I was born in Liverpool, England, and educated at The Liverpool Institute High School for Boys. On leaving school, I joined the Automatic Telephone and Electric Company as an indentured technician apprentice. College education was completed during that apprenticeship, through a combination of day release and night school, at the City of Liverpool College of Technology and at Old Swan Technical College.

In 1967 amid mergers and threats of redundancies (this was before the "downsizing" euphemism), I left AT&E to join IBM United Kingdom Limited for a career that spanned 27 years.

I found "IBM = I've Been Moved" to be a truism!

My first job with IBM was as a customer engineer in the Liverpool branch. In 1969 I came to the United States, to the education center in Virginia, for training on the IBM 1800 Process Control System. This plus my background in telephony and an interest in software gave me the right credentials to be selected as a member of the UK team that would develop and install the UK version of the IBM 3750 Voice and Data Switching System. The system was developed in La Gaude, France, so that meant an overseas assignment for me and my family.

Following the assignment, I moved from the Liverpool branch to the area programming support group in Rayners Lane, about 10 miles west of London. APSG provided third level (branch, region, area) support to the English speaking countries of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. On a support trip to Helsinki in January you really do feel the cold; but I still have the certificate proving that I endured a Finnish sauna!

My first management appointment was in 1977 as a software field manager in the Chiswick branch. The territory was roughly a triangle from west London to Oxford to Southampton and included the UK Atomic Energy Authority, the IBM Hursley laboratory and numerous commercial customers. A security check by Her Majesty's Government was required before I was able to visit UKAEA site. When the software support center was opened in Birmingham, it was envisaged that a single center would support the whole country. After about a year, though, the decision was made to open a second center that would support all the customers in the London and South East Region and I moved to open that support center in Basinghall Street.

When the PC was announced in Europe I joined the European Headquarters group as the systems software manager. The responsibilities included managing European requirements, translation of the systems software products into the major European languages and acquiring systems software products for re-sale with an IBM logo. Most significant was a UK graphical networking product acquired to run on the PC/AT when it was launched. As the PC matured, more responsibility was given to the countries and the headquarters staff focused more on supporting them. My role changed to that of business development manager which included pre-announcement of OS/2 to selected software developers in Europe. Eventually, the countries assumed total responsibility and the headquarters functions were disbanded. At that time I became a program manager in another European Headquarters group. Over time, the programs developed and introduced at a European level were capable of being run by the countries and so, once again, I found myself with the opportunity for a career move.

I was asked to move to the Hursley development laboratory as the performance manager for OS/2 Presentation Manager. The development of Presentation Manager involved three sites: Hursley, UK; Boca Raton, FL; Redmond, WA; and an eight hour time difference! Eventually, the development of Presentation Manager was tranferred from Hursley to Boca Raton. I was reassigned and found myself managing five different software development functions - Performance, Usability, Functional Verification, Release Management and the Change Team - for a networking product. The product, however, was cancelled just prior to launch!

Again, a restructuring in development led to a new challenge. This time it was to integrate the performance groups into one department with responsibility for the performance of all Hursley's products. CICS and MQSeries on multiple platforms accounted for the majority of the effort with Call Path just over the horizon. After a couple of years, the department grew to 30 people - too many for one manager - and so was reorganized, presenting me with the opportunity to move on to something completely different.

The manager of the Communications and External Programmes department retired and I was appointed to succeed him. The group was responsible for providing managers and employees with all manner of information, generated within the lab or sent from corporate headquarters for onward dissemination. We produced "Developments", an in-house newspaper, twice a month and managed a series of community programmes. These included donations of PC's to schools and charities, PC education classes for adults and children with physical disabilities, public relations activities, etc.

In 1994, a further round of "downsizing" eliminated the Communications and External Programmes Manager position and I was given the opportunity to retire early and start a second career.

It was early in 1996, whilst on vacation in Florida, that I was offered the opportunity to join a new company, Level 8 Systems, Inc., as the operations support director. The company was setting-up as an IBM Business Partner and an added value reseller of IBM MQSeries. They were also developing a bridge from IBM MQSeries to Microsoft MSMQ. Over time, the emphasis shifted from IBM to Microsoft and then from Messaging to Application Integration. My role diminished to the point were I was given the opportunity to seek employment elsewhere.

I applied for, and was sucessful in obtaining, a position with Aether Systems, Inc. as engineering administrative services director, based in Boca Raton. The 2001 operating plan, however, eliminated that position and my employment was terminated.

Between 2001 and 2010 I worked for H&R Block, Inc. and retired in October 2010.

Moved to Del Webb - Orlando (an active adult comunity in Davenport, Florida) in May 2019.