About Me
Personal
My name is Stephen Eskin and I am a semi-professional web designer and programmer. I am currently 25 years old and a full time employee of the University of Maryland as a System Database Administrator/Web Programmer, after recently receiving my B.S. degree for Computer Science. I started doing web design back in 2000, teaching myself the basics of HTML, but really got serious with it my freshman year of high school when I began working with Mr. Jason Leveille on redesigning Quince Orchard High School's website in the summer. Jason Leveille introduced me to the concept of Web Standards and xHTML, plus the intricacies of using CSS for design and layout. Since then, I have been working to further my skills in xHTML, CSS, and a web programming language called PHP, my current area of specialty.
Work
Over the past 10 years, I have worked on many web projects. A few years back, I started working full time for the University of Maryland's Department of Public Safety as their Database Administrator/Web Programmer. I now manage multiple Oracle and MSSQL databases on different department servers, as well as program and maintain the departments Intranet Portal, which houses multiple internal business web applications. The Portal system is coded in PHP using Zend Framework, combined with The Dojo Framework for AJAX applications, and supported on the back end by an Oracle database server. Additionally, I maintain the department's primary Records Management and Computer Aided Dispatching System and underlying MySQL database, as well as the older legacy system backed by Oracle, maintained for archived information.
Throughout my four years of high school, I worked closely with out Webmaster, Mr. Jason Leveille, creating Quince Orchard's first ever student Web Team. Sponsored by Jason Leveille, and managed by myself, the Web Team grew from just the two of us in 2003, to the two of us and then senior Justin Parks in 2004, to the two of us and five other members, Vahan Kristosturyan (senior), 
Jonathan Rothbard (senior), Tim Vasko (senior), Alex Semenyuk (sophomore), and Zachary Strudler (sophomore). Our projects included updating and managing Quince Orchard's website, creating a site for Quince Orchard Alumni to register and view other Alumni's information, creating a custom Content Management System nicknamed Zeus to manage many of the dynamic aspects of the site, creating an application for Montgomery County Public School Plant Operations employees to order uniforms from, and much more. My time at Quince Orchard was the inspiration for all of my web design work, and the mentoring I received from Jason Leveille made me what I am today.
In addition to managing Quince Orchards Web Team, I interned at Montgomery County Public School's central office in Rockville, Maryland, working closely with the Web Services Team there who managed the entire school systems webpages. The first time I worked there, the summer of 2005, I worked with fellow Web Team member Justin Parks and another graduate named Phirum Sin from Watkins Mill High School on projects ranging from redesigning elementary school websites, to creating whole new sites for MCPS departments. The next time I worked at MCPS, during the summer of 2006, I worked mainly with MCPS Web Services Team Matthew Barger on developing a new PHP server code-named Primetime for use by the MCPS community. While I was there, I transitioned the move of the entire Quince Orchard site from an external server onto this new PHP server, plus I created the framework for 
Jason Leveille and my project entitled Project-Alumni, an open sourced alumni application based off of the initial code I created behind Quince Orchard's Alumni Site. Finally, I created a global version of QO's Zeus Content Management System that could be used to collectively manage PHP applications residing on MCPS Primetime for each school, with a global administration section for MCPS central office. My work done at MCPS Web Services Team has been instrumental in furthering my web design skills and goals, and has taught me valuable lessons about the working environment and the importance of web standards and accessibility.