Born and stayed in Kansas for first 20 years of life, started making electrical fires at age five, bought TRS80 Level 1 4K at age 15. Had article published in "Creative Computing" at age 16 about Infinite Basic. Started a mail order business selling PMC80 clones. Worked as a Compugraphic typesetter for local publisher. Worked at Topeka Computer, did lighting and electrical for rock bands performing in small venues. ("Electrical" means determining if the club had delta or wye 220/240 and sometimes clamping onto the main bus bars.)

Moved to Rhode Island and did custom databases for non-profit organizations to atone for my sins while working for the rock bands. These were small non-profits with little or no computerization. Created demographic and service tracking programs to help them report to grant-makers and meet federal requirements. Built 1000 or so PC clone computers, set up and maintained small networks, wrote a complete double entry accounting package including payroll for Rhode Island, because the packages available at that time didn't allow splitting employee time between different grants / programs. Did a training / course / instructor database for Rhode Island later also put to use for Vermont to track social worker trainings. This was all based on a DOS program called Alpha4 which used DBF file format.

Wrote a photovoltaic system simulator (PVCOMP) which included the effect of wire resistance (length, size, conductivity temperature coefficient of copper) between panel and battery. This demonstrated how using less copper (cheaper thinner connecting wire) and buying more panels with the money saved, would increase the useable power generated. This won the IEEE Terrestrial Systems & Technology award in 1991 at the international photovoltaic conference. Also had a charge controller patent which issued around that time.

When the internet became available to me, started a local community website for my town, tried to force web and database together before there were tools for it, jumped on Cold Fusion when it became available.

Started a web hosting business on Windows under the mistaken belief that its inefficiency could be overcome by using bigger faster hardware. Never owned a Mac because PCs were cheaper. Didn't have the opportunity or exposure to non-Windows OS, until we started using Postfix in the IMGate configuration to plug the security holes in our Windows mail server (Ipswitch IMail.)

When I got the idea for the Outbound Index, I knew it would have to be *nix based because it needed to be fast and efficient and high volume. I sought out *nix guys and eventually switched all mail services, DNS servers, and databases to *nix. I fell in love with postgresql and said goodbye and good riddance to Jet. When I have to go on a Windows machine now at the command line, I type ls and grep and get errors which remind me where I am.

We have a small hosting business for web and email serving several hundred domains and several thousand email accounts. Time is split between consulting for customers (web / database / Photoshopping / hand-holding / advising), hosting maintenance, and dev / maintenance of Outbound Index and related email tech.

No schooling has been mentioned because I don't have any - dropped out of high school at age 15 actually and got a GED, did work with the University of Lowell in Massachusetts on photovoltaic projects and briefly attended a stage lighting class at Topeka's Washburn University.

I have been lucky enough to attract and assemble a loose team of high quality individuals from around the world with special skills to realize the vision of the Outbound Index and contribute to it far beyond what I alone could have done. These individuals have changed me: Petru Paler, Anthony Howe, Brad Knowles, Christopher Armstrong, Derek J Balling, Alex Zammit, Karsten M Self, Pavel Pergamenshchik - from Romania, France, Belgium, Tasmania, Malta, USA and Moscow.

It's probably no accident that I have studied the work of Helen and Harville Hendrix and the Imago Peace Project on communication in the past five years. Both "Imago" communilogue and the open source community are conducive to worldwide sharing of ideas and hold the potential for me to hear and respect views of others regardless whether I agree with them.