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Introduction/Bio, the really long and boring version

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Hello my name is Dave Remy (call me Remy or Rem if you want).  I am a Lead Program Manager on Core XML Technologies at Microsoft (a part of the Webdata XML team).  Currently I am focusing on XML Schema support as well participating on several other of the core XML type technologies.  My main interest area these days is XML programming models and finding ways that developers can more easily use language technologies to harness the full power of XML. 

Prior to coming to Microsoft (Nov 2004) I was the Dev Lead for XMLBeans at BEA.  XMLBeans is now an Apache open source technology that leverages XML Schema to allow you program against xml using "strong types".  The major difference between XMLBeans and other Java/XML binding technologies was it's focus on providing a full non-lossy strongly typed programming model over an XML store rather than shredding the XML into objects.  The goal was ease of use for a large number of XML programming scenarios but with no dead ends so that you could drop into the underlying XML store (via XmlCursor, XQuery, XPath, or DOM) if necessary. 

Prior to BEA I was Chief Architect and Cofounder of GeoTrust which has now become the second largest certificate authority behind Verisign.  While at GeoTrust (overlapping into BEA as well) I coauthored the book Securing Web Services with WS Security with Jothy Rosenburg (Jothy was CEO of GeoTrust and later took the CTO role from me when I become Chief Architect).  Also, while at GeoTrust I earned my Computer Informaton Systems Security Professional Designation (CISSP).

Before BEA I was CTO at Netstock (now known for Sharebuilder).  Where we were big Visual J++ fans at the time :) At Nestock I was co-inventor the underlying Sharebuilder process which was a "dollar based investing" model rather than a "share based investing model".  Extremely low commissions and great for the dollar cost averaging type investor.  I understand Netstock/Sharebuilder continues to do well.

I came to Netstock from Corbis, the Bill G digital image company, where I was Director of Technology.  This was a great opportunity to work with the largest digital imagery archive in the world and learn a ton about image science, cataloging and search, and much more (Wired article on Corbis from back when I worked there).  I got the opportunity sit in meetings with Bill G and also to work with Eric Rudder who was Bill's technology assistant at the time.  Eric is now Senior VP at Microsoft and is my boss's, boss's, boss's ... boss.  Corbis was originally formed to do Bill's house technology which was pretty amazing to witness although I was only peripherally involved.

Prior to Corbis I was Director of Architecture at PEMCO.  This was a CIO level position running the Data Resource Management team and working strategically on how PEMCO's 4 insurance companys, bank, data processing company, and credit union's technology would grow and evolve.  I learned a lot about the difficulty of the CIO role there.  I also learned much about business in particular from Stan McNaughton the charismatic CEO at PEMCO.

I ended up at PEMCO because I had been a consultant working for IBM.  At IBM I was consulting focusing on enterprise modeling, data modeling, and in particular DB2 consulting.  My title at IBM was Advisory Systems Engineer but my role was all about consulting.  I had come into IBM to branch out of consulting and focus more on getting deep into DB2 technology but these were the days when IBM was just moving heavily into services so my background was highly valued (meaning I billed 40 hours a week, did proposals on the weekends, and whenever possible taught DB2/data modeling seminars in the evenings). 

Prior to going to IBM I had formed the consulting firm Relational Solutions based in Seattle (Mercer Island actually).  Relational Solutions was doing a great business subcontracting through IBM for DB2 consulting work at companies like Boeing, Safeco, Ernst, etc.  My partner was a great guy, David Neustadt and we had a tremendous Marketing/Recruiting Vice President named Tom Parrish.  I thought we were poised for growth but David really wanted to stay small.  Rather than press the issue I decided to take a significant paycut and go to IBM with the hope that I would get a chance to focus deeply on DB2 and relational technology.

Prior to forming Relational Solutions with David Neustadt I was a software developer for Security Pacific Bank, formerly Ranier Bank, now a part Bank of America.  Rainer bank a regional bank up in the Seattle area really had a great group of developers and I was on a rare team.  On particular guy (Mike Hackett, who I've lost contact with) had been reading a SmallTalk book (this was in the mid 80's) and decided that we could build an object oriented Customer Relationship System based on SmallTalk principles - but built using Cobol and DB2.  Really, it's true.  It had full inheritance, polymorphism, message passing, etc. and fit very well with the goals of a Customer Relationship System since you had different types of customers that had relationships with a myriad of constantly changing products and services. 

Prior to Rainier Bank I was a sofware developer at Boeing which is where I got my original training as a programmer.  Working in manufacturing was fun and a complex problem domain.  I owe a lot to Boeing, and my friend Don Maclane who recommended me there.  I really had practically no programming experience before starting there and Boeing gave me a lot of eduction and experience to get me started.

Finally, prior to going to Boeing I worked for my father's company in Los Angeles called The Games Network which was about putting video games (actually any software) over cable television.  We went through own mini dot com boom and bust with The Games Network going public, having lots of money on paper, tremendous presales, game contract committments, cable company endorsements, top of the world.  We decided to engineer our own computer that would go into people's homes and, what do you know, 6 months before launch we ran out of money.  At the same time the bottom fell out of the video games market and became  next to impossible to raise money to get to launch.  Then a supposed white knight came in who turned out to be a fraud and the whole thing came tumbling down.  This was an amazing experience for me to be a part of.  I saw the best of people and the worst (well maybe not the worst but pretty bad).  I left Los Angeles and moved back up to Seattle deep in debt (at least for a 23 year old) but determined and much smarter.

From an education perspective I dropped out of University of WA midway through my senior year (I don't think I had declared a major yet) before heading down to Los Angeles.  I received an Apple II+ as a present the beginning of my senior year, decided I loved computers, and was learning as much as I could about them.  I was having a difficult time breaking in to UW's Computer Science program becuase I had so many credits.  When I got the offer to join The Games Network in LA I jumped at the chance.  When I came back up to Seattle I started the night school route at Seattle University and after six years or so I got my undergraduate degree in Business.  I would have rather had a computer science degree but at the time there wasn't a night school program for something like that in Seattle (that I knew of).  Currently I am working on my Masters in Computer Science through Depaul University which has a great distance learning program.

On the home front (Mercer Island, WA) I am lucky enough to have a beautiful wife, Beth, and two daughters, Lisa and Laura.

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