Wyomissing Area High School
Computer Science Mentors

guest lecturers | alumni contacts | business executives & personnel directors
computer scientists, engineers, & mentors

Guest Lecturers

• Mr. Ray Warmkessel - Mr. Warmkessel is a retired programmer from GPU. He has also been the production engineer for high school plays for decades. He has given many guest lectures to the Wyo computer science classes.
  • Mr. Warmkessel's guest lecture visit in 1998 (topic: Year 2000 Crisis)
  • Mr. Warmkessel's answers to questions about working as a programmer

• Mrs. Dorothy DeLong - Mrs. DeLong is a professional programmer and systems analyst, who works for a credit union. Actually, she is able to work at home most of the time. She has given guest lectures to the Wyo computer science classes.
  
  
• Major Matthew Flahive - Mr. Flahive has had a distinguished career in the Air Force.
  • Mr. Flahive's visit in 20??
  • Mr. Flahive's visit in May 2012
  • Mr. Flahive's visit in Jan 2014

• Mr. Ryan Walter - a 1993 Wyo computer science graduate, who has worked for Pricewaterhouse Coopers and PeopleSoft. He graduated from Franklin & Marshall College with degrees in Finance and Mathematics. He worked with the PeopleSoft's Virtual University and Computer-Based Training Teams that allows consultants to access the computer-based training via the Web. Mr. Walter was a member of Wyomissing's first ACSL team that competed in the 1992-93 National Championships. In college, he had a chance to do some research in the new field of relational databases "which are very big in the business world now."
• Mr. Carl Godlove - a professional programmer.
• Mr. John Bowe - He is a Swarthmore College classmate of our school counselor, Mrs. Regina Barletta. After getting a BS in Engineering there, he earned a Masters in Computer Science from Brown University. Areas his career has touched include electronic publishing and distributed computing (client-server, web and mail servers, and related technologies). He currently does network security and directory design and programming in Cambridge, MA for CertCo, an electronic commerce software provider. Specific technologies he works with include UNIX, Windows/NT, HTML, HTTP, C++ (Visual C++ on Microsoft), Perl, LDAP.
• Mr. Robert Schorle - a professional programmer who works for Godiva Chocolatier in Reading. He explains, "I always try to get involved in projects that interest me, so that I am learning something new.  At the present time I do systems analysis, which is a process of studying problems and designing program solutions, and develop the Visual Basic programs and Web sites that are used by the Godiva field sales managers and other departments within our company.  Most of my VB programs use Microsoft Access database files to move AS400 data to people in an easier to use format.  I write all of my Web sites using Windows Notepad because I like the control it allows me to maintain over the project.  Lately, it seems that almost every project has a Web component and server and/or client-based VB programs.  Another major part of my job is to support the use of my applications."
• Ms. Marnie Friedman - graduated from Wyo in 1995 and from Harvard University in 1999 with a degree in mathematics. She is now in the actuarial student program at The Equitable in New York City. She is currently in the process of taking actuarial exams. The Society of Actuaries offers a great deal of information about the field. Ms. Friedman's own actuary woman Web page is a more personal glimpse at why one would choose the actuarial world, and contains links to more informative sites.
• Mr. Jeff Vitullo - Received BS in mechanical engineering at Widener University. Immediately following, he attended University of Penn and received a MS in Bioengineering. He has 4+ years experience developing personal care products: baby diapers, adult briefs, femcare products at Tyco/Confab. He is currently employed at Arrow International as a product development engineer designing critical care medical devices.
• Mr. Jonathan Haggar - an automation engineer with Lucent Technologies. He received a BSME from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and MSIE from Purdue University. He works primarily as a project leader in the design, construction, and development of custom equipment that is used to manufacture Lucent's micro-electronic products. His responsibilities include robot control programming, equipment development, and some machine vision programming. He explains, "In industry, I believe the most important aspects of programming are code structure and descriptive commenting."
