Garland Consulting

CLIENTS:

[1] In collaboration with Maxon Gilbert.
[2] In collaboration with Nytec.
[3] In collaboration with Kopius.


RECOMMENDATIONS:

David Dyck (Fluke Electronics, April 2015)

I have worked with Tony on several projects at Fluke. 

I have the highest respect for him and confidence in his abilities.  His excellent communication skills (oral and written) and diplomacy were often demonstrated. His object oriented design and systems architecture are second to none.  We still take advantage the C and C++ code he wrote in a re-usable manner. I have total confidence in his ability to evaluate and implement any task that he accepts.

David Dyck
Principle Engineer
Fluke Electronics

Bill Saltstein (Code Blue Consulting, May 2014)

Tony is a wonderful and unique combination of professional expertise and experienced wisdom. He is exceptional at coming into a design, listening carefully and gauging the needs and appropriate level of work for the stage of the project and executing quickly and efficiently. He is able to integrate code from various disparate sources and understand both the hardware and software needs.

I really appreciate his ability to interpret the requirements and suggest great alternatives where and when appropriate.

I would certainly hire Tony again and hope to do so as soon as possible!

Bill Saltstein
President
Code Blue Consulting

Lowell Skoog (Carbon Design Group, December 2013)

I worked with Tony on embedded software projects at Fluke Corporation many years ago. We were both employed at Fluke during that time. Our paths diverged for a few years, then reconnected when we both worked as software development consultants. Currently, in my role as a software engineer at Carbon Design Group, Tony is one of a very select group of consultants we call on when we need additional help on demanding projects.

Tony is one of the most productive software engineers I know. His broad expertise and deep experience enable him to get a tremendous amount of work done quickly. But more important is the quality of Tony's work--cleanly designed, well documented, and carefully implemented.

On one fast-paced project, Tony located and fixed bugs in a vendor's software library for a wireless data link. It was the sort of problem that could cause a project to become "stuck" for weeks but Tony's excellent troubleshooting skills eliminated this roadblock in just a day or two.

On another project, Tony developed a compact library to support a hierarchical state machine framework for embedded systems. The library has been successfully deployed in several projects now, and it has become a reusable building block for future projects.

Tony's skills go far beyond these low-level, detailed examples. Tony's broad experience has been extremely helpful during the early, conceptual phases of a project. Whether the job is mapping out a high-level architectural approach, deploying tools and project management strategies, or estimating schedule and staffing needs, I respect Tony's experience and seek out his advice.

I look forward to continuing to work with Tony in the future.


Service Category: Software Development Consultant
Year first hired: 2010 (hired more than once)
Top Qualities: Great Results, Personable, Expert

Lowell Skoog
Software Design Engineer
Carbon Design Group

Jeff Meyer (Fluke Electronics, February 2011)

I've worked with Tony several times over the years, but my company has hired him as a software engineer twice in the last 5 years.

Tony's strong points are numerous, but let me focus on 3 key things he brings to a project:

His experience and insight as a software engineer

  • Tony is our "go-to guy" when it comes to the more intricate parts of embedded software development. We have excellent embedded software engineers with years of experience, but Tony is often the person we consult on tricky or momentous issues.

  • He usually has several approaches for tackling a problem -- and knows which one will be the better solution, in the context of the problem.

  • He brings new methodologies and techniques to bear -- and shares them (clearly) with rest of team.

  • When he is confronted with new technologies to assimilate, he is quick to pick them up.

His teamwork and communications skills.

  • Tony is always a delight to work with. He is polite and affable, and never ruffles feathers.

  • He is an excellent mentor. His colleagues are very comfortable in asking him for help and advice.

  • For those of us managing his work, he always keeps us updated on his progress, and is excellent at estimating the work involved for task.

The quality of his work.

  • Tony writes solid, clear and *maintainable* code. His designs address the primary product requirements, while looking forward to future adaptations of the code.

  • As the project proceeds, he continues to test and improve finished code; he frequently spots problems before they become critical.

  • Best-in-class documentation -- both design documentation and in-code. This is essential in a contractor, but rarely fulfilled; Tony is the best developer at this I've ever encountered.

In conclusion, it is always a pleasure (and often a relief!) to know that I will be working on a project with Tony; I hope to be able to do so again.

Jeff Meyer
SoftwareEngineer
Fluke Corporation

Glen Meldrum (Fluke Electronics, February 2008)

Summary

I have personally worked with Tony on several Fluke projects over the past 20 years. I can easily say that all the team members on these projects have a high level of respect for his knowledge, experience, diligence, get things done attitude, quality of work, and being a team player. I look forward to the next time I am able to work with him.

