About Us
History
Western Skies was established in the early spring of 2007 as a joint venture among its initial principal members. It was formed in an effort to provide professional-level services at reasonable prices to those individuals do not wish to expend the time or money to provide their own technical solutions.
Members
The principals of Western Skies are:
Charles Anderson
Charles Anderson has over 20 years of experience in the computer industry. He
has worked as a programmer, technical lead, systems administrator, build
engineer, chief technical officer, and professor.
Charles's passion is systems programming, where "systems programming" is defined pretty broadly: everything from firmware and embedded systems to Java web application frameworks. This work has included real-time programming, Unix kernel programming, low-level database and file system internals, networking, distributed objects, and security. He has a strong preference for, but not a dogmatic devotion to, open-source tools and technologies.
In addition to systems programming, Charles has always been a strong proponent of software engineering best practices. He is often the lead in setting up revision control, automated and regular builds, regression testing, bug testing, and bug tracking when any or all of those processes are lacking in an organization.
Charles enjoys educating others on all of these topics. In addition to his experience as a university professor teaching these subjects, he has also given talks at conferences, made client presentations, and spoken to civic groups.
Kenny Carlile
| Professional: | KennyCarlile.com |
| Personal: | KennyCarlile.net |
Kenny Carlile's rare combination of skills bring a unique perspective to
the Western Skies team. His background as a musician and former art student
compliment his degree in Computer Science as he spans both the technical
and artistic sides of the business.
Kenny has over 3 years of experience in enterprise software development (web, desktop, and server) and combined with 3 years of technical sales experience. Kenny's enterprise software experience includes developing systems for the following: Cedars Sinai Hospital; Mayo Clinic; University of Pittsburgh; Arkansas DEQ; Clark County Washington DEQ; Michigan DEQ; City of Salem, OR; City of Hillsboro, OR; City of Napa, CA; City of Winter Garden, FL; City of Modesto, CA; Mecklenburg County North Carolina. He has developed software from the user interface level to the database level. Kenny has designed and developed various modules for enterprise systems and presented those modules to both companies and customers.
Having used Photoshop for nearly 10 years, Kenny has lent his creative background to many varied graphic design projects. In addition to his artistic skills, he brings his musical and audio editing skills to Western Skies.
Just prior to graduating from Western Oregon University in early spring of 2004, Kenny received special recognition as an outstanding student from the Computer Science department.
Maren Anderson
Maren Bradley Anderson's contributions to Western Skies include her skills in
graphic design, webpage layout, and content development. She is the artistic
part of Western Skies in that she has a background in graphic design and the
fine arts, as well as website design and computer graphics. Her work is
in the Web Design Portfolio on the following projects: Evergreen Terrace
Farms, Heart of the Valley Alpaca Show & Sale, Left of the Dial Online
Music Magazine, Maren Anderson's Teaching Pages.
Maren has over ten years of web design experience. She has had a prescence on the Internet herself since 1995 when she began to teach herself computer languages such as HTML, PHP, and CSS, as well as how to use programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Dreamweaver.
Because of her background, Maren has devleoped the content in many websites. As an editor at her college newspaper, Maren honed a keen editorial eye for content and layout. This was ehhanced when she earned a Master's Degree in Teaching Writing and Literature. One website she applied this knowledge to was as the webmaster and content editor for Ancient Paths, Modern Journeys, an online academic journal.
Maren teaches college-level composition and literature and writes screenplays, theater pieces, and short stories as well as maintains many blogs. She lives in the lovely Willamette Valley near Monmouth, Oregon, on her alpaca ranch.