Tyrone McKoy is a systems and software tester with NCR, a company that provides networking and computer products and services and is located in Rockville, MD. Part of Tyrone’s job is to work with customers to develop requirements and performance criteria for information systems that are built by NCR. After the system is built, it is also his responsibility to work with the customer to fine-tune the system so it works as well as it can. Currently Tyrone is working with the United States Postal Service, testing software developed by NCR. He has also contributed to Systems Integrated Testing as a whole at NCR and is presently engaged in Y2K Qualification testing.
When Tyrone first joined NCR he worked frequently with customers off-site, and spent much of his time working out of a “virtual office” in his home. “Outside of getting up, coming to work, driving 45 minutes to get to the NCR offices when I get to sitting down and doing my job, its pretty much the same whether I am at home or in the office,” Tyrone explains. “Generally there are a number of routine things I need to do at either place -- like checking my e-mail or checking for phone messages. However, in the virtual office, I dictate my own hours. I may work for a few hours in the morning, then go running or do other things, and then work from six to ten in the evening. However, I also need to keep track of what’s going on at the home base in the NCR offices so I’m not lost. However, the change of responsibilities of my current position require my ongoing presence at the NCR home office, therefore I am no longer working from my home ‘virtual office’’
Part of his job is to document his work with the customers. He produces scripts and procedures to present to customers. He finds he is developing skills that help him move from research and development to customer interaction. His company offers courses that help both in the technical training he needs and help him personally and professionally.
Currently Tyrone is working with the United States Postal Service on the development of new Point of Sale sofware (POS). "They are in the process of modernizing their services for their customers," Tyrone explains, "and this is just one of the changes being made. Involved is a completely new system being used at Post-Offices around the country. Currently NCR has 634 sites fitted with our solution. I am a part of the testing of any new software that comes out of NCR. Our team makes sure that there are no problems in the software that will hinder the daily operation of the Post-Office."
Tyrone has a B.S. and an M.S. from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County campus. During college he was able to get a number of internships in industry. “I just started off writing programs, but getting that exposure and seeing some of the real problems that people in industry work on, helped me decide what I wanted to do after graduation. The first summer after my freshman year, I was at IBM (that division is now part of Lockheed Martin). The second year I went to Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and did research with a medical doctor who specialized in vestibular problems. When I first heard from him and was asked to come for the internship, I didn’t exactly know what I would be doing. I did not know what mathematics had to do with the medical profession. But I actually created mathematical models of the human eye that he used in his research.”
“The following two summers I went to Bell Labs in New Jersey. While in graduate school I did some short internships, including one at the Telescope Space Institute, which is associated with Johns Hopkins University, and watches over the Hubble Space Telescope. Originally my position at NCR was suppose to be temporary, but I ended up staying on, became full-time, and got salaried.”
From his internships he saw the uses of operations research and decided to focus on that area in his studies. He is interested in continuing his work in the area of queuing theory performance analysis in graduate school.
