Otwell Major Projects
DFAS DNA DSO Leadership and Development
April 2026 ‐ Present
Recruited for the second time to rejoin DFAS into one of the prominent IT teams to lead the DevSecOps (DSO) transformation of existing Micro Focus Visual COBOL (now Rocket Software) code base to Java Spring Boot (spring.io). Leverage strong leadership and software development skills to analyze existing code, business logic, and database updates into a streamlined, modern platform with exceptionally high throughput capability, accuracy, and security. Train team members on DSO modern standards. Also support internal propogation of industry best-practices into other areas of DFAS. Tools include Git, GitLab, Maven, Java 11, Oracle JDK and Azule OpenJDK, IntelliJ IDEA, HP Fortify, Jira/Confluence, Oracle 19 database, Solaris 11.4, UiPath and Selenium automated test cases. Also enhancing a Perl code base for the ICAM provisioning system of user accounts for Unix and Oracle DB account types.
PNC Bank Merger & Acquisition (M&A) Support Contract
January 2026 ‐ April 2026
Hired as an independent consultant (through Apidel Technologies) to support one of the operational divisions with conversion preparation, activity planning, dependency analysis, risk mitigation, reporting services and training throughout multiple Mock conversions and up through final conversion. This exciting project will migrate FirstBank assets into the PNC Bank systems and lines of business.
Professional Certifications PMP, CSM, ITIL, OCI AI
October 2025 ‐ January 2026
Focused on full‐time training (8‐10 hours per day) and completed eight (8) professional courses with high scores for all tests. Obtained Project Management Institute (PMI) Project Management Professional (PMP), Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Master (CSM), ITIL 4 Foundation certification from Axelos/PeopleCert, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), Vector Search (machine learning), and Data Science certificates as well as Java and APEX Foundation certifications.
Otwell Music Studio Build
April 2025 ‐ September 2025
Managed all aspects of a professional studio build including Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring & Controlling, and Closing. Extensive project included construction, vendor selection, research and development, procurements, electrical, painting, sound treatment, video preparations, and other environment enhancements. Project concluded with a demonstration and fully functional studio turned over and immediately placed into production.
Otwell Music LAMP stack migration to Java Spring Boot
April 2025 ‐ June 2025
Analyzed full 25,000 PHP code base and adapted/migrated into a stand‐alone Java Spring Boot application (currently version 4.1.0). Maintained existing MySQL database for operational efficiency and consistency. Tools included Java 21, Eclipse, Git, Maven, Debian‐based Linux, macOS, and JUnit for test cases.
DFAS DNA System Management
April 2024 ‐ March 2025
Manage team of professional IT civilians and contractors to migrate a COBOL legacy code base over to Java Spring Boot Framework. Project consists of front end and back end conversion to modern code base, including all modern tools supporting a full DevSecOps environment. Tools include Git, GitLab, Maven, Java 11, Azule JDK, IntelliJ IDEA, Fortify, Jira, Oracle 19 database, Solaris 11, UiPath and Selenium automated test cases.
DFAS Civilian Payroll Merger and Acquisition
May 2022 ‐ Mar 2024
Managed 400 person merger of two operational sites (300 + 100 personnel). Merged training programs, staffing, metrics and analysis, systems management, customer base, and culture. Results included standardization of methods, consolidation of personnel and management team, centralized management team, elimination of duplicate functions, and improved customer collaboration through best‐in‐class customer conferences, surveys, and reference materials.
DFAS Finance Operations Satellite Office Expansion
Mar 2021 ‐ Sep 2021
Architected a satellite office program for expanding operations to a satellite office. This allowed the program to also enhance their single site operations with a set of skilled workers who continue operations under devolution and contingency conditions.
DFAS Finance Operations Remote Hiring Program
Nov 2020 ‐ Mar 2021
Architected a remote hiring program through collaboration with Enterprise Team, Human Resources, Budget Office, and Operations divisions to accelerate recruitment and retention programs for DFAS. The results including end‐to‐end job postings, onboarding program with travel, and leveraging the existing new hire acclimation program.
DFAS Navy Major Command (BSO) system migration
Oct 2015 ‐ 2020
Supporting the Navy with a long‐term project migrating Navy General Fund Accounting to the Marine Corps General Fund Accounting System. The project entails frequent stakeholder meetings, systems requirements, development, and extensive testing. The project also involves business transformation and standardization for internal and external customers.
DFAS Full Financial Statement Audits
Mar 2016 ‐ 2020
Contrary to the title, this entails full system audits by independent public auditors (IPAs). I have 10 systems under audit scrutiny. They examine every aspect of system functionality, issue findings, which we then attempt to correct. The details are not available on this page.
