Robert Kline

Robert Kline is a software developer with more than twenty-five years of experience in data processing management. His specialties are database management systems, bibliographic systems, full text retrieval systems, C/C++ and Python programming, and the design and development of medical information software.

Professional Experience

Mr. Kline is the sole proprietor of RK Systems, a software development consulting company in the Washington, D.C., area, founded in 1998. For the ten years immediately preceding the launch of his own company, he was a Senior Developer with Corporate Software & Technology. He has participated in projects (usually as the lead developer) for a long and varied list of clients, including Microsoft, Retix, the National Library of Medicine, the National Cancer Institute, the World Health Organization, the World Bank, Microfinance Information Exchange, Inc. (MIX), GammaLink, Beyond, Inc., Sprint International, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Library of Congress, AT&T, the U.S. Historical Society, Banyan Systems, Inc., and the Executive Office of the President.

Prior to joining Corporate Software & Technology Mr. Kline worked for the Library of Congress beginning in August 1971, during which time he managed a staff of professional catalogers responsible for creation of full bibliographic records for a large national automated database, and participated in the analysis, design, documentation, and testing for a large automated bibliographic system, handling more than one million new records each year.

For a number of years Mr. Kline also taught C and Advanced C Programming classes for the Northern Virginia Community College and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Graduate School.

Major Projects

National Cancer Institute (1996 to present)

Participated in a number of projects for the Institute's Office of Communications and Education, currently as the lead developer for the Central Data Repository (CDR), which forms the centerpiece for the new XML-based content management, authoring and publishing system. The project uses Microsoft SQL Server for storage of the XML documents and system metadata, a client-server interface to the repository built in C++, SoftQuad's XMetaL (customized using C++ and JavaScript) for document editing, and Python CGI scripting for the administrative interface. Most recently he served as the lead developer for the EBMS project, which provides a web-based (Drupal) system for managing the work of the leading cancer specialists responsible for synthesizing the current published literature on cancer research into the cancer information published on NCI's Cancer.gov web site. The system was rewritten in 2022 to use Drupal 9.

Museum Masterworks (2007 to present)

Design and implementation of a dynamically generated web catalog with user interface for maintaining product data, using MySQL and PHP.

Microfinance Information Exchange, Inc. (2007)

Analysis and troubleshooting for legacy ASP web database site; assistance with migrating the site to SQL Server 2005.

World Bank (2004 to 2005)

Implemented a web-based simulation for modeling the effects of various policy reforms on the attractiveness of doing business in individual countries for prospective foreign investors. The software uses Microsoft SQL Server, XML, ASP.Net, C# (server), and JavaScript (client) to present a sophisticated, yet easily maintainable user interface. Also implemented the World Bank's Privatization Database web site using SQL Server 2000, IIS 6.0 and ASP.Net.

Pan-American Health Organization (1999 to 2000)

Design and implementation of the Microsoft Windows version of the PAHO Machine Translation System (MTS), which performs state-of-the-art automated translation of text documents between English and Spanish. The software is built to run under Windows NT and Windows 95/98. The development environment uses Microsoft Visual C++, the Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC), and Faircom's c-tree file management software.

National Library of Medicine (1998 to 1999)

Design and implementation of a Java application for data creation and maintenance of the MeSH Thesaurus, which is the controlled vocabulary used for indexing international biomedical literature. The system was built using Oracle version 8.0.4 running under Solaris 2.5.1 on a Sun Sparc Ultra-2 server. The application was developed with version 1.1.7 of the Java Development Kit and version 1.1 of the Java Foundation Classes. Communication with the Oracle DBMS is via Oracle's type 4 JDBC driver. The client is designed and built to run on any platform supported by the current Java specification, including Windows 95, Windows NT, Solaris, and Macintosh.

Microsoft Corporation (1996 to 1998)

Lead developer for the SelectCD Subscription System. The system manages the order generation and tracking for the fulfillment of volume licensing software subscriptions for Microsoft's largest corporate customers. The database management uses Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 and the user interface was implemented using IIS 3.0 and an ISAPI DLL. The software was written in C++ (MSVC++ 5.0), MFC 4.0, and Transact-SQL.

Additional Project Highlights

  • MAPI Transport Provider for AT&T's EasyLink
  • Messaging gateways for Retix, GammaLink, Banyan, and a U.S. Intelligence Agency, between X.400 and MHS, Microsoft Mail for AppleTalk Networks, GammaFax, Banyan Mail, and a proprietary messaging system
  • Queue Management subsystem for Stream International's Electronic Commerce Store
  • Z39.50 client and server software for the National Library of Medicine
  • TESS (cataloging system for the National Library of Medicine)
  • Locator (telnet OPAC for the National Library of Medicine)
  • Gateway between Lotus Notes and DB/2 for Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Maryland
  • Automated workflow component of Beyond Mail for Beyond, Inc.
  • Converted mail-order, subscription, and accounting data from proprietary 4th-Dimension Macintosh system to Platinum Accounting for the U.S. Historical Society
  • MARC conversion software (implemented in PL/1) for the Library of Congress' Latin American Legislation bibliographic data

Education

Mr. Kline holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in music and a Master of Music degree from Catholic University and earned a Master's degree in Library and Information Services from the University of Maryland.

Areas of Expertise

  • Operating Systems
    • UNIX (Solaris, SCO, AIX, Linux)
    • Microsoft Windows (16- and 32-bit)
    • MS-DOS
    • Macintosh OS
    • OS/2
  • Programming Languages
    • C/C++
    • C#
    • Java
    • Python
    • PHP
    • Perl
    • PL/1
    • Pascal
    • SQL (ANSI/ISO 92, Transact-SQL, PL/SQL)
    • BASIC (including Microsoft Visual Basic)
    • ASP (VBScript, JScript, ActiveX)
    • JavaScript/Ajax
    • Assembler (80x86, 360/370)
    • COBOL
  • Software Packages/Technologies
    • DBMS packages (Oracle, SQL Server, DB/2, MySQL)
    • Standards: X.400, Z39.50, TCP/IP, MAPI, ODBC, SGML/XML/HTML/XHTML/CSS, LU6.2, MARC, ASN.1/BER, SMTP, FTP, HTTP, COM/OLE/ActiveX, SQL-92
    • MSVC/Visual Studio/MFC/ASP.Net
    • Drupal
    • C-Tree (Faircom)
    • XMetaL
    • Dreamweaver
    • Lotus Notes API
    • Vermont Views/Windows for C/Windows for Data (VCS)
    • Full text retrieval packages
      • Verity
      • Inquery
      • Oracle TextServer/ConText Server
    • Text/document-processing tools/languages
      • Lex/Yacc
      • AWK
      • PCL
      • PDF
      • Troff/Nroff/Man
      • TeX/LaTeX
    • Source code control packages
      • Git
      • CVS
      • Subversion
      • SCCS
      • RCS
      • PVCS
      • SourceSafe

Personal

Mr. Kline lives in Arlington, Virginia, with his wife and daughter. He and his wife enjoy musical performance, ballroom dancing, reading together, and tandem bicycling.