July 18, 1997
St. Petersburg, Russia

To whom it may concern,

I have known Vadim Mikhailov since the time he was hired by The St. Petersburg Press in June 1995 as the senior designer. At that time I was the Editor of the paper.

At that time Vadim's primary duties were concerned with the design and layout of the newspaper - a weekly English language paper of 24 or 32 tabloid-style pages an issue that we laid out using Pagemaker on IBM PCs.

However the fact that we were a very small operation meant that Vadim performed many of the duties one would normally associate with a systems manager or computer maintenance technician.

In April of 1996, the Press was bought out by Independent Media and transformed into a twice-weekly newspaper, changing also a number of things about the format of the paper. A further change was that the editorial section changed to Macintosh computers (using Quark for page layout) while the rest of the company stayed on IBMs.

Vadim was still senior designer at that time, but the large increase in computers that occurred meant that the company also needed to create a separate position for systems manager.

Vadim applied for the job and has worked for as systems designer for the past 12 months or so. During that time I have been exceedingly impressed with the rapidity with which Vadim has learnt to handle an ever-widening array of hardware and software. It is no exaggeration to say that he grew as his role grew, as the company grew.

For the entire time that he has worked for this company I have been impressed with Vadim's dedication, adaptability and responsibility. I nave also always found it a pleasure to work with him at all times.

I am very sorry for us that he is leaving for a new home, while being happy that such an affable and energetic young man has got what he desired and deserved.

I have no hesitation recommending him to any prospective employer.

Yours Sincerely,

Garfield Reynolds,
Managing Editor,
The St. Petersburg Times