DFAS FISCAM Command Center
Dec 2015 ‐ Sep 2016
Worked through the identified listing of critical FISCAM controls with a general fund accounting system. Resulting in systems, procedural, and documentation improvements. This system was the first to undergo heightened scrutiny of the internal controls department.
DFAS AMPS multi‐system deployments
Dec 2014 ‐ Oct 2015
Implemented the Account Management and Provisioning System (AMPS) for DFAS Cleveland. Several key systems involved key stakeholder engagement, internal coordination of RBAC packages, thousands of user access requests distributed around the globe.
DFAS Knowledge Management System
Mar 2014 ‐ October 2014
Designed and built the structure and content of a Microsoft SharePoint site. The site is a Knowledge Management solution and a consolidation of multiple data stores into a centralized KMS. The site was designed for optimum efficiency for customer agents providing information to customer callers. The benefits include timely and accurate information, efficient information flow, frequent updates and content management, promotion of adoption rate, and ease of maintenance. The site was featured at the 2014 Autumn DFAS strategic counsel. The site has 240 active users and provides knowledge content for a customer population of over 7 million customers.
Otwell Music eCommerce web front
November 2013 ‐ November 2014
Constructed End‐to‐end eCommerce solution for OtwellMusic.com including seamless shopping cart functionality, MySQL database backend, credit card payment gateway, inventory management systems, and advanced access‐controls system.
Otwell Music PHP and MySQL user authentication system
January 2013
Migrated the design patterns of the Primo Micro J2EE user authentication system (listed below) from Oracle and Java over to MySQL and PHP. The end solution is a fast and lightweight architecture based roughly on an MVC framework but without all the third party libraries or OOP overhead. The system is so fast and flexible that it was integrated into a new web site in just under one hour (without AI).
Otwell Music Oracle database management and architecture
September 2008 – Present
Design and build physical and logical enterprise databases for business applications. Central focus on mainstream and alternative database models including stored procedures vs. external POJO decision routines.
DFAS Customer Care Center staffing model
March 2013 – June 2013
Create supply vs. demand models and redesign an efficient staffing model which is sustainable and reduces costs and employee turnover. Solution based on business and statistical analysis, excel formulas & reporting.
DFAS mandatory EFT
May 2012 – February 2013
Conversion of paper checks to EFT (electronic funds transfer). Overall goal is to increase payment timeliness and reduce costs affiliated with labor, printing and distribution. Solution based on business requirements, leadership, teamwork, facilitation and delegation.
DFAS largest document disposition project ($5M)
August 2010 – January 2013
Plan and design the transformation of a warehouse full of 60 year old paperwork to electronic format. Goal is to reduce operational risk and increase pay technician efficiency. Solution based on business requirements, leadership, teamwork, facilitation and delegation.
DFAS employee productivity reporting/monitoring/trending
February 2010 – February 2012
Leading an 11,000 employee agency with detailed productivity monitoring, analysis and reporting. Solution based on business and statistical analysis, excel formulas & reporting.
DFAS fast forms automation
April 2011 – September 2011
Worked on project team as a facilitator and data extraction & translation loading (ETL) engineer to design and develop the data migration from customer interface forms to the backend Oracle databases. Solution based on PHP, Apache and Oracle 11g database.
DFAS Retired and Annuitant Pay Insourcing
January 2010 ‐ Dec 2012
Managed 464 person insourcing of Lockheed Martin employees to DFAS Federal civilians. Managed overall staffing levels, by team, by workload, strategically aligned workforce to eliminate backlogs in the thousands, estiblished critical KPIs for measuring and monitoring progress. Also, directly managed 25 employees to peak performance in the areas of knowledge management, metrics and reporting, training, contract management of $6M, budget management of $42M, systems requirements, and executive presenations.
Primo Micro Cox Comms database server health monitoring
December 2009 – January 2010
Built a custom health monitor for mission critical MySQL databases. Managed requirements, development, testing and implementation. Solution based on Bash shell and gnu‐based networking tools.
Primo Micro Spectrum/ClearLink ‐ Health Care business rules solution for Hospital collections
March 2007 – September 2009
Designed and developed custom business rules solutions for ClearLink Partners (2009) and Spectrum Oversight Advisors (2007) – solutions would allow Hospitals to determine highest propensity to pay patients for self‐pay (uninsured) accounts. Solution based on MySQL database, Resin web server, Java, JSP/CSS, XML.
Primo Micro J2EE user authentication system
February 2009
Designed and built a custom J2EE user authentication and access management system based on JSP, Enterprise Java Beans, POJOs, DAOs, and Oracle DB.
Primo Micro Iraq MoPDC Capital Budget tracking system
February 2008 – February 2009
Developed and delivered a forms automation solution for tracking capital budget expenses, fund approvals, and reporting. Solution based on Oracle 11g database, Java, JSP/CSS, XML.
