1995-1999
System Administrator
Nantucket.net

In 1994 I lived on Nantucket Island and ran a small Bulletin Board System (BBS) in my spare time. This was before the Internet became widely available. I was very interested in a career working with computers and the Internet. On a pretense I called a local newspaper publisher who was also a BBS SysOp. He was rumored to be interested in starting an ISP. I connived a meeting and after I sat with Jerry Daub for a few minutes he offered me a job, which I eagerly accepted.

The idea of connecting people to the Internet was a new business concept. Jerry's vision was to have a public access Internet Café' that catered to the tourist trade and an ISP that offered dial-up service to entire island. I was responsible for almost all the technical issues and many other aspects of getting the business started. We had the logistical handicap of being on an island 30 miles off the coast, which presented some very real challenges.

I vividly remember getting the last piece configured and having Netscape successfully connect to Yahoo. It was a very big deal at the time. We started offering dial-up service to the island shortly thereafter but the Internet was very new and not well understood. We had to actually explain it's value and a fair percentage of potential customers were not convinced. I eventually realized that the big hook was e-mail. We enjoyed a flood of new accounts by stressing unlimited e-mail and the prestige of having a nantucket.net e-mail address.

One of the best aspects of working at Nantucket.net was having a front-row seat as the Internet exploded. We were very innovative for a small ISP and did projects that turned out to be way ahead of their time. We were one of the very first public CU-SeeMe video-conferencing sites. I thought the original Trojan Coffee Cam was great and I built several similar Internet Cam systems to help promote our web site. The Cobblestone Cam & Harbor Cam were big hits and still draw traffic from around the world.

I got my real start in IT at Nantucket.net. I ran Linux on production machines in 1995 and gained a solid understanding of routing, network management and so much else. The most enduring knowledge was learning Unix, the Unix tookit and the daemons and protocols. Every computer jock pays his dues and I was lucky enough to pay mine on a beautiful island under interesting circumstances. The culture and isolation of Nantucket taught me an incredible sense of self-reliance and scrappiness. What we lacked in resources we more than made up for in real-world, creative solutions.

1999-2005
President & IT Director
Certified Parts Warehouse

In early 1999 I joined Certified Parts Warehouse as the IT Director. I spent my first few months on Y2K compliance migrations and learning the business. The lease on our building was soon to expire and after a bad re-negotiation we decided to move out. Through serendipity, I found an ideal building just down the street and was assigned the project of moving the entire company. The move went quite well and I started to take on additional managerial responsibilities. The company went through a long period of small but steady improvements that really started to add up. I pushed for difficult staff changes that paid off and the pace accelerated.

After a year or so, I was offered the role as President of the company. It was a huge vote of confidence and a tremendous responsibility. I mulled it over for a day before deciding to take the promotion and the responsibility that went with it. My major accomplishments over the next few years were to greatly legitimize the business, build a management team and shift the corporate goals from immediate profits towards long-term, sustainable business. During this period we grew the revenue roughly 15% per annum while simultaneously improving our portfolio of corporate customers and refining our in-house culture.

By 2004 the business had matured nicely and punched through the milestone of 10M in annual sales. I acted on my long-term goal of moving west. More than anything, I was looking to get away from the brutal New England winters. I moved to Boise, Idaho and took on the role as IT project manager. The lack of daily distraction allowed me to complete large, complicated projects including a major EDI conversion, a B2B product listing robot and a web-based customer management application for advance-exchange product fulfillment. In 2005 I left the company entirely.

Presiding over Certified Parts greatly improved my business management and entrepreneurial skills. I grew into my management style and learned how to maintain an open door policy without getting swamped by the mundane. I also learned how to directly and fairly confront problems and earned great respect from staff with my straightforward manner.


2006 & 2007
CIO
FloralSource International

In late 2005 I joined a start-up floral wire-service called FloralSource International. I was the company's first CIO/IT Director and my initial objective was to build an IT department out of a chaotic stew of existing outside contractors and consultants. Second to that was the goal of stabilizing the entire system to ensure reliable 7/24 availability. All this while the company was going through a period of rapid expansion. Once things settled down I focused on software development and oversaw a long series of system & procedural improvements. FloralSource is a fast paced E-commerce company that conducts a steady steam of live financial transactions. The IT challenges the business faced were right up my alley!

I managed a team of programmers, DBA's and network engineers from around the globe and had people in India, Scotland, Canada, Florida, Colorado, Oregon, California, etc. In a role like that, the technical details could be extraordinarily complex and yet still the easiest part of my workload. The biggest challenges were usually in managing the internal politics and constantly changing priorities of a growing multi-office start-up. FloralSource is a progressive company and I telecommuted almost exclusively. This was an important lifestyle benefit for me. I was able to maintain my high-tech career while living in the storybook town of Ashland Oregon, the best of both worlds.

2008
I took the entire year off as a sabbatical. It was a great chance to charge my batteries and re-balance my life's priorities.

2009 Onward
I booked January on a IT consulting contract with a local manufacturing start-up.
I currently work with RadioStar Studios as their exclusive booking agent. Working in the music business has been a tremendous change of direction for me but also the opportunity of a lifetime!