Career Experience

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President & CEO

ubermemorials, Inc. dba Light Of Hope Memorials | Alden, Michigan | 10/2010 – Current

As co-founder and President, Mr. Carlson led the research, design and production of three first-to-market products under the Light of Hope registered trademark.   As a function of his progressive ideas and high standards, these quality memorial lighting solutions are poised to help revolutionize the Memorialization Industry by providing relevant and meaningful remembrance solutions to their client families.  Brad has helped achieve:

  • A dealer network of more than 118 cemeteries, monument companies and funeral homes spanning five countries on three continents
  • An internal team of 27, plus several outsourced companies for manufacture and fulfillment
  • Industry recognition in a number of national and international membership organizations
  • Implementation of financial, manufacturing & marketing systems as well as processes to ready the company for ISO-9001 certification

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Team Director

Sybase/Hospira (Dextrys) | Boston/Chicago | 6/2007 – 10/2009

Contracted through Dextrys to Sybase, Mr. Carlson managed Sybase’s team and relationship with Hospira.  Hospira is a global leader in producing and marketing patient infusion pumps and medication management systems.  To support the over 400,000 devices installed world-wide, Hospira also produces injectable products for some of the world's major proprietary pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.  Sybase contracted said team to Hospira to implement these devices and their supporting IT systems in hospitals around the world.

  • Built and managed a team of up to eleven independent contractors.  Scheduled implementation calls and site visits to hospitals, provided training and first level technical support, processed time and expense reports and ensured FDA compliance through documentation and audits
  • Increased revenues to Sybase by 58% from 1.2 to 1.9 million
  • Worked with Hospira Project Managers and personnel. Participated in internal and customer status calls, lead pre-visit implementation checklist calls with hospitals to ensure preparedness and inspected work quality of contractors with periodic visitation to job locations
  • Additional administrative functions included asset and team equipment management and processing of time and expense reports, and producing monthly invoice detail
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Project Manager

Trinity Information Services (Trinity Health) | Farmington Hills, Michigan | 1/2006 – 2/2007

Trinity Health is a faith-based organization devoted to a ministry of healing, serving persons through a network of 44 hospitals, 379 outpatient clinics/facilities, and numerous other facilities and services.  Trinity is the fourth-largest Catholic health system in the United States, with over $5.7 billion in revenue and 44,950 FTEs, 1,300 in the IS organization alone.  Mr. Carlson managed a number of areas of the Information Systems, Project Management Office, including: 

  • Manager of the $250m Genesis project plan, performing project leadership of many departments’ teams, to consolidate all Trinity hospitals on the same integrated software & platforms.  Departments included design, acceptance, infrastructure, testing, user and customer verification, training and cutover (go-lives) for activations and upgrades
  • Team Leader of the Methodology review workgroup, chartered with the on-going examination of Trinity’s PMO processes and procedures.  Deliverables were to re/design and streamline existing PMI/Trinity methodologies, align within the company’s new ITIL framework, and communicate those changes (along with other PMO news) through a monthly intranet newsletter and an intranet-based PMO Toolkit.  Performed QA to ensure conformance to said Methodology
  • ‘Dean’ of the PMO, responsible for leading the Curriculum workgroup who determine needed competency levels and melding those with curriculum needed to bring each Project Manager to the desired levels of competency.  From those deliverables, responsible for implementing curriculum and tracking compliance throughout the PMO
  • Project Portfolio Management:  Organized the development and day-to-day support of the portfolio management tool used to manage Trinity’s vast array of projects.  Designed and communicated most all metrics of project statuses to Trinity and customer executive and board-level representatives

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MIS Director

K+S Services, Inc. | Southgate, Michigan | 2/2003 – 8/2005

K+S Services is the world’s largest industrial repair company, with many locations throughout the United States, Europe and Mexico.  Mr. Carlson had total leadership for the entire MIS organization, including applications development, infrastructure/networking, web technologies, databases, outsourcing & vendor management and communications.

