Greetings. I am a Beijing-based web programmer/designer working at my consulting company, I*net Systems.
If you’re looking for photographic evidence of my exploits in and around Asia and North America, check out my family website.
This one contains a short biography, resume and whatnot.
But for two formative years in Teaneck New Jersey,
I grew up in Mt. Lebanon, PA in Pittsburgh’s south hills along with my home-maker mom, big brother & sister (shown on right) and my news reporter/talk host dad Mike Levine.
A life-long fan of all things Pittsburgh, I feel quite at home amidst the raging pollution of Beijing where I currently hang my hat.
After graduating from Mt. Lebanon High School, I went off to study mathematics at the University of Michigan where I matriculated at the Residential College.
I entered the work force as a trainee in the Glass Information Systems department at Works 4, a glass plant
in Wichita Falls, TX, where I learned to write COBOL business applications on IBM 360 mainframe computers.
Upon completing my year of training, I accepted a full time position at Works 4.
After less than a year, I was transfered to head office in Pittsburgh where I became a member of the IT systems department,
writing IBM BAL and interpreting disk dumps.
In the meantime, one of my colleagues from Works 4 had found his way to Massachusetts and recruited me to join the exciting world of minicomputer start-ups.
I joined the languages department at Data General, working as a programmer supporting and developing AOS COBOL,
learning the basics of computer science along the way.
Finding all these endeavors fascinating, I hunkered down and became a programmer worthy of promotion through a variety of
16- and 32-bit projects, ultimately leading the development team for the common AOS/VS debugger.
When Data General transfered its language department to North Carolina, I jumped to Prime where I built a small team working to integrate a UNIX-based mini-supercomputer with Prime CAD systems.
I got to learn networking protocols, drill Ethernet cable, and learn to speak UNIX shell. I had a short wonderful time at Prime before the hardware project was canceled.
I was the first UNIX development manager at Lotus, responsible for delivering ports of 1-2-3 to various UNIX platforms.
The initial target was three hardware architectures deployed by Sun Microsystems.
I lead a complex hybrid team consisting of engineers from Lotus, Sun and a vested development partner.
Also, I worked as a peer manager to groups working on other non-mainstream platforms, including VAX/VMS and IBM mainframes.
After eight years at Lotus Cambridge, I transfered to Beijing with my family where I completed the final two years of my employment with Lotus in various technical roles with the Asia/Pacific sales and marketing team.
Working for Lotus in Beijing was very challenging. My manager was an 11-hour flight away!
At the conclusion of my contract I went independent and have been an Internet consultant ever since.
I developed a framework for a content management system in IBM’s ASP and then discovered the world of open-source.
I have been developing websites ever since, first in Joomla and Drupal, lately in WordPress.
View my portfolio at I*net Systems.
I live with my wife in Beijing, China in a flat near Dongzhimen with bedrooms for the kids when they’re on this side of the pond.
Request a resume.