Oversight Systems product management
January 2006 – February 2007
Managed overall enterprise product requirements, internal change requests and external (customer) requests, defect tracking and release planning. Solution based on business requirements, leadership, teamwork, Trac PM, excel reports.
Oversight Systems reporting engine and demo loader
September 2005 – December 2006
Integrated the Actuate eReporting engine with the Oversight custom Linux appliance to provide scheduled, automated reporting services to the Oversight product feature set. Later, developed an Oversight Demo Exception Loader (ODEL) enabling pre‐sales engineers to quickly and easily prepare an Oversight appliance for product demos tailored to specific prospects. Server side reporting solution based on the eActuate Reporting engine and ODEL was based on LAMP model (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP).
Oversight Systems Network and Data services and security
October 2003 – October 2006
Designed and developed the company's headquarters and offsite co‐located hosting facility network centers. The data services provided were LAN and WAN connectivity, full spectrum LAN network and data services, customer data repositories, development and testing labs, custom appliance configuration line. On one occasion, the HQ data center was successfully moved to a new location in a single day. Also managed vendor connectivity, contract negotiations, and troubleshooting. Solutions based on Linux & FreeBSD, OpenSSL/SSH, DNS, DHCP, TCP/IP, SMTP, POP3, SAMBA/CIFS.
Oversight Systems custom Linux appliance development
October 2003 – October 2004
Designed and developed the company's custom appliance platform including hardware, RAID configuration, linux flavor and optimal configuration. The end result was voted as the "most secure Linux box" Georgia Tech network security engineers had ever seen. The custom appliance also passed every customer deployment security tests with flying colors. The system was configured to be so secure that most systems engineers could not figure out how to log into the console. This system was solely designed and developed by myself and I also led the performance tuning initiatives for the extended file systems and MySQL databases. Solution based on RedHat (Fedora) Linux, JBOSS app server, MySQL db, Oracle db, Kickstart, gnu tools.
Oversight Systems proof of concept demonstration application
August 2003 – September 2003
During Oversight's inception and capital fund raising days, built the startup company's first proof of concept application which showed policy files, logic rules, triggered events and reports. Prototype based on Visual BASIC .NET 2003.
AMS ICE (Intelligent Correlation Engine) development
October 2002 – July 2003
Designed and developed a proof of concept application called ICE. This application would collect security events from any industry standard security appliances or application event streams used to make logic connections and draw conclusions based on pre‐configured rules. The solution included a web front end and back end intelligent systems. The system features was developed based on years of security experience and a collaboration between the project team members. Solution based on the FAMP model (FreeBSD, Apache, MySQL db and PHP).
Vigilinx SaaS solutions division (with Event Monitor)
January 2001 – September 2002
Developed new division of SaaS solutions and operations for Vigilinx (formerly only a consulting services group). Solutions included building the Event Monitor monitoring and management of Checkpoint/WatchGuard/Cisco Firewalls and Network Intrusion Devices. The overall project included software development, IT operations, hiring/staffing/training, and device management. Solution based on the FAPP model (FreeBSD, Apache, PostgreSQL db and PHP).
IBM ISS WebCon (Web Console ‐ security monitoring solution)
April 2000 – January 2001
Developed ISS' first web‐based security monitoring tool which was used to build the company's headquarter‐based secure operations center (SOC). The tool was a cutting edge suite of applications which provided centralized view of nationwide customer security events. We hired and trained staff and took SaaS security operations from a single space office up to a 10,000 square foot SOC. The product was the first time ISS had developed and deployed a web‐based console and monitoring tool. Furthermore, we built mobile device apps before the industry had "mobile apps". We built this security monitoring solution to also be easily viewed and managed from an HP Jornada 720. We would blow the minds of prospects and customers by carrying these small handheld computers around and demonstrating our warez. Solution based on the FAPP model (FreeBSD, Apache, PostgreSQL and Perl).
ISS Engineering Services reference site
circa 1999 – 2000
Built the reference website which including systems maintenance instructions for users and a contact form and tracking system.
ISS Engineering Services Systems deployments
circa 1999 – 2000
Built dozens of Windows NT workstations, Linux and FreeBSD servers, Apache web servers, and Perl scripts for systems management.
Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) reference system
circa 1998
Developed a reference site for the entire Intel‐based server line of Digital Prioris servers. Features included navigation controls, descriptive narratives, images with closeups, and illustrated parts breakdowns and detailed part numbers.
Otwell Programming
circa 1998
Developed a simple file‐based shopping cart system based on HTML, Perl (CGI) and flat file storage.
Otwell Programming
circa 1997
Developed an HTML tutorial website with tab‐based navigation controls for a college independent study.