Stephen Heffner

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Stephen F. Heffner entered the computer field in 1963 as a Customer Engineer for IBM. He has been involved in systems analysis, design, and programming since 1964, having held positions with Applied Data Research and Dun & Bradstreet, among others. He became an independent systems consultant in 1972; his clients have included large and small firms, governments, and universities, in the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia.

Consulting activities have included MIS audits, competitive evaluation of computer software and hardware, and corporate database design. Mr. Heffner has also served as an expert witness in a number of legal cases involving computer software.

Systems programming activities have included design and implementation of real-time systems, operating systems, database management systems, computer simulation systems, compilers and interpreters, computer networking, and laboratory and industrial automation.

In 1977, Mr. Heffner founded Pennington Systems Incorporated, of which he is President and owner, to develop and market systems software products and services. He has designed, implemented, and documented a number of Pennington's software products, most notably including XTRAN, an expert system for rule-driven symbolic manipulation of computer languages, including analysis, translation, and re-engineering of second through fourth generation computer languages, markup languages, scripting languages, and database languages.

Mr. Heffner was on the faculty of the Wharton Business School (University of Pennsylvania) in Philadelphia from 1981 to 1994, most recently as Adjunct Associate Professor of Decision Sciences. He has taught a wide variety of courses at Wharton, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. These have included honors courses and advanced seminars in programming and software engineering, database design and implementation, and information systems. Mr. Heffner originated and designed a number of the courses he taught at Wharton.

A member of the Association of Computing Machinery and the IEEE Computer Section since 1975, Mr. Heffner is Past Chairman of the Princeton, New Jersey ACM chapter and current Chairman of the local Special Interest Group for Programming Languages (SIGPLAN).

Mr. Heffner has published a number of magazine and journal articles in the professional media. He has also participated in a variety of international, national, and regional conferences, workshops, and seminars, including presentations in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

-- EelcoVisser - 28 Oct 2002

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