Comprehensive and Chronological

listing of technical positions

both employment and consulting.

Upon graduation from Wright State University and post graduate work in computer science, Voris accepted a position as a COBOL programmer for Metropolitan Dayton Educational Cooperative Association. This occurred on December 12, 1977. His salary was $9800 per year. MDECA provided all the data processing for the Dayton School Systems. The environment was an IBM 370 Mainframe. All programs were developed on punch cards using a key punch machine.    

In 1978 he accepted a consulting position at NCR, to help document an 8200 mini computer system running the IMOS operating system. NCR IMOS (Interactive Multiprogramming Operating System) was a line of multiprogramming operating systems designed by NCR for its interactive and transaction-driven business computer systems. IMOS was known for features like dynamic memory assignment, user privilege levels, and the ability to run multiple applications concurrently, making it efficient for business applications like COBOL 74 programming.

In 1979 he accepted a consulting position with Hanna Mining to complete a purchase order system on an IBM 4300 mainframe. 

1978 - 1979 - He then accepted a full-time position at Hobart Corporation in Troy, Ohio. Hobart had consultants come in and develop one of the first MRP (Material Requirements Planning) Systems. The system was developed on IBM 3790/8100 minicomputers and linked to the IBM 370 Mainframe. The IBM 8100 was IBM’s principal distributed processing engine, providing local processing capability under two incompatible operating systems (DPPX and DPCX). The 8100 was a follow-on to the IBM 3790, PC's did not exist. Upon accepting the position Voris was sent to IBM college in Chicago Illinois to learn the DPPX micro code. Unfortunately, when he returned, he quickly discovered the code (developed by outside consultants) did not function. The system was highly advanced, preceding JIT (Just-in-Time) and Lean Manufacturing by more than a decade. Overzealous Voris then took this as a mission, to do the impossible, as no one understood this cryptic machine language (DPPX and DPCX).  He spent countless hours in the factory (Plant 27, AKA the Sunshade) meeting with people in shipping, inventory, receiving, ordering, etc. Most had no idea what the system was supposed to do for them. One woman (in receiving) was afraid of using the computer monitor as she was afraid it was there to do away with her job. When Voris came near her factory office she'd touch the keyboard (just to check the time). When he asked her if she liked the new computer system (in denial) she said, "Sure, it is great". Voris responded, "Really, I don't think it works very well. Could you show me how you handle receiving and maybe we can figure this out together?" Within a month Voris not only fixed this complex and dysfunctional software, but trained all of the factory workers on its operation. Upper management was ecstatic! They called a corporate meeting for all employees bragging that the new MRP system saved Plant 27 over $23,000 in inventory costs in a month. This MRP system was then so successful that Voris was asked to migrate it to both Plant 1 and Plant 2 with IBM 8100 computers. Was called back to Hobart in 1990 to make some changes to this MRP system.         

Later in 1980, he accepted a consulting position at Taco Bell. Here he was first exposed to on-line, opposed to batch processing. He became fascinated, and then obsessed with, IBM's CICS. Taco Bell was creating an on-line computer application.  

Also in 1980, he accepted a consulting position at Rohr Aerospace in San Diego, California. His work for Rohr remains classified.

Here's a breakdown of what CICS is and does:
Middleware: CICS sits between the mainframe z/OS operating system and business applications, acting as a middleware layer.
Transaction Management: Its core function is to facilitate and manage online transactions, allowing multiple users to access and update the same data and applications concurrently.
Scalability and Performance: CICS is known for its ability to handle extremely high volumes of transactions (10's of thousands per second) with sub second response time and 100% reliability. It is essential for mission-critical enterprise applications in industries like banking, insurance and retail.
Application Hosting: CICS acts as an application server, hosting applications written in various programming languages like COBOL, C, C++, Java, PL/I and Assembler.
Services and Interfaces: It provides services and interfaces to help developers manage complex concerns like security, data integrity, and communication with other applications or resources like files and databases.

