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Rich Barndt, CTO

As the Chief Technology Officer, Rich provides the ultimate "value-add" to the client base of QAT. QAT consultants and clients alike know they can depend on and come to Rich to solve the unsolvable. Rich is a focused, resourceful visionary who specializes in driving leading edge, technology-centric programs, and providing technology governance with proven expertise and successful results in various architectures, technologies and infrastructures. He has in depth experience in all mainstream and e-business enabling technologies and is "one-stop shopping" for pragmatic advice in developing and deploying enterprise-level systems/architectures. He has worked in all phases of full life cycle projects with a focus on the use of cutting edge technologies to support business initiatives. He is a hands-on Program Manager, Developer and Architect, who can rapidly identify business issues, formulate strategic and tactical plans in a variety of challenging and diverse environments.

Areas of Expertise:

Architecture:

• Enterprise Architecture
• Application Architecture
• Security Architecture
• Data Architecture
• SOA

Technologies:

• Application Servers
• Web Technologies (Ajax)
• Spring
• Java (Java SE & EE)
• .Net (C# & VB.Net)
• XML/XSS/WSDL, Web Services, UDDI & WS-*
• CA Gen
• Mainframe- COBOL/CICS/DB2/JCL

Methodologies:

• Agile/Scrum
• RAD
• RUP
• Waterfall
• Developing Repeatable processes

Performance Tuning

• Hardware
• Client/Server Applications
• DBMS
• SOA
• Web Applications

Personal Interests: My family and my personal hobbies include Computers and Computer Security.

Q&A with Rich Barndt...

What does a CTO do?

First it is to ensure that the company has the best technology. A high-tech company lives and dies in a dynamically evolving space. There are lots of jobs in the company that impact competitiveness, but technology has one of the greater levers on how the company does in the marketplace. The greatest leverage is when the project is in its earliest phases, when we are deciding on architectures in the context of market requirements and when technology choices are being made. This is where you should see the CTO.

A second job of the CTO is to create options for the Corporation. These can be options for existing businesses or options for new businesses.  I believe that the CTO needs to not only create options, but incubate (in partnership with Business Development and others) businesses that exploit technical breakthroughs.

Third, the CTO needs to attend to the health and well-being of the technical community inside and outside the company. The CTO is also a public face of technology for the company. For a high-tech company, part of the brand is its technical prowess and insight. The CTO needs to represent this in numerous forums and conferences.

The last job of the CTO is strategic thinking. I passionately believe that this is a year-round activity. For companies that compete first and foremost by technical excellence, clearly the CTO needs to have a voice in the company strategy.

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