA, and worked cross-functionally with product managers, a Director of Engineering, and a software team.
I did a little of everything, including project managing our integration with our first two customes. -
Director, Online Services
Decisive Technology Corporation
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)
May 1997 — January 1999 (1 year 9 months)
My role at Smart Valley made me eager to join a real start up company. I found such an opportunity as the first web developer at Decisive Technology, where I created a perl-based online reporting interface to support the company's email surveying tool.
As web-based customer and employee satisfaction surveys caught on, I grew my role into hiring and leading a team of web developers who built "dashboard" applications for companies that hired Decisive Technology to conduct their surveys.
My team grew to include half a dozen developers, and our division went from being an experiment to being the core business, with my manager becoming CEO. While initially very successful, this change in focus also involved massive layoffs of the long time people who had supported the previous business model and a frantic search to be acquired.In the midst of this chaos, my friend and I decided to strike out on our own. -
Online Projects Director
Smart Valley, Inc.
(Non-Profit; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)
October 1995 — May 1997 (1 year 8 months)
After searching for jobs that combined my policy interest with my technical and writing skills, I found an opportunity as the "webmaster" for a trade association called Smart Valley. Smart Valley was a nonprofit spun off from Joint Venture: Silicon Valley that provided facilitation and project management for commuinty/corporate partnerships around technology projects such as "NetDay"--wiring California schools to the internet. I used the opportunity to learn the technical details of systems adminstration and web development and how to create web-based collaborative efforts--such as the NetDay volunteer database and SmartVoter (http://www.smartvoter.org), probably one of the first websites in the country to allow voters to generate personalized sample ballots with integrated candidate-provided information.
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Editorial Assistant/Director
US Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs
(Government Agency; 11-50 employees; Government Administration industry)
January 1994 — March 1995 (1 year 3 months)
After graduating law school, volunteering and organizing several political campaigns, including my own failed campaign for Chairman of the Pierce County Democratic Party, I moved to Washington, DC determined to find work on Capitol Hill and ultimately a policy-influencing role in Congress. My editorial and desktop publishing skills helped me land a position as Editorial Assistant for the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs.
I produced all Committee publications including hearing transcripts, bill reports, and the yearly legislative activities report. I automated the Committee's process to turn around publications in a matter of weeks instead of months.
My objective was to use this job to get "Hill Experience" while I searched for a more policy-related job.However, with the 1994 Republican sweep of Congress, I realized my opportunities were dramatically reduced, and I decided to start my life anew and move to California.
Dave Atkins’s Education
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Seattle University School of Law
JD, law, 1990 — 1993
- Activities and Societies:
- Editor in Chief, Prolific Reporter (newspaper), student bar association
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology
BS, managment, political science, 1985 — 1990
- Activities and Societies:
- Undergraduate Association (student government), Course Evaluation Guide, The Tech, Pistol Team
Additional Information
Dave Atkins’s Websites:
Dave Atkins’s Interests:
cycling, running
Dave Atkins’s Groups:
Westwood Community Access Television (WestCAT) (non-profit board)
Westwood Gentleman's Running Club
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Marathoners member
Dave Atkins’s Contact Settings
Interested In:
- career opportunities
- consulting offers
- expertise requests
- business deals
- reference requests
- getting back in touch
