Bryan W. Griffin

Email:(replace [initials] with bwg): [initials]@[initials].com
Address: 3300 Bridger Trail #301 Boulder, Co. 80301
Phone: (303) 939-8514
[note- I have callerid and screen calls when busy, leave msg. and I may answer]

Job Experience:

January 95 - present: CEO
CyberTools; Boulder, CO
Consulting, and developing Internet related software, not yet announced. CyberTools was the place holder name for my next company. After changing directions I am now working on Gigamind (comments on the name choice are welcome).

November 93 - January 95: Chief Technical Officer
Cyberspace Development, Inc.; Boulder, CO
Co-founder and half owner of a company started to pursue my ideas for the future of electronic self-publishing and many-many communication. To self-fund the company we started one of the first online Internet "malls", and the first to take credit cards over the net interactively to sell electronic content in Jan '94. (later created an 800 number touch-tone system to allow secure offline transmission of credit card numbers prior to secure browsers).

Developed the TIA (The Internet Adapter) product which is sold automatically over the net, apparently the first demonstration of the viability of true online commercial software sales as "cheapware" rather than "shareware". The product has had around three-quarters of a million dollars in sales. TIA has been featured in Wired, Boardwatch, Online Access, PC World, PC Computing, MacWorld, MacUser, and various other publications and Internet books such as The Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh. CSD was written up in some of the early books about net commerce and asked to present seminars at Internet World conferences on "Purchasing over the Internet". Sold the company to my business partner due to disagreements over business operations.

January 1989 - November 93: Software Developer & Consultant
Self Employed; Boulder, Co.

Consulting/contract programming, and exploring product ideas, business plans, and funding possibilities for starting a product-based business. For example, in '90 produced a demo vision of an electronic newspaper . Funding wasn't secured for further development despite some interest from a local newspaper, partly due to a lack of experienced business management.

Sample Contracts:

June - July 1993: InfoNow; Boulder, Co.
Developed code to allow users to "Test Drive" commercial PC software which is stored encrypted on their disks or CD-ROM "stores". When the test drive is activated with a key, patches to the OS make it appear as if the product is actually installed normally on their disk. The product remains encrypted except for a limited number of test drives. Gateway, IBM (promoted it in ad), and other vendors made use of the technology. Microsoft expressed an interest in licensing the technology since they couldn't figure out how it worked, or how to break it.

November 1992 - March 1993: InfoNow; Boulder, Co.
Using C, assembler and MS-Windows developed much of a GUI system to allow users to browse information about software products which they could purchase and have decrypted from an archive located on the users disk or a CD-ROM "store". Developed features to encrypt the program running the store and decrypt it on the fly, and other security features to prevent products being retrieved without paying for them. The system was being distributed with some IBM and Gateway machines.

January -May 1992: IPS; Denver, Co.
In C and FoxPro on a PC developed a system for collecting data on remote handheld PCs and downloading the data to a central database system. Developed code and protocols to allow multiple users to dial in simultaneously and retrieve data, and an interactive configuration/setup tool.

April - May , July 1991: Apple Computer;Cupertino, Ca.
In C++ on a Macintosh, built fieldable prototype of Eager, an AI system for automatically programming repetitive tasks by example based on watching everything a user does in an application and popping up when it sees something it may be able to help with. It was based on an existing LISP prototype. The initial concept only worked for one application, Hypercard, I generalized the program to make it easy to describe other applications and use them with the system.

January 1990- May1990: McDonnell Douglas Communications; Denver, Co.
Among other tasks, developed a system to generate C++ and SQL code to allow a Sybase database to be used for permanent object storage in a distributed CAD application on Suns.

July 1989 - January 1990: US West Communications; Denver, Co.
Developed a decision support expert system using C++ and the Clips rule language, interfaced to an Ingress database using embedded SQL. Developed on a Sun4 and a Pyramid.

