nickshontz

Nick Shontz

Missoula, MT
nickshontz@gmail.com

Introduction

I am passionate about technology. I love playing with new gadgets and tinkering with code, trying to unlock and leverage the potential they hold. Over the last ten years I've worked on a variety of platforms, languages, databases and frameworks and I've spent most of those years working within the LAMP stack, primarily as a developer but often as my own systems administrator. I am interested in continuing to improve my skills and learn new ones here in Missoula.

Some Things I Enjoy

  • Linux
  • Apache
  • MySQL
  • PostGRE
  • PHP
  • CodeIgniter
  • XPath
  • Cascade CMS
  • PyroCMS
  • Git
  • Web Mapping (GIS)
  • jQuery
  • HTML5/CSS3
  • Accessible Markup
  • Adobe InDesign
  • Photography
  • Canoeing
  • Homebrewing
  • Missoula
  • Scouting
  • scp
  • grep
  • rsync
  • wget
  • vim

Places I Have Worked

Information Technology, University of Montana

Systems Analyst

Missoula, MT
2007 - Present
  • .NET and PHP/CodeIgniter Development
  • Setup and administration of servers with the LAMP stack
  • Participated in several major server migrations for primary web servers at The University of Montana
  • Assisted in training and supervision of student employees

FedEx Kinko's

Senior Project Coordinator

Missoula, MT
2006 - 2007
  • Supervised floor, coordinated employee breaks, and resolved schedule conflicts
  • Worked as a liaison to bridge gap between team members and management
  • Responsible for orders finished on time and done correctly
  • Acted as first point of contact for customer conflict resolution

Document Creation Technician

Missoula, MT
2005 - 2006
  • Created custom documents for customers, including business cards, fliers and postcards, among others
  • Worked directly with printing presses on the production of high-volume and complex orders
  • Worked primarily on Apple computers running OS 9.2 and OS X
  • Extensive knowledge using Adobe InDesign 2.0, Photoshop CS, PageMaker 6.5, and Acrobat
  • Working knowledge of Quark, Adobe Illustrator, Fontbook and high-speed printer copiers

Information Technology, University of Montana

Developer, Student

Missoula, MT
2005 - 2006
  • Member of Enterprise Portal Project Team
  • Worked in a team development environment
  • J2EE programming specific to Oracle Portal and PDK Portlets
  • Involved in programming, testing, debugging, deploying portlets

School of Education, University of Montana

Web Master, Student

Missoula, MT
2003 - 2005
  • Principle Webmaster in the redesign of the School of Education web site, summer 2004
  • Corresponded with faculty members to create departmental web pages
  • Heavy utilization of the scripting language PHP, and extensive knowledge of HTML and CSS
  • Set up and managed servers both IIS 6 and Apache 2 with PHP and MySQL support

Projects

Web Mapping for The University of Montana

map.umt.edu
Fall 2008
  • Web GIS project that uses shape data
  • Created using open source technology
  • Includes interactive features including toggleable layers

Homepage rewrite for The University of Montana

www.umt.edu
Fall 2011
  • Converted the site from C#.NET to PHP
  • Uses CodeIgniter and jQuery
  • Site content is managed by Cascade Server by Hannon Hill
  • Expected go-live May 2012

Professional Development

Montana Programmers - Missoula, MT - Presenter

Local technology group presents monthly on a wide range of topics. Have presented on PHP and CodeIgniter.

2011 - CodeIgniter Conference - New York, NY

Two day web development conference with the core development team of the CodeIgniter PHP Framework.

2011 - Missoula BarCamp - Missoula, MT - Presenter

One day of self-organizing workshops based on the open space conference philosophy. Presented on MVC PHP development with CodeIgniter.

2010 - The Rich Web Experience - Fort Lauderdale, FL

Three day web development conference with developers of web tools like MooTools (JavaScript) and Spring (Java).

2010 - Missoula BarCamp - Missoula, MT - Presenter

One day of self-organizing workshops based on the open space conference philosophy. Presented on open source web mapping.

2009 - Educause Western Regional Conference - San Francisco, CA - Presenter

Presented various open-source software packages used to create an interactive map in which other data sources can be integrated.

Places I Have Studied

University of Montana

Missoula, MT
2002 - 2006
  • Major in Progress: Business Information Systems
  • Minor: Computer Applications
  • Full admission to the School of Education

Helena High School

Helena, MT
1998 - 2002
  • Business Professionals of America

Community Involvement

Boy Scouts of America

1995 - Present
  • Eagle Scout
  • Assistant Scoutmaster