I was born in 1955, and raised in Western Pennsylvania. I was fortunate to live on the edge of a heavily wooded forest, and grew up running the deer trails, hunting crawdads in the streams, and building forts and tree houses in the local woods.
I also grew up around computers
and the graphic arts. My father worked for IBM, and my mother
was an art teacher. You might say that I have followed in both
my parents footsteps with parallel careers in both computers
and the graphic arts.
After graduating High School I attended Art School in Northern Colorado, majoring in fine art printmaking, with a minor in Graphic Design. As part of the work study program I apprenticed with the university sign painter. He was a former Times Square billboard painter soon to retire, and taught me the art of fine hand lettering and sign making.
Following graduation, I took my sign brushes on the road painting billboards, lettering windows, trucks and boats throughout the Western U.S for three years. When I finally made it to the Pacific NW, I knew right away that I had found my home.
Settling in the Seattle area,
I worked for several commercial sign and display companies, and
finally found my niche at a progressive sign and display company
called TradeMarx. It was here that I was introduced to computer
assisted design, and got to work with a number of up-and-coming
tech companies such as: Microsoft, Aldus, Adobe and Boeing.
When the first Macintosh computers appeared in the late 1980's, I was eager to get my hands on one. I paid over $2,000 for a Mac SE and totally immersed myself in this new and exciting medium. From the very beginning I was captivated by Macintosh computers and what they could do.
Within a few years I had learned enough to retire from the sign and display industry, and devote myself entirely to desktop publishing. During this period I also began maintaining and repairing Macs for myself and other designers, discoving to my surprise that I was a true computer geek. I was soon repairing Macs, maintaining a bank of rental computers, and tutoring Mac customers in their use - something that I continue to do to the present day.
In 1989 I left Seattle and moved to the San Juan Islands. In 1992 I founded the San Juan Islands Mac-Maniacs, an Apple User Group, which I ran until 1997. We published a newsletter and held monthly meetings with up to thirty members.
As Apple Ambassador in the San Juan Islands, I became the Mac community liaison and "Johnny Appleseed." I was dedicated to spreading the Gospel according to (Steve) Jobs, and was responsible for planting many of the Apple seeds tht have now flourished in the islands. This is one of the reasons that there are so many Macintosh users here. The other reasons are that the San Juans are very affluent, and high tech. This is a very affluent and creative community, and creative people do like their Macs.
For almost eighteen years I have owned and operated MacMan Computer Services in Friday Harbor, configuring, upgrading and repairing Macinsoth computers. In addition, I built wired and wireless networks, DSL setups, and offered a variety of other technical services. I have also taught and tutored a lot of Mac users, and have done a boatload of software troubleshooting.
I love living here in the San Juan Islands, and working within the vibrant Macintosh community. There is an abundance of interesting clients, unique opportunities and fascinating projects here. This may be a somewhat remote island community, we are by no means cut off from the rest of the world.
The San Juan Islands are fortunate to have a number of broadband options available here. We have Times/Warner Cable (and broadband), Rock Island DSL, CenturyTel DSL, CearWire Broadband, and a lot of WiFi Hotspots in town. There are also fiber optics burried all over Friday Harbor, most of which are not being used yet.
Now that wireless broadband has arrived, it is inevitable that the islands will continue to become a magnet for emerging high tech and creative enterprises.
