Curriculum Vitae of Malcolm Smith

Website: www.thesmith.org.uk
Phone: 01525 240 937

I am currently seeking employment

tl;dr? Here's a shorter printable single-page CV

PROFILE

A multi-talented musician, manager and computer engineer with a decade of teaching experience. Highly motivated, honest and dedicated, with inspiring leadership qualities, diplomatic customer-facing skills and a meticulous degree of numeracy and literacy. I live near Aylesbury and hold a clean UK Driving Licence so can travel in Buckinghamshire to Milton Keynes, Leighton Buzzard, Dunstable, Bicester, or further afield if necessary.

RECENT PROJECTS

2008-now African Drumming Teacher, CTO, CIO, CFO, creative director and managing director of Drumming Is Fun.
2008-2017 African Drumming Teacher (part-time) teaching in schools for Bedfordshire music service (which became Inspiring Music).
2007-2008 Business planning, market research, website design, etc. to set up my own company teaching music.

SKILLS INVOLVED

Teaching West African drumming and song, both one-to-one and to large groups of adults and children in schools, universities and the community.
Performing music at festivals, concerts, conferences, assemblies, parties, leading audiences of sometimes 1000+ in song.
Extensive work with people with special needs (physical, mental, behavioural, emotional) and vulnerable young people.
Mentoring and motivating people of all ages and backgrounds, dissolving their inhibitions, stealthily educating via fun.
Teaching people character-building skills such as music and computing to help unlock their self-confidence.
Team Building and training staff and customers in productivity and Free/Libre/Open Source Software to save time and money.
Leading by example and running an entire company using solely Free Software that is intelligently designed, more secure and often zero cost.
Designing, building and administering customised Debian workstations with GNU/Linux/UNIX command line skills.
Maintaining regular automated backups and frequent sys admin tasks using state-of-the-art Free Software tools.
Building simple-to-use, quick-loading, W3C-conformant websites from HTML+CSS coded using KATE.
Photography and image editing with The GIMP, Hugin, ImageMagick and custom BASH scripts.
Preparing documentation using LibreOffice (Free word-processor, spreadsheets, databases) and music software.
Digital/analogue mixing, recording and synthesis, sampling, MIDI sequencing, signal processing and audio editing with Ardour.
Curating a vast and diverse collection of rare recordings, remastering compilations and DJ-ing with them.
Keeping accounts, managing finances, producing monthly reports, preparing and submitting Tax Returns.
Dealing positively with the general public and clients' requests, negotiating with businesses and services.
Promoting West African music within the UK djembe community, online, and on television and radio.
Notating traditional African drum rhythms and making them freely available to anyone on the internet.

PREVIOUS EMPLOYMENT

1997-2007 Various engineering projects through MicroRoute Ltd., Warwick, until made redundant:

2005-2007 Team Leader organising engineers' rota, holidays, staff training, day-to-day personnel issues.
2000-2005 ABS Engineer for a security company, first-line maintenance in London, Essex, Herts, Beds, Bucks.
1999 Network Engineer replacing PC's and servers in CSG offices around South East England:
Data migration, cabling, configuration and testing of LAN on Windows NT for Y2K upgrade.
1999 IBM Installation Engineer:
- setting up Boots Advantage Card kiosks in shops around the UK.
- setting up EPOS tills in Jones shops around South East England.
- installing routers in Tesco stores connecting ISDN, Ethernet and IBM RS6000 mainframe.
1998 Network Site Engineer at RAF Wyton, Cambridgeshire (MOD Security Clearance checked).
Installing computer equipment and building software over the network.
1998 CRM Refresh Team contracted at various IBM locations around London:
Upgrading user platforms on laptops and desktops, migrating software, data capture/restore.
1997 Mobile Service Technician for NCR UK Ltd., Watford, Herts:
Maintaining IT equipment for Lloyds and Nat West Banks, primarily IBM servers, PC's and counter terminals.

SKILLS INVOLVED

First-line ATM maintenance on NCR, Diebold and Fujitsu/Siemens machines, and second-line on Wincor.
Installing, upgrading and maintaining desktop PC's, servers, peripherals and network hardware.
Managing a team of engineers and optimising manpower and resources to meet deadlines.
Liasing with customers to give quality service, and providing user support and training.
Using alarm systems and security protocols to maintain a safe working environment.
Using PDAs and laptops out in the field to communicate with remote systems.
Managing stock control systems, and documenting to ISO9001 standards.
Communicating effectively with all levels of management and staff.
Producing reports based on analysis of weekly/monthly data.
Multi-drop van driving on time to meet SLA targets.

This was all in the days before SatNav's; I have good map-reading skills and a homing pigeon-like natural sense of direction, and developed a fairly good "Knowledge" of London and the South East of England.

Earlier posts:

1997 Configuration Engineer for Compel plc, Welwyn Garden City, Herts.
1995 Data Entry Clerk for Blue Arrow Temporary Services, St. Albans, Herts using Microsoft Office.
1994 Configuration Engineer for Computacenter Ltd., Radlett, Herts: Hardware and software installation and testing on IBM, Compaq, Toshiba, HP and Apple desktops, laptops and servers running MS DOS, Windows, Office and applications. Encryption of protected financial systems.
1988-1989 General Assistant for J. Sainsbury, Beeston, Nottingham: Checkout operator, customer service, stock taking/replenishment and warehouse duties. Working part-time while studying at college to gain vital real-world experience of the retail sector.

EDUCATION

2011 Hertfordshire Development Centre, Stevenage: special needs courses:
- Listening & Communication & Understanding Challenging Behaviour.
- An Introduction to Autistic Spectrum Disorders.
2009-2010 Sing Up Take The Lead course learning how to teach vocal workshops.
2008 Business Link courses: Starting Your Own Business, Presentation Skills, Business Planning, Marketing Your Business, Bookkeeping & Accounts, PR for Virgins, Taxation & VAT, Managing Money & Making A Profit, Running A Business From Home, Time Management and Closing The Sale.
2000-2001 Oaklands College, Welwyn Garden City, Herts: C/C++ and Java Programming evening classes.
1994-now Ongoing African drumming studies with many masters in Senegal and UK.
1991-now Classically trained composition skills (mostly self-taught). As well as reading and writing notation, I play by ear and have perfect relative pitch.
1990-1993 University of Hertfordshire: Completed modules in Computing, Electronic Music, German and Linguistics using Pascal, Modula-2, Ada, VAX VMS3, UNIX, Sun OpenWindows, LogicWorks, Cubase, Performer.
1982-1990 West Bridgford School, Nottingham:
- 1990 2 'A' Levels: Pure and Applied Mathematics (grade D) and Computer Science (grade C).
- 1987 10 'O' Levels, including Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science all at grade A.
1983-1986 BBC BASIC (self-taught) as a child, writing my own complex programs with user-friendly interfaces.

INTERESTS

Music: listening, composing, playing piano and analogue synthesisers, recording, studio outboard gear.
Walking, nutrition, poetry, photography, computer hardware, GNU/Linux audio software.