Bio

Thomas LaRock is a seasoned IT professional with over a decade of technical and management experience. Currently serving as a database administration manager with ING Investment Management, Thomas has progressed through several roles at ING, including programmer, analyst, and DBA. Prior to ING, he worked at several software and consulting companies, working at customer sites in the United States and abroad. Thomas holds a MS degree in Mathematics from Washington State University and is a member of the Usability Professional’s Association. Thomas is also a member of Quest’s Association of SQL Server Experts, currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS), and is a SQL Server MVP.

Professional Experience

Database Administration Manager
ING Investment Management
May 2001 to Present

Currently lead a team of seven (7) individuals supporting over one hundred fifty (150) database instances that are used by in-house and third party applications. Major involvements were administering production, test, and development servers, optimizing queries for better performance, design and development of in-house monitoring solution for database servers, developing operational standards, and documentation of policies and procedures. Participated in Six Sigma Black Belt training, learning valuable project management skills. Other duties and responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Initiated and led weekly meetings to share knowledge with team members and to overcome technical hurdles as they arose pertaining to Microsoft SQL Server and server performance issues.
• Created databases, tables, stored procedures, triggers, indices, foreign keys and any other objects within the databases based on requirements from Developers.
• Guaranteed that Daily/Weekly/Monthly backups are running, and also ensure databases that had transactional backups for 24×7 support were operating properly.
• Designed and developed Sharepoint portal for team members to exchange information regarding procedures and troubleshooting documentation.
• Provided non-stop production support for a 24×7 environment across all sites.
• Performed database restore, refresh, and recover activities as needed.
• Initial installation and configuration of MSSQL 2000, 2005, 2008, and Sybase ASE 12.5 instances.
• Administration of Sybase ASE 12.0 and 12.5 server instances for UNIX and Windows NT platforms.
• Administration of security model for all applicable endpoints (users, databases, applications).
• Migrated Sybase databases to Microsoft SQL Server 2000 databases.
• Performance and tuning of Microsoft SQL Server instances.
• Administration of Crystal Enterprise and SQL Server Report Services (SSRS).
• Administration of Active Directory local resource security groups.

Programmer/Analyst
AllPoints, Inc.
January 2000 to April 2001

Duties included the reviewing, analyzing, and modifying programming systems including encoding, testing, debugging and installing products to support the organization’s application systems; consulted with users to identify current operating procedures and to clarify program objectives; developed a strong knowledge of relational databases and client-server concepts; and relied on experience and judgment to plan and accomplish goals

• Modified and maintained the AllPoints application using PowerBuilder 6.5.
• Interacted with Oracle 8/8i database instances, writing stored procedures and triggers.
• Used Oracle applications such as Instance Manager, Schema Manager, and Security Manager.
• Was responsible for the building of the AllPoints application executable.
• Created and maintained schemas for all team wide database projects using ERwin.
• Delivered releases to, and interacted with, clients on-site.
• Created new reports using PowerBuilder 6.5.
• Used MKS for source integrity.
• Tested my own code for functionality and limits.
• Produced end user and development documentation.
• Verified the technical accuracy of documentation.
• Wrote new PL/SQL code to resolve specific problems.

Software Engineer
Logica, Inc.
June 1998 to January 2000

Duties included the creation and maintenance of quality code according to design specifications; assisted senior team members with function design; learned and adhered to all project standards, procedures, guidelines, and methodologies when designing functions, creating code, performing testing, and creating documentation; increased technical knowledge, especially in the areas of client/server techniques, software development methodologies, and the software lifecycle, through internal and external professional development.

• Created and modified application code according to design specifications.
• Interacted with Oracle 6 database instances, mostly through SQL Plus.
• Verified the technical accuracy of documentation.
• Worked closely with the Clarify DBA to propose schema changes.
• Performed analysis of the business flow documentation.
• Used PVCS and MKS for source integrity.
• Tested code for functionality and limits.
• Created technical documentation for work activities, including training of associates.
• Verified the technical accuracy of documentation.
• Undertook function design.
• Interacted with an Informix database through SQL and writing stored procedures.
• Created new reports.
• Produced end user documentation.
• Tested problem fixes.

Professional Organizations

Director-at-large, Board of Directors
Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS)
January 2009 to Present

• Along with the Board of Directors, set the strategy and direction for PASS.
• Responsible for direction and leadership of the PASS Special Interest Groups, a collection of virtual communities spread throughout the world.
• Assist with the execution of strategy as set forth by the Board of Directors.

Check http://www.sqlpass.org for more details on the association.

Technical Skills

Operating Systems

• Windows XP/2000/NT 4.0
• Windows Server 2008/2003/2000
• Unix

Hardware

• IBM Compatibles
• Sun Solaris

Languages

• ASP.NET
• VB.NET
• Visual Basic
• T-SQL
• PL/SQL
• PowerBuilder
• HTML
• VB Script

RDBMS

• Microsoft SQL Server  2008/2005/2000/7.0
• Sybase ASE 12.5, 12.0, 11.0
• Oracle 8i
• Informix

Database Query Tools

• Microsoft SQL Server Query Analyzer
• SSMS
• SQL*Plus
• PowerBuilder ISQL
• DBArtisan

Database Modeling

• Data modeling / Database design (logical / physical) using ERwin, Visio, and SQL Server Management Studio
• ETL Tools / Utilities Data Transformation Service (DTS), SSIS

Other Tools

• Operations Manager 2007
• Spotlight
• Quest SQL Litespeed

Contacting Me

If you would like a copy of my resume, suitable for framing, drop me a line at sqlrockstar@gmail.com. I am not in the market but I can pass your request along to my social network. However, I do ask that you disclose the salary range for any position you ask me to forward. I do not want to waste anyone’s time and ask that you show the same respect. Thanks in advance.