Howard Van Dam joined the Unidata Program Center (UPC) team on January 14 2019 as a Software Engineer. A Colorado native, he has explored the wonders of the state from the highest mountains to the eastern plains.
Howard started out studying music at University, but switched to electronics and electrical engineering as a way to provide an income while continuing to enjoy performing in jazz, classical, and musical theatre settings. He received a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Colorado after completing degrees at Pikes Peak and Front Range Community Colleges. Howard also holds a CompTIA Security+ certification and is passionate about all things cybersecurity.
After 10 years working in audio, video, and telecommunications hardware, Howard moved into software development. As a software developer for IBM, he worked on leading edge clinical information systems in the OS/2 and IBM AIX environments. Working for relational database developer Sybase, Howard was involved in numerous projects supporting the health care sector, and developed message broker and real-time columnar database systems.
Here at Unidata, Howard will be working to maintain and develop THREDDS and contributing to the common data model. “I have always wanted to work in the sciences, and joining Unidata is a wonderful opportunity to use my skills to support the scientific community,” he says. “Geoscience is a new and very exciting field for me, and I look forward to the challenge of learning this new knowledge domain and contributing the future of Unidata and the Unitdata community.”
When he's not deep in the THREDDS code, you may find Howard performing as a member of an orchestra or jazz combo in the Boulder area, or hiking and fishing as far into the Colorado wilderness as he can go.
Please help us welcome Howard to the Unidata Program Center Team!
