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4/26/04 OK, from the date of the last update I guess I haven't updated this
page in over a year. Quite a bit has happened since then. In November of '03 I
quit working at CoreData/Concord/First Data. Just a month short of 3 years and
being 75% vested. Not a huge loss there. I went out on my own as an Actuate
Consultant for the next 6 months and it has been one of the greatest experiences
I've had. The pay was great. Don't let anyone ever tell you that you won't make
money working for yourself because you have to pay so much more in taxes. Having
your own business grants you one huge advantage, Business Expenses.
4/17/03 It looks like Concord may merge with First Data. So the name of the company I work for may change again. 10/1/02 Ok now the company I work for is officially called. Core Data Resources, Inc. A Concord EFS, Inc. Subsidiary. whew that's a name all right.
A little more about what I do: Core Data is a business that processes ATM transactions for banks and other individual owners of ATM's. Businesses log onto our website www.coredata.net and can check on the status of their ATM's and get reports on all the transactions. My job is working with the software, Actuate, that does these dynamic online reports.
Before Core Data, I worked for Texas Tech University creating web pages and maintaining the library's website as well as some desktop support.
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Anyway, this
was with ING, a Dutch company that wanted to implement Actuate for some of it's
reporting needs. I traveled to Hartford, Atlanta, and Minneapolis to get all of
done so I lived in hotels for those 6 months. In the end it was decided that
these implementations needed to be part of a broader Enterprise wide
implementation instead of what was looking like a hodge podge of independent
solutions. The Business Intelligence department of ING's Technology Management
Office was formed for this reason to architect, design, and implement delivery
of business information throughout ING. I was asked to be part of this 3 person
team as the Actuate expert. It was a task that seemed way over my head at the
time and still is I think but I thought I needed a challenge and it would be
nice to settle down for a while so I accepted the position. As of today I still
haven't settled down but I am certainly challenged daily. It's fun though. Since
we are so small right now I work closely with my boss and the Business Objects
expert on designing this new architecture and gathering bids for future projects
almost like a start up company. 
I'm
about to not work for Core Data Resources anymore, That's because we will become
a subsidiary company of another Electronic Funds Transfer company, Concord. It
seems eventually we will handle all the ATM processing and bank card issuing for
the smaller banks. Concord will be the issuer for large banks like Bank One and
Bank of America. I mean really big banks. Our niche is for ATM processing and Issuance.
I'm excited about this. Everyone that works here including the management will
still remain and we are not going to be relocated. Thank goodness cause the HQ
for Concord is in Memphis. What this really all boils down to is that I will be
even busier at work than usual. Another co-worker just came to me today and said
that they want to know more about Actuate cause the boss said they need to if
they want reports for their applications. That will be nice. Up until now there
was only one other person in the company that knew anything about Actuate. 