  • Managed the outsourcing for the development of a major web-based tracking system and rolled out to 87 factories
  • Directed the design, RFP process, purchase, contract negotiations & management, and implementation of all-new server & desktop environments, taking the company into a Citrix MetaFrame server, thin-client desktop technology for worldwide operations
  • Researched and drove the process of selecting and implementing a company-wide ERP, CRM & accounting package
  • Oversaw the software development team through the entire development lifecycle for web-based interfaces for both customers and remote employees, and Delphi for the ERP system.  This effort replaced a number of disparate systems with an integrated system, using work-flow technology that cut operating overhead by 17% while shortening turnaround time by over 10%
  • Automated Fax server and document/content management system selection & implementation
  • Researched, designed & recommended a company-wide voice & data communications network featuring wireless (Wi-Fi) and VoIP telephony solution
  • Restructured and built the MIS team to handle new infrastructure and development environment, redesigning processes and methodologies for doing so

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Prism Management Group

Contract with Carrillo Industries | San Clemente, California | 9/2001 –1/2003

Brad was responsible for performing consulting services and upgrades for this long-term (1985) customer as a result of a corporate buyout.  Planned, managed and implemented upgrades to their factory job control and inventory, and front-office applications such as order processing, accounting and product management systems.

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Assistant Vice President for Applications and Development

ABN-AMRO Bank, N.A./Interfirst, Inc. | Ann Arbor, Michigan | 11/2000 – 8/2001

Mr. Carlson was accountable for the applications development department for the mortgage and e-commerce division of the world’s sixth largest bank.  With budget responsibility in excess of $7 million and more than 40 local and remote personnel, he managed the development and support of the various web portals & internal systems for several business units. These include Interfirst Wholesale, Standard Federal-Michigan National and LaSalle Bank branches, the interfirst.com marketing site, and the recent acquisition of mortgage.com to manage consumer e-commerce loans. Systems cover the entire mortgage life cycle, including registration, underwriting, closing & funding, secondary marketing, QA and servicing, among others.  He:

  • Evangelized for and facilitated the design & implementation of the SEI-CMM (Capability Maturity Model) process improvement, UML and other methodologies to bring repeatable successes and best practices to project quality, budgets and timeframes, and manage risk
  • Restructured the department into a business object unit-based design and created and led a software design team to shift emphasis to proper architecture, design and developer documentation.  This effort utilized best practices to integrate common objects for reusability/portability via a 3-tier design model, while increasing data security and incorporating new privacy legislation
  • Directed the technical integration of its mortgage division from the acquisition of Michigan National Bank
  • Designed and implemented an incentive/measurement system to track productivity and quality, and to give people accountability, ownership and recognition for their job functions
  • Oversaw the development of several major and many minor software additions as well as the integration of the previously outsourced e-commerce project, mortgage.com. Played a major part in the selection, proof of concept and implementation of HNC’s Capstone decision engine to automate mortgage originations (applications) decisions. Researched, selected and implemented several other third-party modules to keep Interfirst’s systems world-class and number one in the marketplace
  • Application technologies include Java, EJB, Websphere/Weblogic, Wolf, VeriSign, Apache, XML, HTML, Visual Basic (VB) and Oracle forms. Built using multi-tier, object-oriented environments, using Oracle databases, on Sun Solaris servers

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Manager of Systems Development

Gage Marketing Services/Argenbright, Inc. | Plymouth, Michigan | 9/1999 – 8/2000

Gage Marketing Services (now Archway Marketing) is one of the leaders in the marketing fulfillment industry.  Mr. Carlson was responsible for automating the warehouses with state of the art information and automation systems, as well as redesigning legacy systems into an object oriented, multi-tier environment.  Those included Customer Service, Order Entry, Inventory, Pick/Pack & Shipping, Billing & A/R, Payment Processing, Returns Processing and a vast array of EDI sub-systems.  Accountable for a $5+ million budget to service B2B and B2C customers.