• Mr. Grant Braught - (home page) an instructor of Computer Science at Dickinson College where he teaches Java, Javascript, operating systems and computer architecture among others. His research interests include artificial intelligence, biologically inspired architectures for robotics, and the use of technology and simulations in education. His current research involves the design and evaluation of a World Wide Web assignment system to improve the pedagogical effectiveness of student homework. He has earned a BS in Computer Science from Dickinson College and an MS in Electrical Engineering from Penn State University. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in computer science and the University of Maryland Baltimore County.
• Mr. Chris Cronrath - graduated from Wyo in 1984 and from Penn State (BS, Comp Sci) in 1989. He explains, "Because of Wyomissing Area getting PCs in the very early 80's, I was able to start get a head start on many of the students in college. When I went to Penn State, I had already written programs in Pascal, which most other students have never heard of. I would like to thank Mr. Costenbader, my Wyo Comp Sci teacher, for allowing me the chance to move at a different pace than the rest of his students. I worked at Highmark Blue Cross/Blue Shield as a programmer for 4 years on a IBM S/390 writing programs in COBOL and Assembler language. For the next four years, I held the position of Systems Consultant where I assisted in the design of programs and databases and also assisted in the debugging of major problems. We where also the interface between the programmers and systems areas in trying to find way to best take advantage of the IBM S/390 and OS/390 operating system. I then moved on to a Client/Server environment using MS SQL Server and a 4GL tool called Dynasty which generate Visual C++ Code at Delta Health Systems in Altoona, PA. I was also the Database Administrator and senior designer and programmer. One of my major responsibilities was trying to improve the performance of our application. It was frustrating working in the client/server environment because people expected the same response time that they received from the S/390 or RISC environment. I recently accepted a job as a Systems Programmer at New Enterprise Stone and Lime near Altoona. I am a Systems Programmer and Database Administrator along with being the main performance analyst."
• Mr. Justin Daubenmire - a blind programmer who is due to graduate in June of 2000 with a 2-year degree in Computer Information Systems from Youngstown State University in Ohio. He maintains a Visual Basic web site devoted to instructing blind individuals how to program in Visual Basic IDE. His programming and computer skills include Visual Basic, Visual C++, Cobol, HTML, SQL, relational database design, and is fluent in many of the MS Office applications. He is able to interact just as efficiently as a sighted person by using a screen reader named Jaws for Windows (JFW). The JFW screen reader is created by Henter-Joyce, a company owned and operated by blind and visually-impaired individuals. Mr. Daubenmire's goal is to find employment as a Visual Basic or C++ programmer in the Youngstown, Ohio area. He is interested in developing business applications, working on a team of programmers. Feel free to email him any questions relating to programming or blindness at jdaubenm@yahoo.com.
• Mr. Tom Wise - My short term goals are to be able to make a career change from professional photography to the Information Technology field. I love working with computers and fine it hard to believe that I will grow board working with them anytime soon. I am currently taking classes for my Microsoft Certified System Engineer certification (MCSE). I would like to get a job as a network administrator for a local company while continuing my college studies in the evening. I feel that getting my MSCE will open opportunities in a progressive company that will support my continuing education. With the before mentioned support, I hope to get a computer science degree someday. At present I am half way through my certification process. I have passes the following exams... Network Essentials Core, NT 4.0 Server Core, & the NT 4.0 Workstation Core. I am now a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP). I will have to pass the following exams to receive my Microsoft certified System Engineer (MCSE): TCP/IP Elective, NT 4.0 Enterprise Core, & Internet Information Server 4.0 (IIS4) Elective. To get an MCSE, you must pass the four core exams and two elective exams.
• Major Matt Flahive (USAF) - graduated from Cornell University in 2002 with a major in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and a minor in Engineering Management. After college graduation, he joined the US Air Force Space & Missile Command.