Project role and Responsibilities

I have been the software manager for a C++ project that Tony has been working on for the past 2+ years (Jan 2006 – Feb 2008). Tony was the software lead on this project from definition through product release. Tony was responsible for getting the software requirements in place and then leading a team of three core team members through the high level design. At the height of the project, we had 15 or 16 people on the project and yet the team was able to maintain progress – in a big part due to the thoroughness of the SRS and work done on the high level design.

Knowledge and Experience

Team members like coming to Tony and asking for technical advice. Tony has a vast amount of knowledge and experience, and has a knack of being able to share parts of this knowledge with others. Tony has worked in Java and C++ and most likely other languages that I am not aware of. He knows when to utilize scripting languages like Python, Perl, Visual Basic, and probably others.

Quality and Reliability of Work

Tony’s work falls in the “high quality” category. He has a good feel for the balance between making deliveries and delivering quality. Tony believes in designing and coding in software quality and then testing just to make sure. He developed some thread (multitasking) safety ideas and then pushed for the use of these ideas by each developer. In another example, Tony ended up re-working some very complex inter-processor communications. He got the communication system up and running and then followed up with additional tests and additional code for robustness.

The software team has high respect for Tony’s debugging abilities. He has the ability to think through complex processes and come up with ways of finding underlying information in order to determine what the root problem is.

Team Player and Independent Worker

Tony has been a great team player and the team enjoys working with him. He knows when to listen and when to speak up. At the same time, Tony is able to work independently. Some of his best work was done while working off site.

Glen Meldrum (now deceased)
Software Project Manager
Fluke Corporation

Steve McConnell (Construx Software, 2004)

Special thanks to Tony Garland for his exhaustive review; with 12 years' hindsight, I appreciate more than ever how exceptional Tony's several thousand review comments really were.

-- From the forward to the 2nd edition of Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction

Steve McConnell
CEO and Chief Software Engineer
Construx Software

Dan Everhart (DynData, March 2003)

Tony is one of the top software people in the Northwest, and is capable of anything you throw at him. We worked together on a Java project for Sony a few years ago.

Dan Everhart
Software Development Consultant
DynData

Steve Perrin (Traveling Software, 1997)

I have worked closely with Tony Garland for over two and a half years now, and can unequivocally say he is the best software engineer that I have ever had the opportunity to work with. In my four years at Sun Microsystems and five years at Traveling Software, I have worked with many exceptional engineers, but Tony is unique among them.

Tony made significant contributions to the last three versions of Traveling Software's award-winning LapLink products: LapLink for Windows 95 versions 7.0 and 7.5, and LapLink for Windows NT version 7.5. He worked on the Remote Control feature of LapLink, which allows a "guest" machine to connect to another "host" machine over a modem or network. The guest sees an image of the host's desktop and can control the host's keyboard and mouse. Tony was instrumental in a number of core technologies that made these products possible such as caching, compression, bitmap and font handling, and display driver intercepts.

Tony's technical knowledge is superior. He has an in-depth understanding of programming languages and operating systems including: C, C++, MFC, Win32, Windows 95, and Windows NT. He is also familiar with Windows internals such as Windows NT kernel-mode device drivers. If you can find a topic that he is not already familiar with, his broad experience in software makes it possible for him to learn new technologies quickly.

One thing that makes Tony unique is his extensive knowledge of good software development practices. During his many years writing software, Tony has refined his development skills to a point where he can efficiently produce high quality products. He explores all aspects of a problem before starting to write code. He clearly defines product requirements, carefully designs and implements a solution, and exhaustively tests. Along the way, he conducts design and code reviews to find any defects as early as possible in the development process. Tony's development methods result in timely delivery of reliable software.

I have worked with Tony as both a technical colleague and as his manager. In both cases, it was a joy working with him. Teamwork is one of Tony's greatest strengths, and his example is perhaps his greatest contribution to the team. He is always willing to take the time to answer questions from other team members or help them debug a difficult problem. Everyone on the team knows they can depend on Tony to complete his part of the task at hand. His attention to detail ensures that the team doesn't lose track of any issues. He always keeps me up to date on his progress by providing detailed status reports on a regular basis.

I give Tony my highest possible recommendation, and know he will be a key member of any software development team he joins. I look forward to the possibility of working with him again in the future.

Steve Perrin
Engineering Manager
Traveling Software, Inc.