Continuous Improvement: IBM continues to actively support and update CICS, with new releases and features introduced regularly. 

CICS is the most advanced transaction processor in existence.

The CICS START COMMAND can enable independent transactions. This can be anticipated to play a major role in advanced mainframe AI apps. 

CICS stands for Customer Information Control System and is an IBM product.  

In 1981, 1982 and again in 1983 he accepted numerous consulting positions at American Honda Motors in Gardena California. He assumed a senior role and created one of Honda's first on-line manufacturing systems in (CICS). He did this by migrating, expanding and rewriting all of Honda's motorcycle systems for the automotive industry. He was contacted again and again regarding more work at Honda. Finally, in 1994, Honda begged his consulting firm to let him out of a contract at Nationwide so that he could rewrite the computer program responsible for manufacturing engines at the Honda engine plant in Anna, Ohio. The last time Honda contacted Voris was in April of 2006. At that time he was in a nursing home receiving therapy for a broken leg. He was in a head-on collision in his Toyota MR2 with a Buick Roadmaster. The MR2 was completely destroyed, except for the small cage around the steering wheel. Honda was ready for him to start work immediately, but since he couldn't walk, his doctor would not release him to go back to work.  

In 1980, he accepted a consulting position at Federated Department Stores in Cincinnati Ohio, to standardize all their retail computer systems into one.

He was contracted to The Irvine Company in 1981 to install a McCormack and Dodge fixed asset system. The environment was an IBM mainframe running the VS1 operating system. At that time the Irvine Company did not own a mainframe computer but bought time shares on the mainframes at CalComp (California Computing). Voris would work remotely from his office at the Irvine Company, but when he needed better response time he would spend time working directly at CalComp. Frustrated by the lack of a text editor like IBM's TSO-SPF (not available for the VS1 operating system) he developed his own using Command Lists (Clists) in REXX. Chastised for sucking up over $6000 in computing costs at CalComp the director made note of it one day in the computer lab at the Irvine Company. He asked, "What are you doing, your taxes? The CalComp bill was over the top for last month." When he demonstrated the TSO-SPF product the director was amazed. Rumor has it that a little over a year later the Irvine Company or CalComp sold the rights to this product for $600,000. Well worth the $6000 in time share expense. 

In 1981 he worked with a team of engineers on the EPC initiative. The goal of the software was to provide the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services for a vast array of global clients. Once the project was complete Fluor held a party to celebrate. 

Chronometrics was a legal firm in Garden Grove California with numerous attorneys. They had purchased a Datapoint for data entry and someone (years prior) had developed billing software for them on an IBM 360. But updates were needed.  In 1983 Voris made these changes to the IBM 360 code. 

Carter Hawley Hale - in 1983 he worked on a team of software developers to construct a mainframe CICS retail system. The system used a unique hub design passing many parameters in a commarea (Communication Area). This hub design had both strengths and weaknesses. As far as control (with every program passing through the hub) it was impervious to hacking and one of the most secure mainframe apps ever developed. The limitation was that it also had a single point of failure, in that if the hub was at the limit of processing transactions then the users would experience a wait state, or a denial of service. This was the first hub based system Voris had ever encountered. He didn't come across another CICS hub based system until he was working at Nationwide Financial on an annuity system.

Associated Dry Goods - In 1984 developed a mainframe retail system for the above mentioned stores.

In 1985 he worked with Ticor Title providing mainframe software to facilitate residential title insurance.

In 1985 Voris worked briefly at MGA/UA. Lorimar Productions were also being filmed on site. Dallas, Highway to Heaven and 21 Jump Street were all being filmed during his time at MGM. Voris has no recollection of the software he worked on for MGM. He remembers it was a union shop, the only one he encountered in his career. He came in contact with numerous actors from Dallas and Highway to Heaven, but not 21 Jump Street. 

