Michael Gorman

Michael GormanIn 1995, Michael and some friends from Western Illinois University started dabbling in HTML. Sixteen years later, Michael has converted his hobby into a successful career designing, developing and managing websites.

For six and a half years, he managed the website for the ABC affiliate in the Quad Cities, WQAD-TV. During Michael’s tenure, WQAD won a National Edward R. Murrow Award for best small-market television website, three Regional Edward R. Murrow Awards, an Eric Sevareid award of Merit. Personally, Michael won several employee awards, including the New York Times Broadcast Group Leadership Award and Employee of the Year.

WQAD.com consistently broke the big stories of the area. The site launched the area’s first weekday podcast. Michael developed several features for the site, including a basic content management system for the weather section and a scoreboard and standings script for the high school football section.

Looking for a better work-life balance, Michael went to work for Trinity Regional Health System. He not only redesigned their website but also reorganized the entirety of its content on their back-end. This eliminated maintenance redundancy by the hospital and improved the site’s overall functionality for the user.

Michael turned his focus to design when he joined TownNews.com, customizing the templates on their proprietary CMS for dozens of newspapers across the country.

Web Designer, TownNews.com

November 2009 – present

  • Customized templates for more than 50 newspapers across the country
  • Developed new blocks and features for base templates
  • Rebuilt templates for existing automotive vertical

Technologies used: PHP, JQuery, XHTML, CSS, (proprietary language)

Programs used: Notepad++, WinMerge, Fireworks

Web Specialist, Trinity Regional Health System

April 2007 – July 2009

  • Spearheaded redesign of Trinity’s public sites, including trinityqc.com
  • Reorganized trinityqc.com content for better navigation, navigation and efficiency
  • Made requested changes to the Intranet
  • Helped set up and maintain Trinity’s digital billboard system

Skills used: Photoshop, HTML, CSS, Fireworks

CMS used: Sitemaker

Internet Content Manager, WQAD-TV-DT

July 2001 – April 2007

  • Maintained all sections of the site
  • Built weather forecast module in PHP, allowing easier input for meteorologists and more flexibility in displaying the forecasts
  • Authored PHP script that scraped river levels from the National Weather Service’s page and wrote levels to an XML file
  • Wrote a scoreboard module in PHP that allowed creation of teams, conferences and schedules into a MySQL database, input scores into the same database, and let users view scores, schedules and standings dynamically
  • Built several news-related infographics in Flash, including election results and BRAC information
  • Added or edited reporters’ stories and wire copy
  • Posted (and often wrote) local breaking news stories
  • Performed most of graphic design for the site, including two moderate redesigns
  • Edited video clips from newscasts and posted them online
  • Helped create region’s first news podcast

Skills used: HTML, CSS, PHP, Javascript, MySQL, XML, AJAX, Fireworks, Flash

CMS used:WorldNow, Moveable Type

News Editor, Eagle Publications of Western Illinois

January 2001 – May 2001

  • Served as news editor for two weekly hometown papers in the Macomb, IL area
  • Covered town news and coordinated freelance work
  • Laid out all news content for print

Programs used: Quark Xpress, Photoshop

Awards

  • RTNDA Edward R. Murrow National Award, 2003
  • RTNDA Edward R. Murrow Regional Award, 2003, 2004, 2005
  • Eric Sevareid Award of Merit, 2003
  • WQAD Employee of the Year, 2002
  • New York Times Broadcast Group Leadership Award, 2003