Leeland G. Artra Senior Network Integrator Nintendo of America 4820 150th Avenue NE Redmond, WA 98052-2707 Email: leeland06 [at] greydragon [dot] com

Leeland G. Artra is a senior systems software researcher, senior systems administrator and experienced network administrator with years of management experience. He enjoys all the various aspects of working in the information technology field. Leeland excels at designing, re-engineering, optimizing new or legacy applications and custom database applications. He has outstanding programming skills in many languages such as C, Java, SQL, PERL, PHP, UNIX Shells and HTML. In addition to having graduated from the U.S. Navy Nuclear Power Program in the top of 10% of his class, Leeland also has extensive computer systems and leadership training. Leeland earned a B.S. in Information Technology from University of Phoenix with a 3.92 cumulative GPA as well as holding dozens of advanced professional training courses from Oracle, Novell, USENIX, and others.

Leeland got started doing database and custom application development consulting in 1984 after a few years "apprenticing" with his father, who was one of the first computer analysts and professors for Washington State University.

In 1986 Leeland joined the US Navy’s Nuclear Power Program receiving extensive training in nuclear operations (reactors, machinery and electrical engineering). However, he soon returned to computers by transferring to the Navy’s Data Processing Technician (DP) rate. As a DP Tech he developed a set of custom databases and control systems for the Naval Nuclear Training School in Orlando Florida. Leeland was then transferred to the Navy’s Enhanced Naval Warfare Gaming (real world combat simulation) facility at Tactical Training Group Pacific in San Diego California where he worked with the database systems and computer operation enhancements becoming the Senior Systems Operator (Systems Administrator) and Training Petty Officer. Leeland then helped to develop the Navy’s Top Quality Leadership qualifications standards for Systems Operators and is the “top of the certification chain.” Leeland was honorably discharged to reserve duty in 1992 and then discharged completely in 1994.

On leaving the Navy Leeland joined SAIC as the Senior Systems Administrator for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor Project (ITER), where he personally designed, built and maintained a world wide data WAN using the ESNET networks with collocation centers in Naka Japan, Garching Germany , Moscow Russia and San Diego California. He also designed, oversaw the construction and maintenance of the network and server systems for the San Diego Co-Location center. Through his efforts the San Diego ITER Facility was named the central repository for the entire ITER Project. Before leaving SAIC Leeland had written a number of custom applications including a totally automated backup system that collected data from all of the databases, CATIA file systems and remote systems creating backup tapes that would literally rebuild the entire server cluster in under a day in the event of a disaster.

Leeland left SAIC for an opportunity to be the Senior Systems Administrator and programming development aid for a bioengineering startup known as MesaGnostics. As the lead SA he helped to developed several new technology ideas. He also built a large data center for collection of textual data as well as laboratory data into an Oracle database. When MesaGnostics began to fail the University of Washington hired both Leeland and the senior biologist (Dr. Bob Franza) to continue developing the technologies at the UW.

The University of Washington move Leeland to Seattle in 1995. Where Leeland began working with Sun Microsystems on the then new Java technology. Independently Leeland developed numerous database Java technologies. One of which was the Moulage System, which was highly recognized as an important research step in data mining and sharing. The Moulage System was nominated by Oracle for the Computer World Smithsonian 1998 award and became one of the finalists for that award. This work earned Leeland the position of Senior Researcher for the Cellworks Project at the University of Washington (CWP). The CWP combined biological research program and information systems research & development program focused on bringing the power and technologies available in today’s computer industry to the biology research laboratory environment. While with the CWP Leeland was named an Oracle Futures Development Partner in 1998 and helped with the creation of Oracle 8.

When the department head (Dr. Lee Hood) left to create his own research institution Leeland chose to remain at the UW and worked with a number of other senior researchers to found the UW's Cell System Initiative (CSI). CSI is was an extension / evolution of the CWP. CSI, therefore, had nearly the same goals as CSI had. CSI combines multiple biological and information technology research & development programs focusing on bringing the power and technologies available in the computer industry to the biology research laboratory environment. The primary goal of the information systems research component of CSI is to develop an optimal computing environment for the collaboration of multiple distributed groups of biologists. Leeland was named Director of Systems Research and Development for CSI.

In 2001 the US Government redirected a lot of funding for research and CSI lost the grants that were supporting the majority of its work. Consequently a number of people, including Leeland, were laid off unexpectedly. After leaving the UW he started working full time from his consulting company that he had been operating since the 1980s, Hero Network. Over the space of a year he built Hero Network up to provide complete outsourced information technology consulting (IT). As the President/CEO and majority owner of Hero Network LLC Leeland was responsible for overseeing all aspects of the company and maintaining various diverse IT projects. Hero Network provided internet presence and credit card processing for small to medium sized businesses as well as maintaining small office networks, providing custom application / database development and web processing automation for numerous companies. By using numerous unique technologies developed by Leeland or under his direct oversight Hero Network was able to provide high availability Internet solutions through very inexpensive automated self-repairing systems. Hero Network was sold off in 2004 and closed all operations in 2005. Hero Network achieved over 2000 web and co-location clients as well as over $200K in credit card processing per month.

Leeland Artra is currently a Senior Network Integrator for Nintendo of America. His work involves unique database and application development in support of numerous internal and external facing projects. Leeland directly oversees corporate wide services such as integrated identity management and production web site support. His duties also include troubleshooting behind schedule gaming or web projects to help correct technical issues that are delaying the project.

Leeland is also involved with the USENIX, SAGE, SANS and LOPSA. He is the founder of the Seattle chapter of SAGE (Seattle Area Systems Administrators Guild) and acted as chairman for the group until May of 2004. Leeland is also the key developer of the U.S. Navy’s Systems Operator Top Quality Management Qualification standard; he was also part of the SAGE Mentors Oversight Committee & Mentor, a member of the SAGE Certification Examination Committee, a member of the SAGE Certification Policy Committee, and one of the founders of the SAGE Mentors program.

Leeland occasionally teaches T’ai Chi and for a while ran a special free T’ai Chi program to teach youths the discipline in a 3 month summer course. Leeland was also part of the Shoreline City Citizens Planning Advisory Committee to help develop the city standards being used to create the Aurora Corridor Project.

Leeland continues to do information systems research on database and automation systems. He has personally designed and implemented a number of new computer technologies. He is also personally responsible for a number of new biological research lines due to his unique outlook on databases and his ability to create entirely new interfaces and storage technologies. Leeland is currently in the process of designing an entirely new approach to databases which is based on a combination of Object Oriented database architectures, clustered trees and laboratory automation to automatically store, access, mine, and analyze information of any type.