Automated Processing and Development 

In 1985 through 1986 he was contracted to APD. Automated Processing and Development was a software house owned by Bank of America. They had one major app called TAD, Totally Automated Documentation. The system was originally written in COBOL and CICS on an IBM mainframe. APD was in the process of migrating the software to run on the PC DOS platform with microfocus COBOL. Voris became familiar with both systems and soon was in charge of the source machine for the PC software. Hundreds of Real Estate firms and banks leased this software as it made the transfer of real estate both simpler and completely automated. This was Voris first exposure to a PC based system with DOS as the operating system. This system has now been enhanced incorporating AI. Automated processing is widely used in the mortgage industry to manage the complexities of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA). This has allowed lenders to streamline repetitive, manual tasks while ensuring compliance with RESPA's strict disclosure requirements, timelines and prohibitions against abusive practices. Automation uses  Artificial Intelligence (AI) to handle tasks more quickly and accurately than manual processes. Timely and accurate disclosures within RESPA requires lenders to provide borrowers with timely disclosures about loan costs and terms. Automation helps ensure accuracy and adherence to deadlines, for example automated triggers generate and send disclosures based on a predefined schedule, such as the initial Loan Estimate. This uses AI and optical character recognition (OCR), extracts key data from borrower documents to accurately pre-fill forms like the Closing Disclosure. Voris set in place the foundation for this type of AI software nearly 40 years ago. He rewrote the software from the ground up calling it RED (Real Estate Documenter).     

In 1987 Voris was contracted to Specialty Papers - They used a mainframe 4GL (Fourth Generation Language) called CSP (Cross System Product). This 4GL had many developmental errors and had evidently been put together in a hurry without adequate testing. Therefore, developing an app with it required a number of work arounds. The main areas of concern were errors in the processing of mathematical operations. Specifically, the rounding did not work properly. Voris developed a rounding subroutine to address and correct this problem.

Lincoln - Voris worked with Lincoln National Life Insurance and Lincoln Financial on three separate contracts, in 1987, 1988 and again in 1997. The first was the development of a reinsurance app that spread the risk of coverage for those customers with multi-million dollar life insurance policies. Worked closely with the actuaries to understand the aspects of risk management and making sure that all areas of risk were addressed. Voris was fascinated with the mathematical application of probabilities and risk associated with insurance policies. Voris performance was so exceptional with the reinsurance system that management decided to place him with Lincoln's resident genius on a research project. This project was to develop a workstation to emulate mainframe development. In 1988, PC's were DOS based and 286 processors were just coming to market. Using an IBM model 80 he (and the resident genius) developed a highly advanced developmental workstation that eliminated the need for systems programming, the data base administration team and even operations. When the system was demonstrated to technical management they were exceptionally impressed, but expressed concern that the cultural ramifications would be too significant to implement the workstation. Therefore, the effort was shelved. Voris then requested of Lincoln to make a copy of the workstation and continue working on it after the project was terminated. Lincoln agreed and provided Voris a 1987 edition of microfocus COBOL workbench, Command Technologies SPF PC and PC CICS. From this baseline, Voris then developed the CASE workstation by applying AI and code generation such that the workstation had computer models and templates that could dynamically create and recreate code (on the fly) with just a few key strokes. What would routinely take weeks or even months to program on a mainframe could be developed on the CASE Workstation in minutes with zero defects. Data bases and indexed files would automatically be allocated and created without the need for any system administration involvement. Finally, worked again with Lincoln addressing their Y2K concerns in 1997.

Cincinnati Gas and Electric - In 1989 CG&E was working to completely recreate all of their software using aspects of CASE technology. Cadre's Teamwork was used for high level design and also programming specifications. However, the links from this UNIX based software to DOS based products like Knowledgeware identified significant limitations. Most of the development of the software was, therefore, relegated to manual and traditional coding, testing and debugging of the software. Voris took some liberties with experimental software techniques that proved to be inconsistent with the platforms. Specifically, certain incompatibilities surfaced that were not able to be overcome. Unfortunately most of the software and designs were tabled and never made it to production. In short, CG&E was pushing the CASE envelope, but the tools and software were not mature enough or integrated enough to achieve the desired results. As a value add Voris did design something that he labeled SAA mail, a platform independent messaging design. It was a precursor to the texting software that is common place with cell phones and on the internet today.

