| Stephen Sokalski Clever Creations 363 Deer Drive Langhorne, PA. 19047 Phone: 215 702-9791 s.sokalski@ieee.org |
| Broadband, Digital Cable, MPEG 2, OC3, ATM, HDTV, Internet, Software, Hardware, Embedded Systems, Machine Control |
| OBJECTIVE | To obtain a challenging consulting position and apply my years of project management, software and hardware design experience across multiple industries. To use my strongest abilities: designing algorithms, minimizing risk to a project's success and communication skills, for the benefit of my client |
| TARGET JOB | Desired Job Type: | Temporary/Contract/Project, possible employment |
| Desired Status: | Full-Time |
| Site Location: | Off Site or On Site (local area only) |
| Description of my perfect job: A difficult project using my extensive software and hardware skill set. Software: C, Fortran, Basic, Assembly, VB, VC++, Embedded, PLCs, Unix, Real-time, Interrupt Drivers, 3-D Graphics, Image Processing, Digital Servos, TCP/IP, Sockets, Perl, PHP, CGI, Access, MySQL. Hardware: Analog design: DC to 12 GHz (RF). Digital design: discrete logic and microcontrollers to 200 MHz (ECL). PLDs, transducers, high-resolution video, touch-screens, machine control. |
| TARGET COMPANY | Company Size: | No Preference |
| Category: | Computers, Software |
| TARGET LOCATIONS | Relocate: | No |
| Will work on site for local clients and will do frequent travel to distant clients or client's customers site |
| COMPANIES OWNED |
| 1/1996 -- Present | Webways, Inc | Langhorne, PA |
| President |
| Internet development: Owns and operates 7 successful web sites/ online businesses. One site is a 480 page (database driven) site with over 600,000 visitors per month. Developed web crawlers that read and parse 30,000 pages per second, building focused databases. Developed newsgroup crawlers. Expertise areas: TCP/IP, CGI, Perl, C, Unix, VB, Access, HTML, cookies/customer tracking, redirection and more. |
| 5/1993 -- Present | Clever Creations | Langhorne, PA |
| President |
| Consulting firm that offers design an project management services to clients in the Philadelphia region for hardware and software related products. See list of clients for some project details. |
| CLIENTS | 6/2000 - Present | Accu-Sort | Telford, PA |
| Project Manager / Vision Team Manager |
| Initially developed a product which controlled a linear CCD in two dimensions to focus up the faces of angled cartons traveling at 10+ feet per second. The system was designed and worked flawlessly in less than 3 months including extensive error analysis and documentation. Involved high speed 3D calculations and optical principles. Algorithms were then simplified to run in real time on a low end microprocessor without floating point math. Developed a method of transmitting real time position information over Ethernet communications using a variation of the Network Time Protocol. Algorithm enabled the measuring of the delay time in one direction over Ethernet, something that has not been achieved before as per the Network Time Protocol specification. Project manager of the Region of Interest Location and Decoder replacement projects. Lead a team to refine high speed bar code location software. The resulting software is so efficient it runs much faster then the next generation's hardware video rate of 120 megabytes per second. Member of the "Vision" management team. The team was formed to look for new vision technologies and companies to acquire or partner with, to expand the companies size. The team consists of 5 managers and reports to the executive management team. |
| 10/1999 - 6/2000 | Panasonic | Burlington, NJ |
| Senior Software Engineer |
| Worked on the development of a HDTV satellite receiver to be used on the Direct TV system. Worked on the most complex areas of code: 1) User interface control / management 2) Advanced High Definition Copy Protection 3) Watch dog timer including code to track and report statistics on 52 tasks, capturing task ids as they report in. |
| 10/1998 - 10/1999 | ESC Manufacturing | Ivyland, PA |
| Senior Software Engieer |
| Total software development responsibility for 52 axis Unix based motion control system for the semiconductor industry. Software included control of 3 moving cameras / frame grabbers, graphics over video, 3 dimensional calibration of the machine. Machine had an accuracy of 1 micron. Many problems resolved involved multitasking communications, locking up of semaphores and robust noise protection algorithms. Advanced the state of the art from a manual taught machine to a fully automated machine. |
| 8/1995 - 10/1998 | General Instrument | Horsham, PA |
| Manager of TCI Systems Integration |
