John Kennedy, a lifelong resident of the Greater New Orleans area, entered the computer field in 1985 as a computer programmer and worked for several New Orleans, LA and  Metairie, LA based computer consulting firms and software development companies before starting his own computer consulting business.  During the early years of his career, he designed and programmed a multitude of new software systems, as well as modifications and enhancements to existing software products.

In 1990, John decided to become an independent consultant and formed John Kennedy Computer Consulting to provide custom programming, software development, software support, system administration and consulting services to a variety of New Orleans based businesses ranging from small family owned operations to large firms, manufacturers, distributors, retailers and hospitals.  In 1997, he formed Computer Dynamics, Inc. to further expand his consulting business.

As president of Computer Dynamics, Inc., John remains active in all technical and executive level responsibilities. On the executive side, John oversees and directs the daily operations of the business, including sales and marketing, budgeting and recruiting employees and subcontractors when needed. On the technical side, John is hands-on with clients in consulting, project management, analysis and design, programming, quality control and network configuration, management and security.

Over his career, John has built a wealth of experience managing the entire software life cycle for a large number of clients.  Often being the only technical resource available to a client, he has determined user and project requirements, analyzed and designed enhancements and entire systems, managed projects, managed and assigned technical personnel to projects, participated as a developer and provided support and on-going maintenance to completed projects.  He has also played key roles in major conversions and real-time interfaces between critical business systems.  John has provided technical support and custom computer programming services to a considerable number of clients spanning a wide range of industries.

John’s experience spans the full range of computing platforms.

  • His extensive knowledge and experience on IBM® midrange systems, which has been the main focus of his career for over thirty-five years, includes IBM i™ on Power Systems™ and its predecessors (System i™, i5™, iSeries™, AS/400®, System 36 and System 34), programming in RPG Free-Format, SQLRPGLE, RPGLE, RPG IV, RPG/400, RPG II, DDS, CL, OCL, HTML, CSS, JavaScript and SQL.
  • On the PC platform, he has created and supported several applications written in a variety of relational databases, including MS Access™ and dBase™.
  • In the area of website development, John has designed and created websites using HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Some web development projects interfaced with back-office systems running on IBM i to display real-time inventory and process orders.  He has also created websites built on the WordPress content management system.  In this area, he has performed custom programming enhancements to tailor WordPress for his clients’ needs and has written custom WordPress plugins in PHP.
  • In the mainframe arena, he has supported and enhanced custom software for a U.S. Department of Defense contractor on the IBM 4361 in RPG II, COBOL and JCL.

John has a bachelor’s degree from Loyola University.