In 1990 Voris was contracted by executive management at Carlson Marketing regarding their operations in Dayton Ohio, formerly the E.F. MacDonald incentive company. Voris interviewed over 50% of the technical staff and then developed an Enterprise Model. It overwhelmed executive management.

In 1991 was contracted to Cincinnati Bell Information Systems - Worked at CBIS developing a PC configuration workstation with microfocus dialogue system, a GUI based app. The software dynamically created all the files, directories based on the versioning of the software and release. Individuals making changes to the software with just a few clicks of a mouse would have a workstation configured to the release of the software they were attempting to change. 

In 1991 Voris developed a PC workstation in Windows 3.0 for CoriGraphics. 

In 1998 was hired as a permanent employee for Unisure. They were in the process of internet enabling all of their mainframe software. They installed the Planetworks software and were attempting to link it to CICS. Voris developed the data modeling and linking routines to achieve this. Once completed, Voris shared this with IBM. Then IBM acquired Planetworks, and the company's flagship product, "Interspace," in 1999 to provide a bridge between desktop development tools like Visual Basic and CICS. This acquisition helped IBM address the need for modern client-server and Java applications that could easily connect with existing IBM mainframe systems.

In 1993 was contracted by Brown-Forman to develop a mainframe Purchase Order financial system. The most fascinating aspect of working at Brown-Forman (a business formal dress code) were the unique aromas. Voris often packed his lunch and ate in his car. He encountered a distinct and complex aroma profile, which varied based on the type of spirit being produced and the stage of the process being observed, note below. This is where he was on-site when IBM telephoned and compared his work to a room full of geniuses that had been locked up for years. 

Here's a breakdown of the key elements that contribute to the unique smell of a distillery:
Fermentation: This initial stage often presents tangy, pungent, and malty notes, reminiscent of yeast, vinegar, or even alfalfa. The fermentation process produces a wide array of compounds, including acids and aldehydes. Some can be pleasant, like the fruity aromas from esters, while others can be less desirable, such as the rotten egg or sulfur smell caused by certain yeast byproducts.
Distillation: As the liquid heats up in the still, different compounds evaporate at varying temperatures. The "heads" cut, which is collected first, might contain sharp, pungent odors like acetaldehyde (green apple or nail polish remover) or solvent-like aromas like ethyl acetate. The "tails" cut, collected later, can have heavier, oilier textures and stronger flavors, potentially including unpleasant notes like rancid butter, burnt rubber, or even wet dog. Copper stills are known to react with sulfur compounds, helping to remove them from the distillate.
Aging: The aging process significantly transforms the spirit's aroma profile. The interaction with the oak barrels imparts flavors and aromas like vanilla, caramel, oak, and spices. The specific type of wood and its char level contribute to the final scent profile. For example, compounds released from lignin in the wood can create floral, rose, smoky, or clove notes. Esters can continue to form during aging, adding fruity and floral aromas.

In 1993 was contracted by Humana in Louisville Kentucky to develop an on-line health care system in COBOL and CICS.

In  1992 was contracted to Conseco Insurance (now CNO) to set up PC workstations connected to the mainframe and other computers. He exploited IBM's Logical Unit 6.2 as the communications protocol. This was a part of IBM's Systems Network Architecture (SNA). It allowed for a device-independent peer-to-peer communications between two systems, e.g. the mainframe and the PC's. The technicians were thrilled and said...

"We no longer have to write the software communication interfaces. If I have one office running a Windows server and another using a Sun Workstation, I can use the LU 6.2 protocol to pass files between those devices, and I don't have to worry about things like compatibility."