1989-1995

Worked for The University of British Columbia in the Food Services (now called UBC Food Group) Department.

Hired initially as a Systems Coordinator, I was promoted to Systems Analyst after two years and then to Manager, and Technical Systems two years later.

PROJECTS:

ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE ($4M/yr) - Wrote the 110 page specification, used the system for a year, trained my replacement, refined, re-specified, automated and optimized it up to the present day. Total receivable losses over the 5 years I operated/supervised the system: less than $1,000.

ACCOUNTS PAYABLE ($5M/yr) - In conjunction with the Manager, Finance, specified the accounting software, supervised customizations, used the system, supported the users, refined and re-specified it up to the present day.

CUSTOM - Catering Management System - Working with other team members, specified the system, optimized and integrated it with our other systems.

CUSTOM - Food Ordering System - Saw the need for replacing an existing system, specified, supervised the design of, trouble-shooted, trained, integrated and optimized this system. The old system failed the week after this new system went on-line!

CUSTOM - PAYROLL - In conjunction with other team members, and with increasing involvement after a team member left the organization, worked to make this cross-Department application an easy-to-use yet practical and highly-automated "final" product.

CUSTOM - Event-driven Menu/MAIL system - Designed, coded and refined this ultra practical and comprehensive software system, integrated across the Department/WAN, comprising dozens of components and considerations.

CUSTOM - Auto-Backup, Anti-Virus, Update systems - Designed these labor/cost-savers that rely on the Event-driven Menu/Mail system mentioned above.

POS - CBORD Electronic Meal Card Access System - What I was originally hired to operate. Improved system on my own, reducing the amount of time required to operate it, eventually reducing it to about 25% of my job duties.

INTERNET - Connected the department, maintained accounts, integrated it with our other systems and "got wired" myself. To date I have read about 200,000 messages via the Internet.

INTERNET - Edited and maintained, for the past 9 months and in my spare time, the (currently 32,000 word) Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) file for the NOVELL Internet mailing list.

1987 - 1989

Worked as an Office Temporary with Temporarily Yours and The Personnel Department.

Worked with fifteen different word processors, three database programs, Lotus 1-2-3 and a variety of other office equipment.

Retained for several months at the Head Office of Columbia Computing performing Quality Assurance/Software Testing of their new The School System and The Elementary School System products.

Worked several months each for Revenue Canada, Audit Division and Guaranty Trust using Xerox Memorywriter typewriters.

1986-1987

Worked as a sales representative for a top-quality paint manufacturer for 15 months.

Worked as Advertising Sales Manager for an international maritime magazine for 3 months.

Worked as a Business Consultant to Good Neighbor Hardware Ltd., managing all aspects of a hardware store during the owner's absence including purchasing, maintenance, and retailing.

1985 - present

Started my own information and consulting business.

Conceived, developed and marketed a software product demo.

Contracted by First Image Production Ltd. to create a controlled 4 projector slide show for B.C. Transit's then new Skytrain.

Helped establish and promote Coast Computers, a local retail store (now called Coastway), marketing their products and services at four shows.

Maintained, expanded and promoted a Bulletin Board that I had conceived and implemented in 1984 for a local charitable organization. Bulletin Board programs are among the most complex to create as they completely control all input to the (for security purposes) and yet allow a range of access for users depending on their security level.

Over the years I have assisted numerous small business and home users in setup, customization and expansion, as well as software and hardware trouble-shooting and optimization. I am very proud to have been able to assist others and have found this activity to be very satisfying.

1983-1984

- Gained over 1,000 hours experience on the U.B.C. mainframe including the following projects in my thesis year:

- Created a steady state simulation of a coal processing plant, written in 1000 lines of Fortran code, and submitted as an 800 page Bachelor's Thesis.

- Led a student group in the use of a sophisticated modeling program to create a working design of a $500M chlorine/alkali manufacturing plant in the Group Design Project.

1978-1981

Worked full-time employment with Canadian Pacific Railway, Signals Division.

- Promoted to Assistant Signal Maintainer and then to Signal Maintainer, the highest union position available.

1976-1978

Worked summers with B.C. Tel, installing and maintaining electronic equipment.