Chad Kraeft
15301 Wagon Way
Cedar Park, TX 78613
CDavidKraeft@MirageLab.com

Department is responsible for all phases of site design based on project requests from inter-departmental sources within MCI's Operations groups. Internal client-base consists of call center management teams from more than ten call centers, as well as associated operations groups responsible for all aspects of call center technologies (call routing, customer data organization, and MIS applications).

Responsible for the creation of an application used for managing the relationship between marketing and call-routing data and functionality. Project had been given up on by previous developers due to the level of complexity involved. Effectively ended an indefinite development cycle that had left the project unfinished for over two years.

Assisted with training three junior developers in the PHP web scripting language and in the benefits of code modularity to isolate general points of failure. This training provided targetted experience with proprietary systems specific to the development shop.

Provided consistent feedback on existing barriers to project implementation. This has resulted in the removal of extraneous personel from the development process, allowing faster delivery. Primary value was realized in decreasing development time in a single project from eight months down to only three.

Coordinated a team of four remote developers responsible for producing internal websites used by company Training, Quality Assurance, and call center Third-Party Verification services. Assigned projects and tasks based on developer skillsets and project prioritization levels dictated by a Steering Committee responsible for assignment and prioritization of future projects for the department.

Generated monthly and quarterly reports that illustrated ROI and operational impact to high-level audiences, including senior managers, directors,and VPs. Analyzed and represented time-based statistics via a Flash-based graphics medium embedded in existing PowerPoint presentations to emphasize areas of focus dictated by management. These reports and presentations resulted in an increased number of project requests due to the observed impact of sophisticated digital media and the departments skill at producing it.

Mentored team in areas of client/customer interaction and communication skills, empowering staff to work with less supervision. The resulting time savings allowed management to focus on acquisition of new projects, and allowed myself to spend more time on individual skillset improvement within the team.

Introduced Macromedia Flash as a standared development tool to the department, capable of facilitating sophisticated graphical user interfaces (GUI's) for less intuitive legacy systems. Personally responsible for training all other staff on it's usage and capabilities. Use of this graphics medium has since been consistent in every project where presentation is critical, such as several projects for 'The Neighborhood', MCI's current flagship consumer product plan.

Responsible for the hiring of two of the Intranet Application Services department's primary graphic artists, one of which now handles both the web development and graphics for most of the department's high priority / high visibility projects.

Managed an on-site team consisting of a LAN Administrator and two Workstation Specialists in the daily operation of a call center network. Responsibilities included administration, maintenance, and support of more than ten mission-critical servers and over 500 workstations used rotationaly by approximately 1000 customer service representatives and supporting staff.

Daily responsibilities included maintaining consistent communication of network status and pending issue resolution with the call center Operations Managers, customer service supervisors, QA department, and Training department.

Frequently generated reports for all levels of call center managment detailing trended statistics on network issues and frequency of individual workstation downtime. This aided in evaluating employee performance by indicating cases where workstation downtime was directly and consciuously caused by users trying to avoid their duties.

Maintained 24hr vigilance over local center network from several days prior to Y2K thru several days after the event in order to provide rapid response to any resulting issues. Hourly reports were made during this time period and no system downtime was experienced.

Hired and trained two workstation specialists. Employee development has resulted in both workstation specialists as well as the LAN administrator advancing to more technical positions within the company: two to remote server maintenance positions responsible for all call center servers (significantly reducing the need for local support personnel) and one to call center National Support Services, which provides first level support for all call centers.

Maintained 200+ workstations for customer service representatives in a call center. Performed LAN administration using NT4 servers over TCP/IP. Fixed or rebuilt workstations as they experienced issues in order to minimize downtime.

Participated in daily conference calls and meetings with local management and the Operations groups of sibling call centers. Periodic, scheduled calls were used to ensure standardization of systems as well as support and reporting processes. Conference calls were held as needed to address specific issues such as loss of connectivity to datacenters, emergency system upgrades, and virus exposures.

Frequently rebuilt workstations in groups of 25-30 to prepare classrooms for new hire training. As many as four classrooms were simultaneously maintained in this fashion, preventing delays in training.

Responsible for determining architectural direction of major components to facilitate standards and inter-component communications.

Work with other developers involved to improve overall system understanding, including general training in code and instruction on existing functionality available.

Frequent publication on related sites of material written to provide greater understanding of the more complex aspects of the coding standards and interaction with core components.

Computer Science coursework (30 hrs) including Pascal and C.

Worked for the univerity computer department to provide nightly tape backups, user print requests, and delivery of large print jobs to state and local offices located on campus.

Coursework in TCP/IP, web design and development, and PC hardware.

Utilized as a consultant by the college Computer Science Chair because of position as an MIS Manager for MCI. Helped tailor departmental programs to focus on providing students with skillsets that would increase their employability in the local market.

Flash Email Application (NDA)
This project required a backend database, an administrative section, form validation, and a dynamically generated Flash 5 file without the benefit of Generator. Via the administrative area (written using ASP on IIS and connecting to a MS-SQL server), copy is added for it's designated week of reporting. When completed, administrative user clicks to have email sent. The email itself is HTML and contains tags to include the Flash 5 display GUI from the site it is housed on. The end result is a dynamic application for the creation of Flash 5 based weekly reports in email.

Intranet Site Consolidation [Phases I-III] (NDA)
The objective in the project, at each phase, was to facilitate the integration of a number of smaller sites into a viable intranet portal. During Phase One, effort was focused on working with executives to decide which sites to incorporate. To speed efforts, an additional backend component was designed for cataloging all internally existing sites. Phase Two was spent using ASP to code a versatile menu system populated from the aforementioned backend. The GUI was created with Flash 5 and includes multiple category listing, separate link lists for each category, and a details display for use on mouseover with links. Phase Three brought the project to closure with a Flash 5 based GUI that takes a backend feed of links and is displayed in the top of a frameset. The backend can further be administered by the content owners of integrated sites. The final site was instrumental in decreasing or illiminating the costs associated with maintaining a large number of small sites, as well as increasing traffic to areas of time-sensitive information.

Advertising Banner Application (NDA)
Given the large number of intranet websites available to the company, a system was needed to help direct more traffic to the sites producing the highest ROI. A piece of ASP script was quickly adapted to the task. The existing script was designed with customer access that provided a number of features that were not needed and it lacked several features that were required. The end result allows administrative access to add banners and monitor usage statistics. A 'print friendly' page was also designed that displayed clickthru statistics for executives working to justify ROI for a site.

Company History CBT (NDA)
In an effort to educate employees on the pertinant details of the company's history, a CBT was created. The entire application resides in one Flash 5 swf (the previous incarnation was created with Director and was not well enough optimized for web-use). Development utilized text effects extensively in all copy displayed in order to maintain the attention of users that would otherwise be faced with a rather dry body of content. Simple games were incorporated for use inbetween CBT sections to provide more stimulation and maintain attention.