Fred Wasmer

President, Wasmer Consulting

I grew up in the tiny town of Twist, in the Mississippi River bottomland of eastern Arkansas. It was a land of soybeans and wheat; of cotton, catfish, and rice.

My father was a farmer. His father was a farmer. But I knew, from quite an early age, that I wouldn't be carrying on the family business. As far back as I can remember, it has been science and engineering that really called to me. Every summer, I worked on the farm, saving what money I earned. Every autumn, I spent it on some new scientific gadget: a telescope, a weather station, an electronics kit.

In 1978, I bought my first computer: a Radio Shack TRS-80. There wasn't much packaged software back then, so I wrote my own, and soon discovered that I had something of a knack for it. Indeed, I was quite good at it. I had found my niche in life.

Education

M.S. in Computer Science
University of Florida, 1993
Thesis : "A Simulation of Adaptation by Natural Selection of Phenotypes in an Artificial Ecology", developed as an interdisciplinary project between the Departments of Computer Science and Zoology.

B.S. in Computer Science (Major), Atmospheric Science (Minor)
University of Illinois, 1986

Employment

1986 to present
Part-time appointment, Research Associate
Argonne National Laboratory
Argonne, Illinois

1986-1989, 1993- present
Part-time appointment, Research Specialist
Physics Department
University of Illinois at Chicago

1989-present
President
Wasmer Consulting

1999-present
Part-time appointment, Science, Engineering, & Technology Division
D & E Technical
Champaign, Illinois

Professional Experience

While an undergraduate at the University of Illinois (UI), I was awarded an internship with a research group jointly headed by Dr. William Dunn, of UI, and Dr. Anthony Policastro, of Argonne National Laboratory (ANL). I became increasingly involved with this group during my senior year, and upon graduation accepted an appointment as a research associate. This position proved to be an outstanding educational experience, allowing me freedom to explore many facets of university and national lab research and development programs.

In 1989 I founded Wasmer Consulting and began independently soliciting software development contracts. Building on my past experience, Wasmer Consulting focused on scientific and engineering software.

While software development is my area of specialization, my appointments with ANL and UI, along with my thesis work at the University of Florida, have given me a strong background in engineering and science. This has proven valuable while developing engineering and scientific applications.

A sampling of the projects I have completed includes:

• developing NMPlot, an application for analyzing and displaying gridded data sets, and NMGF, a standard file format for storing georeferenced gridded data. Additional information about these products can be found on the NMPlot and NMGF home pages.

• developing BaseOps, a graphical user interface for the Noisemap suite of aircraft noise models. This application guides users through the steps in performing an airport noise analysis: entering the aircraft operational data, running the NMap and RNM noise models, and creating noise contours using NMPlot. See the BaseOps home page for additional information.

• writing EXLGUI, a software development framework that was used to create the Air Compliance Advisor, an air pollution decision support system sponsored by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

• developing TSIP, an application for exploring alternative evacuation strategies following the release of a hazardous airborne chemical, and MetView, an application for the real-time display and analysis of meteorological data. These projects are part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program.

• participating in a research project studying the dispersion of atmospheric pollutants. As part of this project, I developed a suite of computer programs used for the real time collection and display of meteorological and pollutant concentration data collected from a kilometer-size grid of sensors.

• developing Airrad, a program that computes the radioactive fallout hazards resulting from the detonation of a nuclear weapon. This work was sponsored by Sandia National Laboratory of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

• designing GRAMRULE, a special-purpose programming language for specifying English grammar and spelling transformation rules. A GRAMRULE interpreter executes these rules as a component of a Chinese-English translation program developed by CITAC Computers of Gainesville, Florida.

Personal Information

I currently live in Gainesville, Florida, with my wife, Fiona, a veterinarian who is pursuing a Ph.D. in pathobiology at the University of Florida. We share our house with two cats (Brutus and Polly) and the odd frog or lizard that the cats drag in.

In my free time, I enjoy outdoor activities, including canoeing, hiking, and camping. I also enjoy traveling, and have taken several trips throughout the United States, Europe, Africa, and Australia. And finally, I love good food and wine: my wife and I have elevated eating out to an art form.