Owner, Design MatriX and Design Consultant
Greater Los Angeles Area
- Current
-
- Owner at Design MatriX
- Past
-
- Program Manager at Sun Microsystems, Inc.
- Senior Member of the Technical Staff at Interactive Systems Corporation
- Systems Designer at Sunn Classic Pictures
- Systems Designer at Social Engineering Technology
- Instructor at California Institute of the Arts
- Education
-
- California Institute of the Arts
- Kansas City Art Institute
- Connections
-
39
connections
- Industry
- Design
- Websites
Gary Swift’s Summary
Industrial and Systems Designer specializing in software systems and products.
A unique set of skills and experience in software, systems and strategic design - an understanding of both user design issues and the underlying core technology:
* A foundation in functional, human centered Industrial Design.
* Expertise in systems oriented design, strategic design planning, problem solving methodology, and computer assisted design tools.
* Professional experience with a variety of industries, governmental agencies and nonprofit institutions, providing solutions in product, graphic, architectural and environmental design.
* Fifteen years of team leadership and program management in the UNIX software industry with focus on engineering policies, procedures and tools spanning the entire product life cycle.
My passion is software and web design and development, solving complex systems design problems with innovative elegant solutions, including the code.
I've been lucky enough to have worked on the "cutting edge" of design and technology during my entire career. I seek to keep on that edge, and to work with people who want to make a contribution, a difference for the better, and have a ball doing it. For me it's not just a career - it's a mission and a lifestyle.
Gary Swift’s Specialties:
Systems design, strategic design, software design and engineering, design methodology, problem solving in product, information and environmental design, pattern languages, scientific visualization and image processing. Technical specialties include UNIX, Solaris and Linux operating systems, Internet and Web technology (HTML, CGI, etc.), Interactive Data Language (IDL), Perl, PHP, Javascript, UNIX shell, and some C and Java.
Gary Swift’s Experience
-
Owner
Design MatriX
(Design industry)
1995 — Present (14 years)
Design consulting services including: Systems Design, Strategic Design, Software Design and Engineering (whole systems, user experience and user interface design, policies, procedures and processes), Internet/Intranet/Web design, Industrial and Product Design, Information and Graphic Design, Environmental Design.
* For details about my design services, see the Design MatriX website at:
http://www.designmatrix.com
* For details about my experience and a list of projects, see my resume at:
http://www.designmatrix.com/portfolios/Gary_Swift.html
Joint projects with other design companies and consultants are welcome. When required, other associates are available to fill out a team. -
Program Manager
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; SUNW; Computer Software industry)
January 1991 — October 1994 (3 years 10 months)
Part of the team aquired by SunSoft to port the Solaris operating system to Intel (x86) platforms, I was responsible for systems integration, source code configuration management, release engineering, engineering policies and practices, and software tools.
* Led a team to develop Common Source Code policies and procedures for merging the Solaris source code for Intel (x86) and SPARC architectures. This enabled the Solaris/x86 developers to synchonize it with Solaris on SPARC machines.
* Developed strategy and tactics to ship Solaris/x86 release 2.1 on the schedule for release 2.0, and to skip releases 2.2 and 2.3 so that Solaris 2.4 on x86 and SPARC were released together.
* Co-managed Systems Integration and Release Engineering for Solaris/x86.
* Served on various business, program and software engineering teams for Solaris 2.1 and 2.4.
* Participated in Sun's Software Development Architecture Team for the Software Development Framework (engineering standards and procedures). -
Senior Member of the Technical Staff
Interactive Systems Corporation
(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Computer Software industry)
February 1980 — January 1991 (11 years)
Interactive Systems was the first company to sell and support the UNIX operating system. In addition to our own UNIX OS products, we ported UNIX to many other architectures for other companies. It was acquired by Kodak about 1987, who sold the Product Division to SunSoft (software division of Sun Microsystems) in late 1990.
Here I led projects in UNIX operating system and application development, documentation, systems integration, quality assurance, release engineering and customer support. This included: managing the company's first Systems Integration Team, developing software tools and the first test suites (which led to establishing a QA department), promoting engineering standards, policies and procedures, and serving as Kodak's Quality Leadership Process (TQM, etc.) coordinator for Interactive's Product Division. -
Systems Designer
Sunn Classic Pictures
(Privately Held; Motion Pictures and Film industry)
1978 — 1980 (2 years)
As systems designer for the Marketing Research Dept., I designed methods, data bases and software for market research. This included statistical regression analysis of historical data, Delphi studies and trend analysis for market forecasting, and decision trees and production rules (modeled after the RAND Corporations's RITA artificial intelligence agent) for marketing strategies.
-
Systems Designer
Social Engineering Technology
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Think Tanks industry)
1976 — 1978 (2 years)
"The SET", as it was called, could best be described as a Design Think Tank. Our major project was to design an environmental education system for the Office of Environmental Education, US Dept. of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW), including computer assisted components for environmental modeling, simulation and forecasting, networking and teleconferencing, and problem solving. We also designed design a participatory planning and governance system for Southwest Community College in Los Angeles, including operations and governance manuals and methods for developing and funding new types of educational programs.
-
Instructor
California Institute of the Arts
(Educational Institution; 51-200 employees; Higher Education industry)
1972 — 1976 (4 years)
As an instructor in the School of Design, Cal Arts, I taught courses related to analyzing and solving complex design problems in a systems context. These courses included Design Theory, Design Methodology, Bionics, Pattern Language, Futures Forecasting, General System Theory and a project-oriented Systems Design Studio. These courses were cross-disciplinary, attended by students in industrial design, graphic design, environmental design and architectural design. The Design Theory class even attracted students from the Schools of Art, Music and Dance.
Gary Swift’s Education
-
California Institute of the Arts
MFA , School of Design (systems, product, graphic, envionmental and architectural design) , 1970 — 1972
I was a TA (teaching assistance) for my mentor in General System Theory, Futures Forecasting, etc. In addition I developed and taught my own course in Design Methodology. After I graduated I was asked to join the faculty because, in the Dean's words, my leaving "left a hole in the curriculum".
- Activities and Societies:
- Student representative in the School of Design Governance Committee. Participated in various curriculum development task forces.
-
Kansas City Art Institute
BFA , Industrial Design (major); Graphic Design (minor) , 1966 — 1970
Additional Information
Gary Swift’s Websites:
Gary Swift’s Interests:
art, high tech, genealogy, American history, native California plants, gardening, hiking, all water sports, classic rock and blues guitar
Gary Swift’s Groups:
-
Interactive Systems Corp -
CalArts Alumni Association
Gary Swift’s Contact Settings
Interested In:
- career opportunities
- consulting offers
- new ventures
- job inquiries
- expertise requests
- business deals
- reference requests
- getting back in touch
