2850 Yukon Street
Vancouver, BC V5Y 3R2
Email: murphy1@unbc.ca 
Phone: 604-873-9366

Work Experience

Biology Field Technician Positions

Madrone Consultants Ltd. Ecology and Earth Sciences, Prince George, BC (March 2000):  Private contractor conducting owl surveys in the Vanderhoof Forest District.  Spontaneous call surveys and call playback techniques were used.

Peace/Williston Fish & Wildlife Compensation Program (PWFWCP), Prince George, BC (Spring 1999):  Contract field technician for amphibian surveys.  Duties included conducting amphibian surveys to standard protocol.  Pond searches were conducted in the afternoon; breeding call surveys were conducted between dusk and midnight.  This job involved extended stays in the back country of North Central British Columbia and as such required the use of specific equipment: Global Positioning System (GPS), Emergency Position Radio Beacon (EPRB), satellite phone, and radio operation.  The area has a large grizzly and black bear population and required keen bear awareness skills.  Access to remote areas required the safe operation of a four-wheel drive pick-up truck on both active and inactive logging roads.

University of Nevada, Reno, (Summer 1999):  Member of three-person survey team conducting a herpetofauna survey on the 58,680 ha Hawthorne Army Depot.  The land surveyed encompassed both desert and mountainous terrain.  Work conditions were as challenging as they were enjoyable; extremely hot (usually above 40 °C), long hours, often beginning early in the morning and ending after midnight, 7 days a week.  During this time herpetofauna species were documented and species collected to standard protocol. Foot searches of the surrounding mountains and desert were done in the early morning while night time driving surveys on the base proper were done in the evening. I lived and worked in close quarters with two other technicians for three months, we were a relatively unsupervised team. The project was completed on time and under budget. For the project specifics and results, the final report written by my supervisor is available here: http://www.brrc.unr.edu/data/animals/hawthorne/index.html .

Technical Positions

Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) BC Chapter, Vancouver, BC (Spring 2002):  Developed an image database web application utilizing PHP and MySQL.  CPAWS required a secure password protected web application that would allow access to the site for multiple category image searches, downloads, and uploads.  The web application and its documentation had to be prepared in a manner catering to a non-technical audience.     

GeoReference Online Ltd., Vancouver, BC (Winter 2002):  My role as web manager was to ensure that the company's business processes dependent on web technology proceeded unhindered by web-related issues.  This position required excellent research, organizational, and communication skills as information about company servers and applications had to be documented and logged for future web managers.  This was a work term position while I was studying at BCIT (see www.georeferenceonline.com ).

Federal Government Census Representative, Prince George, BC (Spring 2001):  Some of the tasks required of me as a Canada Census Representative were interacting with the public in a professional manner, door to door route planning, checking forms for errors, secondary and tertiary site visits dependent on well-kept records, and preparing and filing documents.

Assistant Manager of Horizon Distributors Warehouse Workgroup, Burnaby, BC (1993 - 1997):  In this position I was charged with scheduling and ensuring that orders were picked efficiently and accurately. Excellent communication and organizational skills were a necessity.  I was nominated by my peers in the warehouse workgroup to represent them on the Board of Directors.

BC Transit Driver, Whistler, BC (1990 - 1993):  As a municipal transit bus driver I regularly interacted with the public in a professional, courteous manner and collectively supported and maintained the Municipality of Whistler, Whistler Transit, and BC Transit’s public image.

Alpine Ski Industry, Whistler, BC (Winter months 1989 - 1993):  Over this time period I primarily worked as a ski instructor but also was a volunteer ski patroller.  This position required a positive, encouraging attitude as well as strong interpersonal and communicative skills.

Education
 
Industry Partnership Certificate, British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT), Vancouver, BC (2002):  A comprehensive program combining business, interpersonal and technology training. Emphasis was on database web development in a team environment.
 
BSc, Environmental Planning, University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC), Prince George, BC (2000):  Accredited by the Canadian Institute of Planners and the Planning Institute of BC, my studies specialized in sustainability and integrated resource management. Courses included a broad scope of natural science, business, policy, and societal issue oriented courses. As this program required an enormous amount of group and term projects, time management, diplomacy and organization were integral to its successful completion.

Fraser River Studies Program, University Transfer Credits, Langara College, Vancouver, BC (1997):  Courses included human ecology, Aboriginal cultures of BC, ecology of the Fraser River Basin, and the history of BC. This program also included a practical field component which consisted of a fifteen-day raft trip on the Fraser River from Prince George to Vancouver.  This trip incorporated and expanded on the social and physical sciences we studied in the class room setting.  For example, we met with and learned from the stakeholders who rely on the river for their livelihoods and also conducted lab experiments such as fecal coliform testing and stream health assessments. 

Other Courses

Canadian Firearms Safety
Natural Resource Field Skills
Bear Awareness
Industrial First Aid (expired)
Avalanche Awareness
British Columbia Class 2 Driver's License, with air brake certification

Writing and Research Skills

Throughout my education, I regularly received high grades on essays and lab reports.  To see reference letters from past professors that speak to my academic research and writing capabilities as well as samples of my writing, please visit my online resume posted at the following URL:
http://www.murphyzone.com/resumeNR/

Computer Skills

•	During my work term while attending BCIT, I successfully upgraded GeoReference Online's web presence and set up Microsoft Sharepoint Team Services. A greater feat however, was the successful recovery from an office break in and theft of the onsite Windows XP IIS server. I was able to replace and rebuild the server not once but twice as the hard drive on the new server turned out to be defective.  
•	At UNBC, I took the initiative to combine much of my course work and presentations with information technology. This gave me experience working cross platform with Microsoft Windows and Red Hat Apache server. I served as webmaster for some of the many group and term projects required by my degree. I found this to be an invaluable method of collecting and displaying data in a user friendly, accessible manner.
•	I have experience building and upgrading computers and have become the de-facto technical support to many acquaintances. I am currently the administrator of a small office local area network which serves five independent professionals. I have set up both Linux Red Hat (6.1) and Windows IIS 5.0 servers.  I am quite capable of quickly learning and efficiently using new software packages. The following indicates operating systems, applications, and languages that I am proficient with or have been exposed to:

     Proficient with:	     Exposed to:	
Oracle Certified Professional (OCP) application development
PHP and MySql 
HTML / DHTML
Windows XP, 2000 Pro, and 9x operating systems 
Standard Microsoft Office applications
Microsoft Project 2000 
Macromedia products: Dreamweaver, Ultradev, Fireworks
Adobe: Photoshop, Illustrator 
Corel: PhotoPaint, Illustrator 
VISIO charts, diagrams and layout program  	Basic UNIX and Linux command line knowledge
Basic Arc/Info Geographic Information System knowledge
ArcView version 3a 
Macromedia Flash 
Visual Basic 6.0 	

References
Scanned images of reference letter from previous employers and professors can be viewed at:
http://www.murphyzone.com/resumeNR/  (more available upon request).

December 3, 2003