Personal
Well, the story starts in Peterborough, Ontario. I grew up there, went to
St. Peters' High School, played all-star hockey and even worked at Canadian Tire
for a while. Is this interesting, really?
Education
I trained to become a Real Estate Appraiser (not real estate agent) through
the Appraisal Institute of Canada and worked in this field for nearly 10 years.
I achieved my CRA designation and only required completion of a final interview
to obtain my AACI designation. Having reached that level, I decided to formally
pursue a career in Information Technology.
Ever since high school my affinity for computer technology had been growing and
I tried new things on my own and learned alot along the way, always wondering how
I could use the latest gadgets or technology to improve productivity in the appraisal
office. In the last few years of that career, however, I began to notice that
I was spending more time with technology and was enjoying it more than the appraisal
work.
I decided to pursue a different career, Computer Programming. To facilitate
this change and minimize my time committment, I chose to attend the Institute for
Computer Studies to round off my self acquired computer knowledge and launch my
new career in the IT industry. I graduated in May 2001 and was immediately
offered a job at KiSP Inc.
Since then, I spent a few years working as a software developer, building distributed
web applications. I moved on from KiSP to work for ThinData for several years,
where I gained alot of experience in both development and management. I had the
opportunity to grow in my position and eventually became the Director of Application
Development.
Following ThinData, I moved back to my hometown of Peterborough and started working
for Operitel Corporation as a Solution Architect. I am currently involved with the
team who is rebuilding the LearnFlex LMS using the latest and greatest Microsoft
technology under the codename "Apollo".
I love learning new things in the pursuit of meeting new challenges and
enjoy living and working in my home town.
Just For Fun
If you've already looked at the image galleries, you know that I enjoy being
active. Inline skating is an awesome way to spend an afternoon. I've
played hockey all my life, but I only began inline skating in 2000 when I hooked
up with the Thunder Bay Inline Skating Club. They introduced me to skating
marathons, and since then, I've completed three inline marathons (42 km), one in
Winnipeg, MB and two in Duluth, Minnesota.
When the season is not right for inline skating, I enjoy playing hockey and trying
to keep fit with other activities. Since moving back to Peterborough, I've joined
Gold's Gym and I get out to play pickup hockey when I can.
The computer nerd in me is never far away either, and I enjoy spending some
spare time with a wide variety of things, some of which include computer games,
small software projects, teaching myself new things and doing a lot of reading to
keep myself up to date with the latest in the field of Information Technology.
I have taken a few canoe trips into Algonquin Park. I wrote a trip log
for each one. You can read about them
here.