Richard Huntrods

Academic Coordinator - School of Computing and Information Systems

I was born in Calgary, Alberta in the mid 1950's. I was born in late July, meaning I never got a school birthday party! We lived in S.W. Calgary in Altadore. When my parents first moved to Altadore, there was nothing except farmer's fields from the house to downtown Calgary, seven miles away.

In 1964 the air base at Lincoln Park (now Mount Royal College) closed, and my father moved to San Francisco for one year to work at United Airlines. After one year, he decided to return to Canada, and we soon moved to Red Deer, Alberta where he worked for the Worker's Compensation Board (now Occupational Health and Safety) as a Safety Inspector.

I lived in Red Deer until my third year of college, when I moved to Edmonton to attend the University of Alberta. After one year there, I moved to Calgary to attend the University of Calgary, where I am still residing.

EDUCATION:

I have a B.Sc. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Calgary (1977), and a B.Sc. from the University of Calgary in Chemical Engineering (1980). I also have my Master's Degree (M.Eng.) in Chemical Engineering from the University of Calgary (1988).

WORK:

After graduation in 1980, I began working in the Information Technology of various Oil and Gas companies. I wrote Reservoir Simulators in FORTRAN for 4 years, supported various Engineering Applications on a variety of hardware platforms, and generally worked as an IT "Software Engineer" during the 80's.

In the '90s, I went independent - becoming a consultant to the Energy Industry. I wrote programs and did a variety of support tasks for many companies in the Energy sector. I also spent time developing some microprocessor applications, including a MIDI engine for a sound card. During the '90s I began teaching programming in the evenings at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT).

In the late '90s, I joined SAIT as a full-time instructor. From 1998-2000 I was also the Computer Technology Program Coordinator. During that time, I began tutoring for Athabasca University. In 2001 I left SAIT to join Athabasca University full time.

TEACHING:

I have been teaching professionally since 1975 in various capacities. Some of my teaching roles include:

1975-1976: Driving Instructor, AMA
1990-2000: Continuing Education Instructor, SAIT (Computer Technology)
1998-2001: Full-Time Instructor, SAIT (Computer Technology)
1999-2001: Tutor, Athabasca University (CISM)
Fall 2000: Sessional Instructor, University of Calgary (ENEL)
2001-2002: Sessional Instructor, SAIT (OOSD)
2001-2002: Sessional Instructor, SAIT (NET TECH)
2001-present: Course Coordinator, Athabasca University (CISM)

I currently teach the following courses for Athabasca University:

Comp 268 - Introduction to Computer Programming (Java) – Undergraduate Course
Comp 501 - Systems Development with Emerging Technology – Graduate Course

Courses Taught (past and present):

C Programming (intro - intermediate - advanced)
C++ Programming (intro - intermediate - advanced)
Java Programming (intro - intermediate - advanced)
Java GUI Programming
Java Database Programming
Java Servlet Programming
Data Structures (both C and Java versions)
Oracle SQL Programming
Oracle Database Administrator
MySQL SQL Programming
MySQL Database Administrator
Unix (intro - intermediate - advanced)
Solaris (intro - intermediate - advanced)
MS Access (including Access 2 and '97)
Systems Analysis and Design (both Structured and Object Oriented)
Agile Methods
Introduction to Microprocessors (programming in C)
MicroAssembler (using the 68HC11 handyboard)

PRESENTATIONS:

As an IT professional since 1980, I have been involved in numerous projects, and have used numerous tools and techniques. As an instructor, I have given lecture in a variety of courses (see the teaching page). I am willing to prepare and give courses or presentations on almost any IT topic. Recent presentations include:

Open Source / Open Standards - The Alternative to Microsoft presented to the Calgary Unix User's Group, December 2001
Open Source Software in an Industrial Setting: Why Open Source, and the Issues, presented to the 17th IFIP World Computer Congress, Montreal, P.Q., August 2002
Open Source Software in an Industrial Setting: Why Open Source, and the Issues, presented to the Calgary Java User's Group, September 2002

PUBLICATIONS:

Nighswander, J.A., Huntrods, R.S., Mehrotra, A.K., and Behie, L.A., "Quench Time Modeling in Propane Ultrapyrolysis", Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering, Vol. 67, August 1989, pp 608-614.

Huntrods, R.S., Nighswander, J.A., Mehrotra, A.K., and Behie, L.A., "Modeling of Coke Formation in Gas Quenchers of Industrial Ethane Cracking Furnaces", Chemical Engineering Research and Design, Vol. 67, 1990, No. 6, pp 632-638.

AFFILIATIONS:

I am a registered Professional Engineer.