Rick D. Conner

Fractional CTO and AI systems consulting for small and mid-size companies. Ongoing technology leadership on retainer, fixed-fee AI and automation assessments, and scoped rescue work on legacy systems — owning systems roadmaps, vendor and build-vs-buy decisions, and technical oversight of in-house teams and contractors. Engagements and rates.

Designing and building a multi-tenant field service management SaaS — quoting, scheduling, dispatch, field execution, invoicing, and payments — as a solo founder and sole engineer. Live at app.crewhub360.com.

• Architected the platform on Laravel 13 / PHP 8.3, MySQL 8, and Redis, containerized with Docker Compose (nginx, PHP-FPM, queue and scheduler workers, Reverb websockets) and deployed to DigitalOcean with GitHub Actions CI for backend and mobile.
• Built single-domain multi-tenancy with a global Eloquent scope, a from-scratch RBAC system with per-tenant custom roles, self-service signup, and subscription enforcement with trials, grace periods, plan tiers, and coupons.
• Shipped an offline-first React Native / Expo app for technicians (WatermelonDB, sync queue with idempotency keys, live GPS, photos, signatures, time clock, push notifications, in-app messaging) through EAS release pipelines.
• Integrated Stripe end to end — Payment Intents, Checkout, Customer Portal, and Connect direct charges with platform fees — including a webhook-driven payment state machine and a fraud gate after a wave of fraudulent Express onboardings.
• Built bidirectional QuickBooks Online sync (customers, items, invoices, payments, credit memos, bills, taxes, COGS) plus a narrower Zoho Books provider, with per-tenant mapping wizards and a full sync log.
• Added production AI features on the Anthropic Claude API — technician-notes-to-customer-report, smart estimate descriptions — with versioned prompt templates, per-tenant voice profiles, and usage audit logs.
• Delivered a FullCalendar dispatch board with conflict detection, Google Maps route optimization, inventory and procurement, job costing, payroll rollups, a magic-link client portal, and a rules-based automation engine (email, SMS via Twilio, status changes).

Designed, built, and shipped three native iPhone apps solo: Starfall Vanguard (on the App Store), Off-Grid Sudoku, and CodeHound.

• Starfall Vanguard — a 50-level SpriteKit arcade shooter with twelve bosses, an upgrade economy, endless mode, Game Center leaderboards, and iCloud key-value progress sync; version 2.0 shipped September 2026.
• Off-Grid Sudoku — a SwiftUI one-handed Sudoku with a bundled puzzle bank, a UTC-scheduled daily puzzle with a five-year archive, a jigsaw "Off-Grid" mode, and a daily Game Center leaderboard.
• CodeHound — a SwiftUI utility that signs in to Gmail with hand-rolled OAuth 2.0 + PKCE (no Google SDK), reads the Promotions tab on device through the Gmail REST API, and extracts promo codes, offers, and deadlines with a rule-based parser.
• Every app keeps its game or extraction logic in a UI-free Swift package that runs under swift test on macOS and Linux, with GitHub Actions CI and grep-based architecture guards; projects are generated from YAML with XcodeGen.
• Owned the full App Store lifecycle — listings, privacy nutrition labels, age ratings, review notes — and privacy-first monetization: Firebase Analytics with IDFA off, AdMob non-personalized ads, and Google UMP consent for the EEA and UK.

Sole IT professional supporting a multi-state consumer finance operation with call centers in Georgia, Nevada, and Delaware, plus remote application support for an international call center in San José, Costa Rica.

• Designed and built a proprietary Loan Management System from the ground up (PHP, Python, MySQL, IIS), replacing a failing legacy platform and serving as the operational backbone of the business for nearly two decades.
• System managed a loan portfolio exceeding $40 million outstanding at peak — handling the full customer lifecycle: lead acquisition, application processing, underwriting workflow, communication, and collections.
• Built and maintained an ACH payment pipeline — batch origination, submission, return handling, and reconciliation — fully compliant with NACHA operating rules.
• Developed a customer-facing web portal for account access, payment management, and document delivery.
• Architected all database design across the platform: schema, indexing, query optimization, and data integrity for a highly transactional financial system.
• Migrated infrastructure from on-premise Windows servers to Rackspace Managed Cloud over an 8-year period, implementing load-balanced architecture for reliability and scale.
• Sole owner of all application security, network configuration, hardware procurement, and vendor management — no external IT staff or outside development resources.

Founded and scaled a retail chain to 3 locations and approximately 22 employees in the coastal Georgia market.

• Managed all business operations — hiring, training, inventory, vendor relations, financial oversight, and regulatory compliance in a rapidly evolving, heavily regulated industry.
• Negotiated and executed the sale of the business in June 2023.

Built custom web platforms across a high-volume development environment.

• Developed custom content management systems deployed across hundreds of client websites, enabling non-technical users to manage their own content.
• Built custom e-commerce shopping cart solutions integrated with client-specific business requirements.
• Configured and integrated credit-card merchant accounts and payment gateways for client carts.
• Worked extensively with Perl, PHP, and JavaScript, collaborating directly with clients from requirements to production.