Ryan Melmoth

I am currently employed full time at the Lake Louise Ski Resort as a programmer. Some of my responsibilities and projects include:

Handheld Lift Pass Scanners

The resort uses handheld barcode scanners to validate upwards of 12,000 lift tickets on busy days. In early 2026, as part of a plan to replace all 29 old handheld scanners at each lift, I wrote a custom app for Chainway Android-based barcode scanners using Java in Android Studio. Initially the goal was feature parity with the original scanners, but over the course of development I added new capabilities that take advantage of the new hardware, such as:

• Device telemetry that reports battery status and temperature, Wi-Fi signal, GPS location, the current operator and lift, a table of bad scans, and more.
• A live web dashboard that displays all of this telemetry data. It had to be integrated into an existing site, so it uses vanilla JavaScript with the Leaflet library to show GPS locations.
• Cached operator credentials, allowing logins during emergencies such as a power or Wi-Fi outage at the resort.
• A WebRTC-based voice chat system for peer-to-peer audio communication, eliminating the need for mountain greeters to carry a radio. Web clients can peer and communicate with scanners and other web users via a custom-built web app. A single TURN server circumvents a resort network rule that prohibits Wi-Fi-connected devices from discovering each other. Operator names are shared during SDP negotiation and shown while communicating (the reason we chose not to rely on an external push-to-talk app).
• Communication with an on-site ticket printer (using the Zebra Programming Language) that lets the scanner validate an online order via MtnOS and automatically print the ticket at the lift. This was implemented after many guests were turned away at the lift because their passes hadn't been printed yet.
• Scanning multiple passes in quick succession without waiting for a response, with the ability for the operator to review earlier scans and double-check the results.

Click to reveal pictures of the app running on a Chainway scanner.

The app's Login screen

A screenshot of a valid pass scan

Kiosk Maintenance and Development

The Lake Louise Ski Resort has multiple self-serve kiosks that guests use to redeem online purchases and Plus Card perks, buy day passes, and print lift tickets. On a good day, between 500 and 800 guests skip the Guest Services line and use the kiosks instead, dramatically reducing the average wait to get up the lift. The kiosks run an in-house Java application that interfaces with the MtnOS API.

In 2025, I was made solely responsible for upgrading the kiosks: swapping out some of the physical hardware (PCs, barcode readers, receipt and BOCA printers) and migrating all twelve machines from Windows 7 to Linux. I overcame hurdles with serial port emulation on Linux and documented the process for setting up the kiosk application on Debian- and Arch-based systems. Some UI elements also had to be adjusted due to incompatibilities with the new OS.

In December 2025, our payment terminals malfunctioned due to an error on our third-party payment provider's side. I implemented a same-day hotfix that let online orders and free Plus Card perks be redeemed and printed, while hiding all day pass purchasing options from customers. Over the course of the three-day outage, the rest of the IT department and I assisted Guest Services in selling Plus Cards to let guests skip the long lineup. During this period we sold over 200 Plus Cards (valued at $120 CAD each) in the lineup alone, saving guests countless hours of wait time.

Full-Stack (Backend + Frontend) Web Development

• Leading the planning and development of large projects
• Writing documentation and communicating plans to other team members
• Coding in JavaScript and working with PHP frameworks such as Laravel + Livewire
• Ensuring PCI compliance in storefront development; Card data is tokenized by the provider and not stored
• Updating outdated applications for use with new systems

IT Support

• Responding to and resolving support tickets from users
• Answering phone calls and walking users through step-by-step processes
• Diagnosing and fixing long-standing issues in our code library
• Maintenance of all user-facing web applications
• Travelling to various buildings to fix physical hardware issues

Other duties

• Diagnosing and fixing network issues on Unifi/Ubiquiti network devices
• Managing Active Directory accounts for company employees
• Wifi setup for Lake Louise tenants