Stephen Litovitz
ITEvaluator@yahoo.ca

Objective

Seeking Senior Systems Application Developer, Solution Architect, Data Analyst or Team Lead position in the insurance, financial or manufacturing industry sectors utilizing my 15 plus years of experience in developing system integration applications. I would like to offer my knowledge and expertise to help increase the efficiency of your business while reducing your expenditures.

Profile Summary

• Analyzed, designed, coded, tested and deployed e-business and legacy solutions for bank/insurance industry.


• Worked with the users to help establish business requirements and translate them into IT specifications.


• Evaluated software tools and technologies to help reduce the time consumed on application development.


• Demonstrated leadership and negotiating skills on the SU2000 project, which involved the coordination of many different areas and the setup of several testing teams.


• Assisted and advised other divisions throughout the company on how to develop message middleware applications between disparate systems using IBMâ?â„¢s MQSeries.

Technical Proficiencies

• Hardware - IBM OS390 (Mainframe), 3270 Terminal Simulation via IBM PC, AS400, UNIX, AIX


• Mainframe - COBOL, IMS, DB2, SQL/QMF, MQ, SPUFI, CICS, MVS/JCL, TSO/ISPF, VSAM, FileAid, LE, Access for DB2, Total DB, CA/Email, Abendaid, Umbrella, CL/Supersession, Omegamon, DumpMaster, ViaSoft SmartTest/Edit, MQ-PQEdit, SAS, etc.


• AS400 - MQ, COBOL, CL, Robot, PDM, SDA, DFU, SEU, Data Areas, Aldon, MQ-QNAppWatch.


• Methodologies - SDLC (Incremental, Iteration), IAA (XML Message Format), RUP (Architectural Analysis), Use Cases, UML, Sequence/Collaboration (OOA), Associations (OOD), OOP, Data Flows/Structures, Normalization (3NF), Entity-Relationship diagrams, Database Comands (DDL/DML/DCL), Hippo, etc.


• Software - MS Office, Lotus Notes, MS Access, VBA, MS Project, Java, C++/Unix, MS Visual Studio for C++, HTML/XML, Oracle9i, VBasic.NET
  

Career History

TORONTO DOMINION BANK, Toronto                                                                                             2005 - present

Phoenix Project, IT Solutions Developer

This is a large project for handling client RIF investments. The project encompases an Intranet based GUI front end vendor software, which interfaces with the mainframe, Unix server, Windows server, and transports data using FTP secure technologies.

• Developed an efficient solution to bypass unwanted ASCII line-feed characters, which were being introduced into XML files on the mainframe via FTP batch jobs.


• Introduced compile JCL for the testing environment, which allowed us to upgrade from COBOL II to Enterprise COBOL, and allowed us to make use of the newer functionality associated with Enterprise COBOL.


• Assisted in resolving a critical COBOL/IMS application error message which suggested restart failure, but in fact was an initialization issue.


• Built elaboate complex SAS financial reports for the Phoenix project, combining data from multiple files and merging the data together.


• For specific tax receipts, built SAS reports which were upload to the P.C., then imported into Access/Excel for additional user cross checking analysis

CANADA LIFE ASSURANCE COMPANY, Toronto                                                                         1991 - 2004

Gemsweb Project, Senior Systems Specialist

Gemsweb is a web based traditional benefit enrollment and administration application for Group Life and Health, designed for access by plan members, administrators, sales agents, customer service reps and brokers. The application was quite complex integrating web front end with mainframe and AS400 via AIX servers, using MQSeries as the message middleware.

• Redesigned, coded, tested and deployed all program changes involving MQSeries on the mainframe when integrating the web front end with the mainframe, and when replacing CICS call between mainframe & AS400 with MQSeries middleware.


• Participated in product brain storming sessions involving team members, business analysts and vendors.


• Received a special recognition as MQSeries application guru within the Group Life & Health department.