  • Organized and hired a team of 32 senior analyst and programmers into an object-based department of business units, with a design & architecture team, and a quality assurance team
  • Directed the research, recommendation and implementation of full RF/wireless handheld computer technology to control all aspects of the warehouse-receiving, inventory and shipping process.  Also successfully implemented a pick-to-light pick/pack and shipping system, providing unparalleled efficiencies to the warehouse staff
  • Researched, recommended and began instituting a CRM system to handle customer service
  • Implemented ISO-9002 methodologies throughout the development department as part of corporate certification.  Applied best practice methodologies to streamline the design, programming, QA & change control process
  • Technologies used include upgrading legacy Cobol, FoxPro, C & VB systems to Oracle 8i using Forms 6i, Java, HTML & Crystal Reports,, using Oracle databases on HP-Unix and NT servers in a client/server and web-based multi-tier environment

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Consultant, then Director of Software Engineering

Memory Lane Systems/Emphasys, Inc. | Petoskey, Michigan | 3/1992 – 8/1999

The number one Public Housing Authority (PHA) and Redevelopment Agency software suite, (emphasysworld.com) MLS provides hundreds of city and county governments across the country with tools to manage the various HUD programs that they administer.  Mr. Carlson became involved with MLS in 1992 when they purchased the Prism suite of accounting modules to use as the core of the Emphasys system, and later was brought on to direct the software engineering department.

  • Built and organized a group of 14 programmers and analyst in developing & maintaining the Emphasys package
  • Created a Quality Assurance department to aid in solid deliverables, based on best practice controls
  • Designed and implemented a point-based incentive/measurement system that increased productivity substantially while cutting defects from 64% to less than 1%
  • Implemented change-control processes and version management system to properly handle version releases and service packs to the marketplace
  • Led development of 43 modules, including Fund-Accounting (GL/AP/AR/BB/PR/HR), Procurement, Purchase Order, Inventory, Section 8, Waiting List, Inspections, Grants and many others.  Several had Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
  • Oversaw the redesign of the system from a Dataflex-based environment to a Delphi-based object oriented (OO) system running on databases such as SQL-Server and Sybase, using Crystal Reports for reporting.  Platforms & technologies include XENIX, UNIX, AIX, NT, Citrix, Novell Netware & DOS

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President & CEO

Prism Management Systems, Inc. | San Clemente, California | 1/1985 –3/1992

Mr. Carlson was a key principle in the Prism Management Systems start-up.  The company developed, marketed and supported the InTouch2000 Dental Management System and eventually tackled the medical and chiropractic markets.  The business model was based around wired and wireless touch-screen technology to completely automate patient treatment, charting, insurance, appointment and billing records.  Additional functionality was provided with a complete set of accounting and management modules.  He:

  • Led team in pre-IPO business development, and assisted in all aspects of initial financing and challenged with the development and deployment of the corporate technology infrastructure and applications
  • Supervised the strategic and tactical leadership for the design, development and testing of the InTouch2000 product and a full range of fund accounting modules.  Performed much of the early code development
  • Additional cross-functional responsibilities include contract negotiations, project management, change management strategies and senior level recruitment. Designed and implemented corporate budgeting processes and performed detailed cost analysis and company financial functions
  • Built strategic partnerships for the nationwide marketing and distribution of the product.  Press releases, trade shows, networking and sleuthing were some of the means used to accomplish this goal
  • Oversaw development of the training and support departments, ranging from end-user training, help desk with phone and modem support and an extensive user group structure and agendas
  • Technical proficiencies obtained include Dataflex database & 4GL, Pascal & C++ apps running on DOS, Novell, Lantastic, Port & Fox-10 networks

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Partner

Databus, Inc. | San Clemente, California | 4/1982 – 1/1985

Launched a business computer consulting company with three partners and several other employees, organized to provide consulting, custom programming, training services, hardware & software sales for a variety of industries.  Directed many aspects of the start-up operations including conducting competitive research & analysis, developing the business plan, financial management and cost analysis, formulated sales strategies and implementation plans, pricing, and market strategy.  Software packages authored included a full range of accounting modules, manufacturing front office and factory control programs, Long Term health care Medicaid reimbursement programs, Risk Management, and a Homeowners Association Property Management package.  Development was primarily with Dataflex, with some Paradox and Lotus 1-2-3 applications.