Bernd Wechner
A Professional Résumé

Skills

Career

Experience

Project Manager, Data fusion project , SonarData Pty. Ltd. 2006-
Manager, Support, quality assurance and documentation, SonarData Pty. Ltd. 2003-
Manager, User support and training, SonarData Pty. Ltd. 2002-2003

Brought on board to manage user support and training requirements for the Echoview product. Developed, delivered and maintained a very successful three day training course on Echoview. Managed support of a global client base. On the arrival of our first child moved internally to a role with fewer travel commitments, managing quality assurance and documentation needs for SonarData. Re-acquired customer support as a responsibility and grew the SQuAD (Support, Quality Assurance and Documentation) team from three people servicing one project to eight serving two projects. As the SQuAD team matured, requiring less supervision I took on project management of a new product, and a team of nine (five programmers, three test engineers and one documenter) in parallel to SQuAD management.

In managerial roles I continued to provide significant coding (C#, VBA, Perl), documentation, testing and customer support contributions to my teams in the contexts of both leadership/mentoring and simple productive contribution where load demanded such.

Test Engineer, Dytech Solutions Pty. Ltd. 2002

A two month contract with Dytech Solutions filling a necessary quality assurance role on two key products (LeX and Quest) in the company's history (both web based information services for the Australian government).

Software Engineer, Larrisun Pty. Ltd. 2000-2002

Developed, on own initiative:
• a generic on-line database system intended for the public domain
  (a non-profit motivated venture used by the Tasmanian Greens)
  with Perl, HTML, and Apache on Linux and Windows 98.
• an enhanced web based email client
  (a personal contribution for use by my University Alumni )
  with PHP and Apache on Linux.

Customer Support Engineer, Landis and Gyr Communications 1998-2000

Technical and administrative support of customers for telecommunications software systems, including:
• product documentation (developing and maintaining user and installation guides),
• product packaging and delivery (personalised for large corporate clients),
• customer training (designed and delivered 2 to 4 day courses to 2 to 20 engineers at a time),
• post-sales consultation and warranty management (telephonically and on-site)

Two major products and a few minor products with around 30 active customers (national Telecoms in Europe, Asia, North Africa and Latin America). Delivered courses on site predominantly in English and German, occasionally in French, produced documentation in English.

Technical Consultant, BHP Research 1997.
Company Director, Larrisun Pty. Ltd. 1997-

As the sole director of Larrisun Pty. Ltd, provided consulting services to BHP over two months, developing a strip flatness prediction model (used in the rolling of sheet steel), implementing a prototype and training production and research personnel with regards to rolling automation software and theories.

Telecommunications Engineer, Swiss Telecom 1995-1996.

Developed a GSM tuning package for the display and navigation of measured radio signals and simulation of GSM handover decisions based upon them. Extensive work with GSM radio resource management and Visual Basic. This project was highly successful, and provided the basis for winning further contracts for the radio-tuning group at Swiss PTT Research (now Swisscom).

Contributing Editor, Suite101.com 1995-2003

Contribute a monthly article to the travel section of this magazine-style web directory. Appointed by invitation.

Independent Traveller, 1991-2001

Three roughly year-long trips and various shorter journeys through Europe, Asia, North America, Australia and New Zealand with a strong focus on peoples and cultures. A profound experience in personal development, notably communication skills, cultural awareness and languages.

Research Engineer, BHP Sheet and Coil Products Division 1986-1993.

Research and development work in cold rolling technology, specifically applied to the five stand tandem cold mills at the Port Kembla and Western Port steelworks. Extensively involved in the commissioning of the Coupled Pickle Line-Cold Mill (CPCM) at the Port Kembla works, a unique project in its time.

Responsibilities included:

• mathematical modelling of cold rolling processes
  
  
• development of predictive software
  (for off-line analysis of mill behaviour and product quality)
  
  
• implementation and maintenance of automation software
  (for on-line prediction of mill set-up parameters and dynamic adaption of the supporting models)
  
  
• construction of a mill database and associated software
  (for the collection, retrieval and analysis of data)
  
  
• liaison with production personnel on behalf of the Research and Technology Centre
  
  
• management of the Internet and Usenet interfaces.

During the course of my work at BHP I developed one of the earliest event-driven languages in my experience, to facilitate the development of user interfaces on VAX machines. Similar and much more expansive systems have since appeared on the market, of which Microsoft's Visual Studio languages are a strong example.

Mechanical Engineering Trainee, BHP Coated Products Division 1983-1986.

Three months work experience (a summer at a time) in the:
• engineering drawing office - technical drawing work; 
• spares and maintenance office - contributed to the compilation of a spares registery; 
• research and technology centre - mathematical modelling work. 

Publications

Extensive publication of end user documentation including SonarData's Echoview help, Eonfusion Help and AQ1 documentation.

Many internal and confidential research reports were published as well as design documentation, user guides, course material and travel articles (on-line and in zines).

The following co-authored papers:

W.Y.D. Yuen, A. Duval and B. Wechner, A New Formulation for the Analysis of Strip Flatness in Strip Rolling, 7th International Conference on Steel Rolling, 1998

W.Y.D. Yuen and B. Wechner, A Physical Model for On-Line Roll Bending Set Up in Cold Rolling, 5th International Steel Rolling Conference, 1990 

Education

Training courses

Personal Details

Other Interests

I am a keen environmentalist, cyclist, swimmer, in-line skater, and enjoy small team sports, notably volleyball. I have a passion for travel, social and cultural exchanges, international contacts, language, and philosophy and maintain a relatively extensive web page, sharing some of those interests with the public at large (http://bernd.wechner.info). I am (very) slowly compiling an informal book of personal experiences which appears there. I enjoy, foster and encourage social games and events in place of television and other sedentary or non-interactive activities.

Referees

Provided on demand. All former employers available for comment.