October 1985 - January 1989: Artificial Intelligence Engineer
Martin Marietta Astronautics Group; Denver, Co.
In a team of two, prototyped a decision support system (GAMMA) for use in strategic planning and analysis of future ground operations for space launch vehicles. Martin Marietta was later awarded a NASA/MSFC contract to implement a version of the system.

Responsible for problem selection/definition, system concept, functional specification, implementation, marketing demonstrations, and design of a fieldable system taking into account feedback on the prototype.

The system provides a sophisticated graphical user interface, and the use of AI techniques to provide advice to the user. GAMMA was developed on a Symbolics LISP Machine workstation using Common LISP and the knowledge engineering shell Knowledge Craft. The system was very well received, and demonstrated to AF Space Division and Aerospace Co. personnel as well as on-site demonstrations at NASA/JSC, NASA/MSFC, and NASA/KSC . It was included in Martin Marietta proposals such as those for Space Station and a new launch vehicle.

In a team of three, evaluated and reported on opportunities and estimated cost/benefit ratios for the demonstration of AI techniques in a Martin Marietta manufacturing facility. Performed initial requirements analysis for a test area scheduling system.

As part of a NASA/MSFC contract to develop a prototype Space Station power system, developed a system to decide the priority of scheduled loads to be shed in the event of a power drop.

Developed a fault prediction/fault isolation demonstration for the communications subsystem of the Flight Telerobotic Servicer being designed for NASA/GSFC.

Explored creation of new techniques for model-based reasoning about physical systems for use in both fault diagnosis and the automatic planning of input values to reach a goal system configuration state.

August 1983 - June 1985: Software Engineer
MindBank Inc.;Pittsburgh, Pa.
In a startup company, developed the initial prototype of the company's main product; an integrated graphical authoring environment for the design and creation of interactive computer/videodisk based courses. The system runs on IBM-PCs, but uses an iconic, mouse- based, overlapping window user interface similar to the Macintosh (designed before the Macintosh or Windows came out, partly based on knowledge of ideas coming out of Xerox PARC). Tasks included:

Collaborated with the president on the functional specification of the product.
Led the design and implementation (in C) of the prototype by a team of up to 6 people.
Developed the overall system architecture.
Designed the utilities the system rests on, and implemented most of them.
Designed and implemented some of the editors comprising the system.
Supervised implementation of the remaining editors, and system integration.

The software utilities we built in house to construct the system included:

Object-oriented programming (OOP) package with inheritance for the C
language, which includes some unique features (described elsewhere).
Persistent object management subsystem providing both permanent file storage
and software emulated virtual memory, integrated with the OOP package. (briefly marketed as V-File)
Overlapping window management system, along with packages and techniques
for developing graphical, mouse-driven interfaces in a device independent fashion.

January 1982-December 1982, May - December 1981 (part time):
Research Assistant(CS Dept./Robotics Inst.)
Carnegie-Mellon University; Pgh, Pa.
Contributed to the design of the knowledge representation language SRL2. Started implementation of a multi-user database for SRL2 to cache information in. Did the initial design for an EMACS-like editor to be built in LISP. Worked on the addition of semantic checking to a syntax-directed editor.

Education:

September 1980 - December 1981, January - May 1983: Applied Mathematics/Computer Software: Carnegie-Mellon University Software developed for one semester project courses:
Software Engineering:
Led a 5 person group in the design and implementation (in Pascal, on a DEC-20) of a grammar-driven syntax-directed editor including features such as:

A hybrid approach allowing users to edit any portion of a program either as text
or as a syntactic tree structure.
Keyboard/character screen oriented interface, using an optimized screen
redisplay algorithm to speed use on slow baud-rate timesharing terminals.
Text editor provides a powerful subset of the EMACS editor's capabilities,
including multiple buffers and windows, help facilities, command completion, and
limited user customization.

Compiler Design: Constructed (in LISP) a compiler for a Pascal-like subset of Ada. Extended the project by implementing a combined parser and lexer generator including a new general automatic error recovery methodology I devised. Code generator included some novel procedure-level optimization techniques.