About Me
I’ve been blogging well before it was known as blogging. This is my home on the web and tends to revolve around technical and business intelligence material these days. There is, however, a plethora of family, cricket and travel posts over the years. At the end of the day this is all really a memory builder, but I hope you (the reader) find some value within.
I came into the world on February 5th 1979 in Melbourne, Australia. I spent my toddler years in Geelong and Sydney, moved up to Townsville, down to Brisbane and back to Townsville. I was successful at school but my adventurous ways saw me in California by 1998. There I married and had the first two of our children, Nevan (2000) and Liam (2002). I began working for Retail Anywhere (now owned by NetSuite) as an Implementation specialist; traveling the USA installing, configuring and training our SQL Server based Point-of-Sale product.
I moved to Colorado in 2002 to join Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory as a SQL Server Developer. I continued to travel but not quite so frequently. Colorado was home for five years – bought our first new car and our first home. I began snowboarding.
I re-joined Retail Anywhere in 2007 and re-located back to Sydney, Australia; offering remote and near around-the-clock development and support for the Pacific Standard Time based company. I continued to travel back to the States, particularly for the annual US Masters in Augusta, Georgia – where I spent a week and a half each year onsite as the lead SQL Server developer for the Masters Concessions business.
Our third child, Hayden (2008) was born – indeed special to have a child born in my home country.
With the crash of the US economy I was forced to start looking for employment with an Australian firm. The Australian economy is excellent and remains so to this day, not perfect but plenty of smart decisions weathering the (2007 and beyond) storm.
I joined Air Arena in 2009 as a Database Developer to work with their flagship product, the re-release of the legitimate Kazaa as a music streaming service. Unfortunately by 2012 the service was struggling to keep up (large players such as Rdio and Spotify were now dominating the market) and was forced to close. In a weird twist of fate, Rdio was created by the founders of Skype, who were the original founders of Kazaa.
I joined Solutions Outsourced in 2012 as a Database Developer – introducing a suite of Business Intelligence tools that many of the eCommerce customers use daily to manage their online business. Further to that, I introduced integration with 3rd party platforms such as MS Dynamics, RMS Point-of-Sale, Responsys and Healthways via the SSIS platform.
Our fourth child, Katherine (2013) was born – finally, a daughter after fourteen years and Australian to boot. I am completely in love with this little girl and can finally see what it is like to have a little princess.
I joined William Hill Australia (Tom Waterhouse, Sportingbet) in 2014 as a Business Intelligence Developer but quickly became the Business Intelligence Department Lead. In a highly replicated environment we provide real time intelligence to stakeholders across the brands. A highly agile environment means that we’re constantly innovating, and integrating; between various products utilized by Information Technology, Marketing, Customer Relationship and Finance. SQL Server 2012 is the platform with current projects including the roll out of a data-mart and MDX analysis. Exciting times.
I am a very passionate cricket player and fan. Whilst in the USA I played in a league where my home team was a 5-hour drive from home. Let’s not talk about the away fixtures. In Australia I quickly found a club and represent as the club webmaster as well as, at various times, junior coach, association delegate and presently on the Association Management Committee. I pour my heart and soul into all aspects of my cricket and was proud to receive the Clubman of the Year award and the District Club Administrator of the Year – both in 2010/11.
In 2015 I traveled with my sons to a total of eight ICC Cricket World Cup games around Australia. I was fortunate (and happy) to be there at the Final when Australia were crowned World Champions and then on to meet the players the following morning.