I work as a database analyst for a major multinational oil corporation. Since 2001 I have worked with a team of engineers and geologists in a research department that is finding new technologies for getting oil and gas out of the ground. Until recent months the nature of this research has been a closely held secret and I do not know how much I am allowed to say about it.
Prior to that, I worked for the same company with a team that provided groundwater environmental engineering and hydrogeological support to refineries, chemical plants, and service stations. There I specialized in analysis and programming of environmental databases and Geographical Information Systems (GIS, basically computerized map-making.) I designed and wrote award-winning software solutions for database/GIS integration during our successful effort to implement Risk-Based Corrective Action (RBCA, pronounced "Rebecca") environmental compliance strategies in the petrochemical industry. I helped to codify electronic data deliverable (EDD) formats and create cost-effective data loading procedures. I provided software support and training to end users.
I also constructed a three-layer groundwater flow model for a chemical plant and its remediation system. This used the Modflow finite-difference code, the GMS front end, and other tools, including a novel format for visualization of flow lines from Modflow output that I developed using ArcView GIS.
I first read Anthem in high school in 1980, then The Fountainhead, then Atlas. I moved on to the nonfiction and became an Objectivist while studying physics at MIT.
I was born in Miami and raised in Florida and Georgia. From 1981 to 1994 I lived in eastern Massachusetts. Since 1994 I have lived in Houston, Texas.
Interests:
-travel
-photography
-history
-technology
-physical fitness
-Opera, symphonic music (listening only)
-gastronomy
-French, Spanish, Latin, ancient Greek, starting to dabble in Hindi
-19th century French literature
-science fiction
-self defense
-firearms
-listening to Latin jazz
-21st century Hindi cinema, and listening to filmi sangeet
-cartography
-3D subsurface databases
-remote data acquisition
-in situ remediation strategies for groundwater contamination
-in situ pyrolysis
-certain geological strata underlying Rio Blanco County, Colorado and neighboring regions
