My name is Barry, and I was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in January, 1971. Throughout my entire life, I lived in Bloomington, Minnesota. I’ve segmented my life into the following:
| EDUCATION |
| EMPLOYMENT |
| RÉSUMÉ | RÉSUMÉ (pdf format) |
| CURRENT AFFAIRS |
| BOYFRIEND |
| HOBBIES |
MY FRIENDS |
I went through the Bloomington Public School system from K – 12. After I graduated from Thomas Jefferson Senior High School, I attended the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.
I highly enjoyed my time at St. Thomas. In addition to attending classes, I was very involved with various student organizations: Boost Alcohol Consciousness Concerning the Health of University Students (BACCHUS), Emerging Leaders Program, Liturgical Choir, Off Campus Council (OCC), Student Escorts, Tutoring, etc.
I graduated with a double major in Quantitative Methods / Computer Science and Theology. I also have a minor in Business Administration with an emphasis in Accounting. What a combination! If you are interested, I’ll tell you the story in person. J
A large part of who I am today is because of what I learned and experienced in college. If I was to do it over again, I would not change anything.
After I graduated from college, my first professional job was working for The St. Paul Companies, Inc. as a computer programmer. I worked on their Financial Foundation System (FFS) and found it to be a great challenge and wonderful learning experience. I had an incredible mentor, Gina, who I am close friends with today. She is awesome!
After about three years at The St. Paul Companies, Inc., an excellent opportunity with Andersen Consulting (now known as Accenture) came along. I accepted an Experienced Consultant position with their enterprise group, Utiligent. This was also great experience. I really liked working for one of the Big 5s.
I decided I wanted to move into management work, so upon leaving Andersen Consulting, I accepted a Technical Project Manager position with a company called BI Performance Services. When I started, I was in their Consumer Group and later moved into their Employee Performance Group. I found that I really like project management, and this role enabled me to experience bringing projects together in a tight timeframe, usually 6 – 8 weeks. In my previous jobs, the projects usually lasted for years.
After a little over three years at BI Performance Services, I accepted a Senior Project Manger position at Digital River, Inc. This was my first exposure to the world of e-commerce. I loved it! However, due to market constraints, in the winter of 2002, I was laid off.
I took 1 1/2 years off from working (which was wonderful!), and decided to work on various projects around the house. When my COBRA was finally coming to an end, I accepted an IS Manager position with Express Scripts, Inc. in July 2003. I worked in their Quality and Process Improvement Department.
In June 2005, I accepted a position within Wells Fargo & Company to develop a new area called Quality and Process Improvement (I named it after my old area at Express Scripts.) I launched the area in January 2006 with great success. It was fun and amazing creating a new area from grounds up.
As of October 23, 2006, I transitioned to a new area within Wells Fargo & Company as a Business Systems Consultant 5 in their Process Definition and Support area of Wells Fargo Home Consumer Finance Group (HCFG). This is an area where I will be working with a number of business lines within Wells Fargo to ensure they follow Wells Fargo Integrated Methodology (IM) on projects. I guess you could consider it a "governance" area.
CURRENT AFFAIRS - as of 12/29/2003
Here is a quick recap of 2003:
The year started out quite wonderful. I was still taking time off from working, and enjoying the comforts of being unemployed. I continued teaching group fitness (SPIN specifically) about five times a week between Bally Total Fitness and at the Northwest Athletic Club. I still teach, but have cut back two to three classes a week.
When the biking season came, I decided to participate in a number of rides again. I did the Minnesota Ironman Bike Ride in April (100 miles – 1 day), the MS150 Bike Ride in June (150 miles – 2 days), the new Minnesota Red Ribbon Ride in July (350 miles – 4 days), and the Minnesota AIDS Trek in August (175 miles – 2 days). I raised over $3,000 this year for these charitable events, thanks to many of my friends! (If you are interested in helping out in 2004, e-mail me!) With these rides, I also led outdoor training rides throughout the biking season.
I knew in the back of my mind I should start being more aggressive in finding a job, especially since my COBRA medical insurance was about to run out at the end of July. I came across a position at Express Scripts, Inc. on Monster.com and decided to send in my resume. It was for an IS Manager position, working in their IS Quality and Process Improvement (IS QPI) Department. I got the offer the night before I left on the Minnesota Red Ribbon Ride. A great way to start the 4-day journey on a bike, knowing that I had an offer!
I accepted the position and started with Express Scripts, Inc. on July 29. It was a position managing 20 direct reports for their Client Migrations area within IS QPI. I am enjoying the company. It is about two miles from my house and takes less than 10 minutes door-to-door. YEAH! I will probably start biking to work in a couple of months, since there are showers available on the premises.
Outside of work, I have been keeping busy volunteering with various non-profit organizations. I have been asked by my church, Edina Community Lutheran Church, to be the Minister of Evangelism, and have not decided to decline or accept. I am sure it would be a great opportunity, but I am concerned with the time commitment. It seems time is lacking as of late. One thing I kept asking myself when I was not working full-time was, “How did I ever find time to get things done AND work full-time?!” J
I foresee 2004 being an interesting year, full of positive challenges and growth. There are a lot of unknowns. I will continue with my charitable bike rides and encourage you to join me! As far as travel plans are concerned, who knows where my journeys will pilot me.
Single and looking. :-)
I am dating a wonderful guy named Massimo (Max). He is a transplant surgeon at the University of Minnesota Fairview Hospital specializing in liver, kidney, and pancreas. Max has been living in the U.S.A. for seven years and was born and raised in Venice, Italy (love the accent!). He keeps pretty busy and is paged at all hours of the night; I am pretty much used to it by now. Things are going really well between us.
As far as hobbies go, I have a variety of things I enjoy. I would say the biggest one is biking and SPIN classes. I got involved with biking and SPIN back in the winter of 1998 when I was training for my first Twin CitiesÜChicago AIDS Ride. My partner at the time, Ray, rode the AIDS Ride in July 1998 and convinced me into doing it in 1999. Since then, I’ve been an avid cyclist and have been doing the AIDS Rides every year since. Check out my Biking and SPIN Schedule Page.
Other things I enjoy are blading, camping, cooking, dining out, entertaining, gardening, hiking, movies (sci-fi, comedy, horror, suspense, drama), organizing, shopping, talking with friends, theatre, traveling (my travels include Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Poland, and People’s Republic of China), volunteering, and walks around the lakes.
I think this pretty much covers everything about me. If you can think of anything I may have missed or have questions about anything, e-mail and ask!