• Mr. Eric Wittenburg - is an attorney, author, and lecturer.    He has significant experience in the law of the Internet, and is himself the owner of a regional Internet service provider.  He is an accomplished litigator in federal and state courts, having conducted numerous jury trials.   His books and scholarly articles address diverse subjects, including international arms control, securities law, trade secrets, and the American Civil War.   In addition to a law degree, he holds a Master’s Degree in Public and International Affairs.

Relevant questions to ask:

• What do you actually study in computer science courses? (... languages, operating systems, hardware?
• What cool stuff have you seen, studied, or been a part of?
• Is most of what you study interesting?
• How challenging is your college program, really? (...compared to Wyo's AP & Honors courses)
• If you were just now choosing colleges, what factors would be important to you?
• If were in high school again, would you make any different academic choices such as course scheduling, etc. based on your college experiences?

Actual answers from recent Wyo alumni:

• "The electives that were most beneficial to me were the drafting and architecture courses, especially the CAD portions. Most college classes already assume that you had exposure to CAD programs. I have actually found that experiences in BASIC were very beneficial in just having an exposure to programming. If I did it again I would definitely try to take more programming courses. Nothing in high school can fully prepare you for college classes, but they can get you ready for them."
• "I would not have figured in Honors or AP status in determining what classes to take."
• "...I actually used most of the stuff I learned in your classes :) and it gets a lot harder"
• "...Would most likely challenge myself more. Take more honors if available. You never realize how few opportunities you have to just study something until you aren't in school anymore. Plus the time I saved by taking easier courses didn't go to much use."
• "There are many opportunities in this area [computer science] it is endless. People can double or triple salaries in a year easily. The law of supply and demand comes into play,  super low supply, super high demand."
• "...basically i spend about 20 hours in the lab per week doing the current lab assignment, which i really don't mind, it's very time consuming, and i spend alot of unproductive hours trying to understand the problem, psuedocode only really helps when you have a great understanding of what needs to be done, the only thing i wish we had gone into great depth on is linked lists stacks and queues, that is what i'm having the most trouble on... i think if i had more experience with problem solving in high school, the classes would be easier... it's like riding a bike, it takes awhile before you can just 'do it'..

.Wyo comp sci alumni, who are currently majoring in a computer-related field:

• Josh Barron - jbarron(at)rice.edu - Rice University
• Carsten Schwicking - carstens(at)andrew.cmu.edu - computer engineering major, Carnegie Mellon University
• Sean Mulvaney - mulvaney(at)dickinson.edu - computer science major, Dickinson College
• Dan Mealing - dan(at)mealing.com - Management Science & Information Systems major, Smeal College of Business at Penn State University
• Zach Vanderveen - zxv101(at)psu.edu - computer science major, Penn State University
• Ryan Yanchuleff - yanchr(at)rpi.edu - Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - Computer Systems Engineering major with minors in Economics & Entrepreneurship
• Michael Perlmutter - perlmutterm(at)olin.wustl.edu - Washington University in St. Louis, Computer Science major with a concurrent MBA
• Andy Engle - age109(at)psualum.com - Penn State University Behrend College of Business at Erie with a major in MISBD
• Robb Stech - Strobbech2351(at)aol.com - Lebanon Valley College - actuarial sciences major
• Matt Flahive - matt(at)mattflahive.com - Cornell University - Mechanical Engineering major
• Crystal Russell - russellc(at)mit.edu - Massachusetts Institute Technology
• David Chung - dcc11(at)columbia.edu - Columbia University - Chemical Engineering major with a minor in Economics
• Lex Friedman - lexfri(at)brandeis.edu - Brandeis University - Linguistics major with a minor in Journalism
• Avni Gupta - avni.gupta(at)yale.edu - Yale University - Psychology major
• Steve Welsh - mswcpvfd(at)wam.umd.edu - School of Engineering at the University of Maryland at College Park, Fire Protection Engineering major
• Will Lutz - wlutz(at)andrew.cmu.edu - Carnegie Mellon University Economics major and mymave.com entreprenuer
• Kyle Leiby - kleiby(at)princeton.edu - Electrical Engineering major at Princeton University