Brian J. Dillard joined Pathfinder Development in August 2007. After 12 years of focusing on the view layer of large consumer web applications, he wears a number of hats at Pathfinder. He prototypes new rich UI features; contributes to client and open-source projects; and sets company standards for excellence in front-end technologies such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript. He is also the project lead on Really Simple History, a JavaScript library for Ajax bookmark and back-button management.
An active writer and speaker, Brian has published with IBM developerWorks and other sites and written white papers for Pathfinder. Along with Pathfinder CTO Dietrich Kappe, Brian contributes frequently to the Agile Ajax and Ajaxian blogs. He has spoken at technology conferences including The Ajax Experience and Web 2.0 Expo.
Although he's been hand-coding JavaScript for a decade, Brian passionately supports the jQuery JavaScript framework. Despite his front-end specialization, Brian's server-side development experience extends back through the ASP Classic era. More recently, he's been exploring Ruby on Rails under the tutelage of Pathfinder's own Noel Rappin.
Prior to his current assignment, Brian spent time at Orbitz, United Airlines, Reflect.com and Townsend Analytics, Ltd. He holds a bachelor's degree in English and journalism from Michigan State University. Mr. Dillard is passionate about JavaScript but also makes room in his heart for cycling, comic books, science fiction, tattoos and other pastimes befitting a computer nerd.