Putting a screwdriver to...
Intel Based Stuff, RS/6000, Sun, F5 Load Balancers, Cisco Firewalls, Tandem Mainframes, GEC 4190, etc.

Putting the boot into...
Linux, Windows 95, 98, NT, XP, 2000, 2003, AIX, SunOS, Unix System V, MS-DOS, Rational Apex, Tandem Guardian 90/TACL, OS 4000

School's Out!
1980-1983 First Class Honours Degree, Applied Physics, B.Sc. University College London, U.K.

OCT 1998 TO PRESENT Senior Director - Hosting Infrastructure and Operations
Plateau Systems Ltd., Washington DC, USA
Back in the US, Sensory Computing joined with Plateau to double in size to about 20 employees. Now we are about 350 and in this time I moved from Engineering into Services and then on to startup the fledgling hosting group to serve up our product in-house. The hosting group has now has 60 customers delivering Plateau to some 2.8 million users.

JULY 1995 TO SEPT 1998 Self-Employed
Pure Goodness Radio Company, Hong Kong
Amidst the swirls of Tropical Storm Helen I started the Pure Goodness Radio Company. Originally intended as a front for streaming lounge music on the Internet it was one of the first web design companies in Hong Kong with Volkswagen as its main customer. From a remote fishing outpost on a Lamma beach I also took to teleworking with some fellow computer geeks on a number of projects for Sensory and others, including yes another student management system and an off-the-shelf invoice management application for trading companies.

NOV 1993 TO JUNE 1995 Software Contractor
Sensory Computing Inc. and I.T.E.C, Washington DC, USA
So I broke my achilles and decided to quit the rat race and join a tiny company of 4 people called Sensory where I developed a Windows based application for the management of worker training in the Nuclear Power industry. Also contracted to develop the now defunct GEnie interface (GEnie was supposed to be GE's version of AOL) using some ambitious but now obsolete object oriented database technology. Previous to that I worked at ITEC on contract to IBM and was the principal designer of the air traffic controller's equivalent 'black box' for the new (at the time) air traffic control centre based in Portsmouth, England.

FEB 1992 TO OCT 1993 Technical Consultant
Datronics Inc., Washington DC, USA
After an initial culture shock in North Carolina I got to Washington DC and began work as the project manager on the integration of a system of local and wide area networks used to control remote air traffic control equipment. Great excuse to travel the States! The system was successfully deployed at some eighty air traffic control towers so I got to go to Oklahoma City and Kansas but didn't get to Hawaii or New Orleans. Also contracted to develop interactive products for the hard of hearing (strangely).

JAN 1989 TO DEC 1991 Senior Software Engineer
Civil Aviation Authority, Middlesex, UK
Involved in the design and development of an air traffic flow regulation system. Previously headed the technical support and maintenance of the original air traffic flow system based at London Heathrow's air traffic control centre which entailed many late nights with air traffic controllers.

DEC 1987 TO DEC 1988 Travels in Egypt and the Far East
...with some semi-fictional writing on the side.

OCT 1985 TO NOV 1987 Software Consultant
Kontron Instruments, Watford, UK and Paris, France
Designed and developed various process controlled, embedded systems for use in hospitals. These included the implementation of a machine used to analyze blood samples. Additionally developed a patient monitoring product used to alert doctors of critical patient conditions (heart attacks, etc.). Designed the hardware and software of specific QA test devices used to test factory compliance of some of the printed circuit boards used in the above products. All products were developed using Intel assembler which was fun believe it or not.

OCT 1983 TO SEPT 1985 Research Engineer
University College London, UK
Research into point beam phased array techniques for aircraft defence. Yeah I don't know what that is either. This work resulted in a bunch of papers being presented to Ericsson Radio Systems AB, Sweden but I quit before I completed the dissertation.

JUN 1983 TO SEPT 1983 Technical Assistant
CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
At the birthplace of the World Wide Web I worked on particle-physics matters when the World Wide Web was just a twinkle in some Internet guru's eye. Here I designed an interface to control a microscope used in the detection of sub-atomic particles. The microscope traced the lines of ionized drops created by sub-atomic particles in nuclear emulsions, thereby allowing particle identification. Cool!