Mark Chealander (Traveling Software, 1995)

Given the events of the past eight months and the past two months in particular it is appropriate and necessary to comment on Tony's many contributions to the Capone product cycle. The overview is concise, without his help we would be months away from golden master. The details follow...

We will start with the intangibles first, Tony is a very positive force in the shaping of team morale. There are a number of reasons for this, first and foremost, his technical abilities are as good as it gets and he therefore commands both credibility and respect from his peers. Second, he conducts his team interaction in a cooperative non-threatening manner with a focus on solutions, not ownership. Third, when people know they have someone like Tony on their team they know they have a person who will not only pull their own weight but act as a team resource. This is particularly key since the tendency with many consultants is to constrain their area of responsibility and not care about group issues.

As far as the tangibles are concerned, Tony's methodical approach to engineering has resulted in the delivery of a significant amount of low defect code. He accomplishes this by focusing on the design and test phases of development rather than to "iterate" a sloppy implementation. He gave up a good portion of his summer (normally he schedules sailing, house painting or some other frivolity) and lately has been pulling long hours like the rest of the team. I won't even mention where he's been sleeping lately so he is close to work (well, OK - one time).

Mark Chealander
Engineering Manager
Traveling Software, Inc.

Farzeen Mohazzabfar (Traveling Software, 1993)

Tony worked for me at Traveling Software, Inc. as an independent consultant from June, 1992 through February 1993. During that time, he filled the role of a senior engineer on a team of all but one new engineers, including myself as the engineering manager. After our project was completed and we started working on International releases, Tony was recruited by another team at TSI to work on our next major project.

Quite simply, Tony was the heart and soul of our project. The most current version of TSI's LapLink V file transfer program, THE product that has broken all sales records of the company's ten (10) year history, was mostly due to his efforts.

Tony was given the most difficult tasks on a project of five (5) engineers. It didn't take Tony long to gain the respect of all his colleagues and become their mentor. Tony's emphasis on up front design, resulted in clean implementations with very few problems, even when the technology was very complex. Tony's code and design document was used as an example for other team members. Tony's ability is remarkable. His commitment-to team goals and to his own high standard of quality and excellence-is exceptional. Tony is the most effective engineer I have ever worked with. He is committed to his schedule and works very hard to meet it despite difficulties introduced by defects found in Microsoft compiler and tools.

Being a relatively new manager, I constantly consulted with Tony on how to manage the "creeping features" problem and how to deal with a lot of other issues. Tony also aided me in doing design and code reviews. In a single statement, Tony was my right hand. I don't believe we could have delivered the project on-time and with excellent quality in the work we did without Tony. I'm sure that you read any number of "dutiful" letters of reference. THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE! My absolute, head-to-toe conviction is that your company would benefit-greatly-by Tony's presence.

Farzeen Mohazzabfar
Engineering Manager
Traveling Software, Inc.

Peter Rysavy (Fluke Electronics, 1988)

As project manager, then engineering manager, and finally marketing manager at John Fluke Mfg. Co., I have been directly associated with Tony Garland for the last four years. In that period, Tony has acted as lead software engineer for a major program at Fluke. This program, which I managed, produced a comprehensive family of highly intelligent touch-control operator-interface workstations, Fluke models 1020, 1030 and 1050.

In his lead position, Tony did the key architectural design of the software, resulting in an upwards-compatible product family, where each product design could leverage from the previous one. Supervising a staff of three software engineers, his team developed detailed software specifications, and then methodically designed, coded and tested the software on schedule. Their thorough approach has resulted in software of such robustness that no field modifications have ever been necessary.

Tony has the most thorough engineering approach I have ever witnessed. He takes care of every detail, and thinks through every avenue. Consequently, he produces work of extremely high quality. In addition, his excellent communication skills result in clear and complete documentation. Tony insists that assignments and goals are well defined prior to implementation. Working with good definitions, and taking care of details, Tony has not only produced high quality work, but has also produced the work rapidly, because things are done right the first time. Tony believes in doing the right thing, the right way, the first time.

Due to his impressive results while working for me, Tony was promoted to Senior Software Engineer and then to Staff Engineer, a prestigious position at Fluke reserved for engineers of exceptional ability who are capable of making significant contributions.

Tony works well with other people, is well liked, and has effectively led every group he has supervised.

In addition to his solid software capabilities, Tony has also designed a lot of hardware over his career. This experience gives him a broad base of engineering knowledge, the ability to make the critical design tradeoffs between hardware and software, and the expertise to quickly diagnose system level problems.

I cannot recommend a more skilled, a more effective, nor more personable engineer than Tony Garland.

Peter Rysavy
Marketing Manager
John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc.