Who Dat? (e.g. Who am I?)

My name is Brandon and I am a Cajun, husband, geek, software developer, photographer, traveler, consultant, LSU alumnus & Tiger fan!

As a Cajun, my personality is very upbeat and outspoken – occasionally exhibiting the loud-and-proud element that’s oh-so prevalent in South Louisina. But I also believe heavily in teamwork! I’m passionate about software technology, and what I love about consulting is the opportunity it provides to help so many different people, in virtually any industry, use technology to improve their experiences.

I also fancy myself as a psuedo-renaissance-man of tech things, dabbling in a wide variety of technology from software design/architecture, to home-auotmation and a dash of electronics here and there. And strive to become proficient in the things that most benefit my role as a consultant and make my life easier, or at least more fun!

Outside of code, one of my favorite passions, is to express my artistic side with landscape photography…always striving to improve and live in the moment of each shutter snap.

If you made it here then I truly hope that you have found something that I’ve shared to be useful, even if it’s to learn what not to do.

What I do

The bit above is a little about who I am, and an integral part of what I do…technology consulting!

I am the Director of Technology Consulting at EXLRT for the US operations.

My personal philosophy is to strive to provide a “consultant first…” approach to solving problems, which often yields a very different solution than a “technology first…” mindset. And, I also firmly believe that creating the best solutions is far more art than it is science!

So by striving for a client-centric & quality based focus, I hope to ensure that solutions add real value by empowering my clients — not constraining them — with technology.

My experience

I have 20+ years of experience in technology, consulting, and software development. My development experience is full stack & cross platform, using Microsoft and Java technologies, for enterprise solutions.

I’ve been fortunate enough to work for some amazing enterprises & Fortune 100 companies (see below).

Brands that I feel blessed to have worked with (in no particular order):

Starbucks
Hewlett Packard
ExxonMobil
Harris County Engineering Department (Permitting Division)
Wells Fargo
Boston Consulting Group (BCG)
American Express
Universal Studios
Acer (Tawain)
Sodexo & SodexoMyWay
AEG Live

A little more about my background

Before graduating from LSU in 2002, I had already started my career in technology building my first computer around age 13’ish. By building, I mean that I took it apart and put it back together with what I might estimate as a 10% more efficient design! This claim is substantiated by the fact that I had ~10% of the screws still in my hands while the computer started back up!

Some years later I was building computers on the side to help pay for necessities during college, and worked for the the LSU Agricultural Center Computing Services doing PC repair (it always-was a mouthful to say every time we answered the tech-support phone line).

Eventually my desire to learn software development increased commensurately with my financial needs as a student. So, I moved off campus to work as an Automated Test Developer for Lewis Computing Services (a medical software provider at the time). They gave me a raise, provided free food, worked around my class schedule, and basically paid me to learn Visual Basic 5, and 6. At the time I thought it was amazing to get so much… later in life I learned how much of a win-win it was since I was also pretty cheap labor for them and they got tremendous value out of the work we (several other incredibly smart & talented students that worked for them) provided! But, I wouldn’t trade it for the world, as I learned soo much from my colleagues there.

After graudation, I started my professional career in the Oil & Gas field where I began my journey of working with true enterprise technologies. Initially starting with Document Managmeent systems (e.g. FileNet, Documentum) and eventually developing strategic custom applications (for competitive advantage). At one point I also took an ~2 year stint in full-time project management… which provided me with many lessons that I use every day; though, perhaps the most important being that I’ll never be a great project manager!

Eventually my frustrations & passion pushed me out of that one industry and into technology consulting where I could learn about many industries, companies, brands, etc.