Last Update 02/08

This directory contains the Resume of Rick Updegrove.

There are several scanned .pdf files that indicate when I received a
commendation and or was thanked by the Gray (Joe) Davis Administration,
and/or Arnold Schwarzenegger, the next Governor of California. I have 
been appointed three times altogether by two Governors. Before that
I worked there in the IT unit but was paid out of a student program.

If you were a taxpayer in California, you probably remember Gray Davis
was recalled before his term was up. Ironically this came on the heels
of the "Oracle Scandal" where the people Californians elected and
trusted trusted spent 98 million improperly on software they didn't need,
and it was software that they could have gotten an equivelent package 
for free.  There are several instances I am aware of but that is water 
under the bridege.

After hearing about the massive 98 million dollar purchase about to 
take place, before the scandal, I suggested that the state use MySQL 
since it was free of charge. My ideas were summarily dismissed. 
Similarly, I recommended the use of qmail over sendmail before 2.5 
million was spent on a sendmail based system that was built and 
maintaned by 5 vendors, and some state employees.

When I replaced that, it was after the recall of Gray Davis, it also had 
over 200 unresolved trouble tickets.  I saved the taxpayers roughly 
$1,000,000 (one million) a year with the system I designed, built and 
maintained.  I did have an excellent programmer to work with on that 
project, unlike the www.gov.ca.gov and www.firstlady.ca.gov websites.

Once Gray Davis was recalled, I began to convert everythingI worked on 
to free, open source software, mainly because I had no IT budget, and 
I already had been using such software for almost ten years and found 
it to be equal or better to most of the software I had paid for.

To my knowledge the new Governor (Arnold) himself was unaware that so
many of his his mission critical web applications were actually free,
open source software running on used hardware.

I am not a "political" person, I was hired to just develop web-based
applications, build and run and run the email and web servers,
firewalls, they used that were conceived, by me and or the
administration and then I maintained them by myself since the Department
Of Technology Services (DTS) was unable to provide what the
administration wanted in so many cases.

I was responsible for programming, implemented, and administering
more applications than will fit on a standard resume.

I would like to point out that I couldn't have done it with the help and
support of certain people in each administration, some of which
were even actually the people who were supposed to do this sort of thing...

Rick