Texas Youth Commission Applications

Texas Youth Commission
Dallas, TX USA

Lance Menchu helps Texas state employees work more efficiently by automating manual systems and processes with easy-to-use Web-based applications. "Folks are used to whatever manual process they have been doing. A Web application has to do more than just deliver full functionality and save time. It has to comfort them early in the process so that they buy in and support the development and deployment," he says.

At The Texas Youth Commission in Dallas, a state agency that helps protect, rehabilitate, and guide young people in the juvenile justice system, Lance helps employees in the finance department make sense of and act upon data that comes from multiple state and external systems. With 14 facilities throughout the state, and highly confidential information being passed intra-agency and through other state agencies, Lance must incorporate all the data into a common, mission-critical set of applications that serves many masters.

"I use Iron Speed Designer to quickly build the entire transactional side of an application, as well as add page controls and filters for reports," Lance says.

"First thing I do is build a sample application using the default screens that Iron Speed Designer creates. This is just a few quick tables with simple functionality. It takes me about 15 minutes to do this. But it's a working application."

The Lance Menchu story

"I approached Iron Speed Designer with caution. I've used similar tools in the past and was never satisfied with the quality of code they delivered. With Iron Speed Designer, I've stopped worrying about the code. I'm focused instead on the other eight applications on my plate that Iron Speed Designer can help me build," he says.

Web apps in everyday roles

"I'm a one-man team and I really needed the help. I'm up to my neck in it now. I'm able to tackle more projects, be more creative, and confirm even tight project schedules with more confidence."

What's next?

"Iron Speed Designer has been a life saver. It builds applications that are rock solid."

About the developer

A Texan by birth and inventive by nature, Lance wrote the software to run his own small business back in the 1980s — his first software development project. Since then, he's been a software consultant and held other positions where he writes software "for real people to use."