Specializing in highly technical projects in the Mainframe environment

Here are a few comments from our previous customers. Contact information for these referrals is available upon request.

A technical view:

"In late 1999, InCert was developing some novel products for the OS/390 environment and found that we didn't have sufficient expertise on CICS internals. Russ came highly recommended.
We hired Russ first on a contract basis. We had an initial meeting of two or three days that Russ attended where we discussed our overall goals and the various design tradeoffs that we could make, including a build versus buy analysis. It's perhaps a little unusual to have contractors involved in these types of discussions but it really helped us to get a sense of the strengths Russ brought to the table. He did a nice job of estimating the work and risk involved.
Guided by his advice we decided to buy the rights to a product to get some basic functionality. Russ helped with the technical diligence. At that point our technical team (myself, Russ, and one other developer) rolled up our sleeves and began putting the product together. Most of the work was coordinated via email or weekly phone conversations. Russ was always available when needed and did a great job of keeping in touch. Russ's work was completed on time or early and always worked as intended. When the usual unanticipated problems came up in integration testing, Russ and I were able to resolve them very productively through email exchanges, and Russ' knowledge of CICS was vital in sorting out where the problem was. Russ worked remotely about 95% of time, and this worked out just fine. By this point we considered Russ to be an essential asset.
After the product was released a major customer approached us and asked for a significant series of enhancements. By this point I had moved on to other projects, but Russ continued to improve the product and expand its capabilities. For instance, Russ handled the extension of capabilities from CICS V4 to TS 1.2 and 1.3, which, given our use of CICS internals, was not entirely straightforward. Russ also reworked the data storage techniques to allow much wider rollout across CICSplexes than had been possible in our original design. All of this work was done on time, and was very solid."

A managerial view:

"Russ Evans worked with us as a Senior Software Engineer, specializing in CICS system software. In my experience, Russ is a highly skilled, professional, and productive software developer. His assignments also called for significant interaction with key customers, which have gone very well. Russ has worked mainly remotely, with occasional visits to the main office or customer sites as required. This has worked out very well, due largely to Russ' professionalism and communication skills. I recommend him with pleasure."
 

The Evans Group, Inc  207-293-4286  info@evansgroupconsulting.com
P. O. Box 323  Mount Vernon, Me 04352