Experience |
Dr. Heerema is a highly experienced senior consultant,
with over twenty five years of industry experience.
He has been involved in virtually every aspect of current software practice,
in both leadership and technical capacities.
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Special Skills |
Project management and quality assurance Team Leadership Design System Integration Electrical Industry Gas Pipelines Mobile Development Digital Signal Processing and data acquisition Knowledge engineering
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Education |
Ph.D. (Computational Auditory Scene Analysis), University of Calgary. M.Sc. (Digital Signal Processing), University of Calgary Ongoing industrial research. Teaches occasionally at the University of Calgary.
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Notable Projects |
Conducted a Risk Management assessment for Petro Canada, with regard to the upcoming inception of the Alberta Petroleum Registry. Acted as the Project Manager and Architect to develop systems which procure Ancillary Services for the Transmission Administrator (TA) of the Alberta Interconnected Electrical System. Alberta is the first place in the world where electrical reserves are bought and sold on a futures exchange. This system allows real-time on-line trading with multiple exchange floors (via secure XML links). It tracks the TA's real-time position (volume traded compared with forecast demand), evaluates incoming offers, and ranks them for the traders. Dispatch instructions and unit substitutions are sent to the System Controller. The system performs financial settlement, and supports risk analysis. It also forecasts demand using past history and a weather forecast feed from Environment Canada. It monitors the performance of reserve providers, using SCADA telemetry, and allows reserve providers to nominate assets via a secure web interface. Acted as the Integration Coordinator for the TransCanada Pipeline's "Best of Breed" Programme Management Office. This $80M programme replaced SAP with a suite of applications from various vendors, and functionally integrated them. Responsible for setting integration testing standards, identifying test team leaders, coordinating infrastructure development, resolving integration issues, and establishing Change Management practices. Reported to the PMO and the Best of Breed steering committee. Acted as a system architect and project manager for integration projects in a second phase of the "Best of Breed" programme for TransCanada Pipelines. These were the first projects in that company to use XML, Java, and Forte Fusion for system integration. Acted as the Team Leader responsible for Year-2000 testing of the systems identified as "Mission Critical" for Nova Gas Transmission Ltd., focussing on the Gas Measurement & Accounting areas. Coordinated the activities of over 60 people, who created an isolated network of computer systems, developed test plans, executed them, and resolved issues. Developed software, project execution, and quality assurance standards for new flow computer software to be deployed throughout the Nova pipeline system. Acted as Nova's technical representative for the vendor during the development project. Developed an "Electronic Flow Measurement Test Bench", consisting of two components: a reference-standard gas flow measurement computer, and a gas flow run simulator. This system is used to certify flow computers, and to diagnose field measurement anomalies. Conducted a software audit of the embedded software incorporated into gas measurement computers. Developed a software product which measures the performance of gas turbocompressors under different operating conditions. This package is used to create wheel maps and establish operating ranges, which are used for pipeline operation, and system capacity planning. The software was delivered as a high-level "toolkit" which allows the system's users to create custom tests by "wiring" toolkit modules together. Principal software architect for a variety of high speed control and data analysis systems. One of these systems was the recipient of the 1994 APEGGA "summit" award for achievement. Another was featured as the cover story for an issue of "International Turbomachinery". One of two senior members of a mixed-discipline team developing magnetic bearing technology, from hybrid analog-digital systems to multiprocessor digital control systems. Responsible for control algorithm design, DSP-based digital control systems, and data visualization systems. (LabVIEW, a development environment using a data-as -object metaphor, and C++). A very active LabVIEW beta tester. Developed a commercial real time audio-frequency digital signal processing software package (Master Tuner). This product turns a personal computer into a sophisticated electronic tuner. It has been favourably reviewed by several major computer periodicals, including a "4 mouse" rating by MacUser magazine. The product is based on Mr. Heerema's original mathematical research into extraction of fundamental pitch from a complex spectrum. Carried out research into goal-directed manipulation of temporal networks, such as scheduling networks (Object LISP and Smalltalk). This is a pure research project, undertaken in-house to develop expertise in artificial intelligence methods and techniques.
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Affiliations |
Member (former), Institute of Certified Management Consultants of Canada.
Member, IEEE. Member (former), Calgary Council for Advanced Technology.
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Personal |
Dr. Heerema is an avid photographer specializing in large, high resolution canvas prints. He is a level III ski instructor, and currently serves as Board Chairman for CANSI Mountain Region. He mountain bikes, skis, and has climbed the highest peaks in North and South America.
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