My background includes firm practical grounding in electronics,
programming, media, business and marketing. My experience ranges from work
with large multi-national and regional companies
in positions ranging from sales and marketing
management, MIS Director and CEO, to work as an individual consultant
with customers from all areas of business. In the early 1990's my
diverse background came together to put me at the focus of the regional and
national scene of the then emerging commercial
Internet. More recently it has brought me to the focus of the movement from
proprietary embedded operating systems to the wide use of Open Source and
Linux in embedded devices of all types, and the new interactive and
multi-media web experience.
CTO - Hancock Wildlife Foundation.
Responsible for all technical operations including creation and hosting of
various web systems, creation and installation of streaming video systems "in
the wild" including live streaming video from eagle nests, heronries,
underwater cameras, solar-powered installations and wireless installations.
Webmaster and head of the discussion forum including creation and training of
initial cadre of moderators and administrators from raw volunteers.
VP Operations and CTO, Solara Technologies Inc.
providing computer and network automation including cashless transactions,
inventory control and security to the vending machine industry. Solara was a
startup where I put a team together to create and maintain leading edge
products aimed at the manufacturers of vending machines world wide.
CEO,
Belcarra Technologies Corp.
Belcarra specializes in USB device drivers and software for embedded devices
of all types and for a diverse list of operating environments. As a
shareholder I continue to be involved part-time with Belcarra.
CEO FirePlug Computers Inc., sold in 2000
to Lineo Inc. of Utah. FirePlug's products included some of
the first Linux-based software firewall products as well as embedded systems
with specialization in USB devices. I continued with Lineo until early
March of 2002, working on embedded Linux systems including
software development tools, PDA system design and other Internet and
automation systems.
VP Internet Products, Citywave Corporation.
Citywave was on track to become Canada's first national
wireless-infrastructure based CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier) when
its founder backed out of major financing by both a prime hardware vendor and
an international infrastructure construction company, for reasons only he can
explain. My duties included product design, budgeting/costing, vendor
negotiations and integration of the Internet functions proposed with the
"traditional" telephony aspect of the CLEC. Initial deployment including
machine rooms and facilities had begun when the plug was pulled.
Director, MIS, iSTAR Internet Inc., Canada's
first national ISP. I was given the challenge of integrating companies with
all three major computer systems, Windows, Mac and Unix.
CEO, Wimsey Information
Services Inc., the first commercial ISP in Canada.
My uniquely broad background gave me the ability to deal at all levels of the
business from the nuts and bolts, through product development to marketing and
corporate management. The communications industry in general and the Internet
in particular were in such rapid transition that my ability to analyze the
impact of changes on all aspects of the business and move quickly proved
extremely valuable.
For much of Wimsey's life it was at the center of the non-academic Internet
communications for all of Western Canada, passing E-mail and UseNet News to
virtually every BBS and company that claimed connection to the 'Net at that
time. In building Wimsey and the public's perception of the Internet during
1993 to 1995, I garnered publicity in all manner of media including print
(Sun/Province, BC Business, Macleans), TV (BCTV, Dotto's Data Café,
Discovery), and Radio (Bill Good show, Dotto on Data), and many more.
During this time, Wimsey was not only a regional ISP, but also very much a
creator of software and solutions for other ISPs. We developed and had begun
marketing a software system called VPO and VPO+ (Virtual Post Office),
including preparation and remote site management of 4 systems installed in
Beijing China in mid 1995. The VPO+ software installed in these and other
systems we sold and installed allowed users from one VPO+ ISP to roam into the
dial facilities of any of the others with no additional requirement other than
a change in phone number; a technology that was well ahead of its time.
Wimsey's customers included many regional and
local governments, TV radio and print outlets, and virtually every large
business in Canada that had either a regional or head office in Vancouver.
Every one of our eventual competitors started out as our customers including
both of the other companies that iSTAR purchased in the Vancouver area. The
Wimsey Web site won the first Canadian web award for best business site in
1994, and was generating nearly 1 million page hits per day by mid 1995.
During this time the Wimsey servers were also rated in the top 50 servers in
the world for the amount of transited news, and handled E-mail for more than
30,000 users with message volumes in excess of 50,000 per day (this may sound
like small potatoes in light of today's multi-million user ISPs, but at the
time was one of the largest regional ISPs and certainly the most efficient in
terms of numbers of users per server.)
After the purchase by iSTAR, I should note that 3 of our ex-Wimsey people
remained for several years as the only work-at-home people in iSTAR, and all 3
were critical to the continued good operation of their respective pieces of
iSTAR's infrastructure. They and all of the others have now been snapped up by
others in the Internet industry.