| One of 6 initial people in General Instrument's digital cable systems integration. Accomplished getting end to end video (from Mpeg encoder to set top box) working in first 6 weeks in this new field. Became GI's encryption expert, solving many of the most difficult problems over a 3 year period. Traveled to GI 's most important customers to solve problems in the field. After 2 years of accomplishments, was promoted to Manager of TCI systems integration (as a consultant) where I was responsible for GI's most important customer(now AT&T Cable Systems). Dealt directly with TCI's vice presidents and managed system integration engineers and software engineers. Prepared the industry for the next level of advancement by initiating and managing the development of real time simulators to test, stress, and isolate problems in the system beyond its (then) 2 million set top box load (A level of testing impossible without testing on the live system). No software or hardware changes could be installed on the live system without my approval. |
| 2/1995 - 8/1995 | Honeywell | Fort Washington, PA |
| Senior Hardware Engineer |
| Designed a new transducer and was responsible for all analog and digital design. Project goal was to add 30% more circuitry to an existing transducer (4-20 ma current loop), and in addition add a +/- 0.5 ma modem signal on the current loop (HART protocol). As a result, I had to redesign the microwatt DC-DC converter since the existing product was already at it's maximum current capacity. The entire project including 3 evolutions of prototypes was completed in 6 months. The product went into high volume production. |
| 5/1994 - 2/1995 | AMS Filling Systems | Malvern, PA |
| Project engineer: Hardware & Software |
| Developed two fully automated fillers: one PLC based, the other an embedded microcontroller based system. Both had touch screens. Took both machines from concept to full production including developing a custom user interface and graphics for the embedded version, and locating optical sensors to accurately measure the level of concrete in a container (to within 1/1000 inch). |
| 10/1993 - 5/1994 | Leeds and Northrup | North Wales, PA |
| Senior Hardware Engineer |
| Designed a multiprocessor based control board and a bus arbitrator logic circuit to all two, then three processors to seamlessly access shared memory. Developed all logic, timing and test vectors and software to test the final design. |
| EDUCATION | 12/1992 | Trenton State College | US-NJ-Trenton |
| Bachelor's Degree |
| Achieving the rank of first in my electrical engineering class, I received an academic scholarship award, from the Dean of Engineering, and the President of Trenton State College. |
| AFFILIATIONS | 1/1992 - Present | The Philadelphia IEEE Consultant's Network | Webmaster, Past Chairman (3 yrs), Past Prog. Chair |
| SKILLS | Skill Name | Skill Level | Last Used | Experience |
| Digital Hardware design to 200 MHz | Expert | +4 years ago | 31 years |
| C, basic, Assembly | Expert | Currently used | 24 years |
| Real Time Embedded systems (design & software) | Expert | Currently used | 20 years |
| Analog Hardware Design: 20 uV to 2 KW | Expert | +4 years ago | 15 years |
| Technical writing | Expert | Currently used | 13 years |
| Developing Operator Interfaces | Expert | Currently used | 12 years |
| TCP/ IP, HTML, CGI scripts | Expert | Currently used | 8 years |
| Web site dev: own sites with 1+ million hits day | Expert | Currently used | 8 years |
| Unix: Sun Solaris, SCO, Linux | Intermediate | Currently used | 6 years |
| Thermal printer / barcode technology | Expert | Currently used | 7 years |
| MPEG, OC3 | Expert | 2 years ago | 3 years |
| DES encryption | Intermediate | 2 years ago | 3 years |
| Biomedical Engineering | Intermediate | +4 years ago | 2 years |
| Project Management | Expert | Currently used | 12 years |
| VisualBasic & Perl | Expert | Currently used | 5 years |
| Printed Circuit Board Design | Intermediate | +4 years ago | 5 years |
| Programmable logic design | Expert | +4 years ago | 10 years |
| MySQL | Intermediate | Currently used | 6 years |
| ADDITIONAL INFORMATION | Designing circuits since age 9; software since age 16. Achieving the rank of first in my electrical engineering class, I received an academic scholarship award, from the Dean of Engineering, and the President, of Trenton State College. In 1998, I received one of the most prestigious awards from the IEEE: Chairman of the Year. The president of IEEE USA, president elect of IEEE USA and the president of IEEE International were in attendance, in addition to members of the media. I was selected and served as a Grand Awards Judge for the 50th International Science Fair (1999) in the Electrical Engineering category. Many of my designs have been featured in industry trade journals. |