Management Leaders

Donald O'Connell

President and Founder

Donald O'Connell founded Shasta QA in autumn of 2002 after leaving Commerce One–the number one IPO of 1999–where he served as Director of Engineering for Quality Assurance. At Commerce One, he managed a team of fifty quality assurance engineers and was part of a management team responsible for two hundred QA engineers who supported over one thousand developers with all development teams releasing concurrent integrated projects.

Prior to Commerce One, Mr. O'Connell managed a staff of forty engineers as Director of Engineering for Quality Assurance at Geoworks, an operating system company and contributor to the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). There he was responsible for managing all white-box/API test groups for three operating systems and the Legos SDK, all public API testing (file systems, databases, comm. protocols, connectivity, etc.), and black-box test groups for application and connectivity testing.

Mr. O'Connell's experience managing software projects for large organizations includes collaborations with PeopleSoft, SAP, HP, Toshiba, Seiko-Epson, Mitsubishi, Nokia, Canon, AT&T, APC, Hughes Network Systems, GM, Boeing, Shell, CitiGroup, and many more. His solutions for both co-located and off-site testing efforts (in Europe, Asia, and North Africa) are based on his exposure to the varied requirements and process strategies of client corporations.

During his more than 13 years of industry experience in creating successful strategies for development, project management, and software testing teams, Mr. O'Connell created a set of cut-above testing methodologies. These methodologies and his belief that quality assurance is a vocation informed his vision for creating Shasta QA as a high-value software testing company.

Chris Carrigan

Vice President of Project Management

With more than 17 years experience in hi-tech companies, Chris Carrigan has worked as a project planner, technical writer, and technical editor.

His industry experience includes telecommunications (ROLM, a Siemens company), data security (RSA, Inc.), database applications (Oblix, Inc., now part of Oracle), manufacturing execution system (MES) software (Consilium, Inc., an Applied Materials company), MIL-SPEC documentation (Westinghouse, Lockheed Martin, and Kaiser Electronics, a Rockwell Collins company), as well as contracting stints at companies such as Intel and Fujitsu America, Inc.

As a project planner at IBM, Mr. Carrigan was responsible for coordinating the efforts of the development, marketing, technical documentation, manufacturing, inventory, and technical support departments throughout the product development life cycle.

His writing portfolio includes user guides, system administration guides, installation guides, maintenance manuals, online Help, API documentation, and functional design specifications.

A focus on improving software and documentation usability has made him a passionate advocate for end-users. As a project planner, his goal is not only to meet or exceed deadlines with high-quality deliverables but to increase productivity through continual process improvement and adherence to QA methodologies that reflect industry best practices.

Mr. Carrigan earned his B.A. in English from San Jose State University and is a member of the Society of Technical Communicators (STC).

Ron Lute

Senior Quality Assurance Manager

An information technology professional with over 25 years of industry experience, Ron Lute started testing software in 1981 as a developer for a major bank. Throughout his career, he has been responsible for ensuring that application software provided users with correct results and expected performance.

Ron’s software QA experience includes verifying test data, writing test lists, performing test runs and black box testing, and setting up servers for mobile, email, and database applications. He has tested mobile devices, database, desktop, and other applications.

As well as supervising staff at the department level, Ron has supervised or performed multiple software conversions and system and application software upgrades; supported and maintained various platforms and application software packages; and maintained and upgraded mainframe core systems and integrated windows servers.