• Assisted in the development of the MQSeries database message log application that not only captured each message that passed through the mainframe CICS/VSAM Hub, but was capable of regenerating a message for disaster recovery purposes or triggering an alert if a disruption in the flow of messages was detected.


• First team at Canada Life to successfully implement MQSeries triggering


• Implementation of QNAppWatch at zero cost to Canada Life and substantially reduced MQSeries development testing.


• Shared in the on-call rotation with the team.

System Upgrade 2000, Senior Systems Specialist

This was a big system project involving the upgrade of over 150 products on the mainframe used by application developers throughout the company, which was delayed because of Y2K.

• Managed and organized the complete retesting of all Group Life & Health applications. This involved recruiting, negotiating, setting up, organizing and managing teams of business analysts and IT professionals.


• Recruited and organized forty BAâ?â„¢s and ten IT testers needed for this project.


• Collaborated with management at all levels; managers, team leaders, business analysts, programmers and VP.


• Organized, set up and verified the mainframe environment for all testing.


• Participated and attended weekly system meetings with other department representatives. During these meetings we discussed upcoming planning strategy for implementation, reviewed technical glitches and provided feedback from the department on products that were being assessed for removal.


• Organized weekend production deployment test sessions.


• Assisted the company in an instant savings of $300,000 by replacing the utility product Abend-Aid with DumpMaster.


• Coordinated the removal of CL/Supersession and CA/Email and produced 5 year savings of $1.8 million.

Healthfare - Xybernet, Consultant I

Healthfare is a P.C. based flex benefit enrollment and administration application for Group Life and Health designed for access by administrators and customer service reps. The application was quite complex integrating MS Access database at the front end, mainframe at the back-end and Oracle database in the middle at the vendorâ?™s site. We used MQSeries as the message middleware between the Oracle database at Xybernet and the mainframe at Canada Life.

• Designed, coded, tested and deployed MQSeries application programming interfaces (API) within the GLH department, with no prior experience in MQSeries. This involved a set of MQSeries APIâ?â„¢s on the mainframe for browsing, reading and writing messages, which was integrated with the vendorâ?â„¢s software.


• Created MQ/CICS Hub on mainframe using a VSAM file structure which saved the company millions of dollars.


• First team at Canada Life to successfully launch MQSeries API and MQ/CICS Hub to handle message flow on mainframe.


• Implemented PQEDIT at zero cost to Canada Life on mainframe and significantly reduced MQSeries development testing.


• Received a â?Å“distinguishedâ? designation from the company as a result of developing a new MS Access 97 application in a very short period of time which solved a critical (do or die) situation. This occurred when the vendor was unable to meet client specifications. Accomplished this without any prior experience in using the software.


• In addition, the team won a company award for demonstrating commitment and outstanding resolution skills.


• Improved on the design of the confirmation statements from 12-15 hours using 2 people to 90 minutes with 1 person.

Maintenance Team for IS Group Life & Health, Consultant I

Developed and performed maintenance on various GLH legacy applications on the mainframe.

• Responsible for enhancing and testing BNS and CIBC systems.


• Joined the Achieving Continuous Breakthrough Performance team, where we embarked on reducing systems failures.

Maintenance Team for IS-Group Pension, Programmer/Analyst Level 5

• Revised and performed maintenance on Group Pension legacy applications on mainframe.

Education

• B.A., (Computer Science), York University, Toronto, Ont.


• Introduction To Developing OO Applications With Java For 3GL Developers, IBM Head Office in Markham.


• CICS Application Programming I, IBM Head Office in Markham.


• DB2 Application Programming Workshop, InfoBalance.


• DB2 Concepts and Facilities, InfoBalance.


• Process Modeling, InfoBalance.


• Data Modeling, InfoBalance.


• Programming Access 97, Computer Training Centres.


• Advanced Access 97, Computer Training Centres.

Awards

• Numerous certificates of recognition for various team performances, etc. in IS-GLH.