John began his technology career working summers as the night houseman at a fancy country club in New Hampshire. The moonlighting minister (now there's a story in and of itself!) who was responsible for posting the daily member receipts into the Top-of-the-line IBM 51XXX taught John how to do the task so that he, the minister, could find a quiet corner and catch some shut eye.
Once out of college, John (pictured above during a scruffy period a couple of years ago) moved to Crested Butte, CO to enjoy the live of a ski bum. At the same time, he worked the graveyard shift as a Night Auditor; thus allowing him 160 days of skiing per ski season. Upon taking a day job at the same property, John became the defacto Front Desk Manager responsible for training new seasonal employees on the newly installed computerized reservation system.
Upon resturning to the east coast and with an eye towards getting serious in Life, John took on a job at the Ritz-Carlton in Boston. The hotel had just been purchased by a southerner (Heaven forbid!) who owned a string of Waffle Houses (Gasp!). One of the major projects involved in the renovation of the old dear was to completely computerize the various departments. John was instrumental in computerizing the Front Desk as well as the Reservations Office.
After five years of serving with a smile ('We are Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and Gentlemen' - the Ritz credo), John accepted a job as Training & Installation Consultant with Newmarket Software Systems located in Portsmouth, NH. He was employee number 12. His wife, Debbie, was employee number 13. For two years, John travelled North America installing networks and software in the Sales & Marketing offices at some of America's most beautiful and most famous hotels.
Retiring from the road, John moved to the Customer Support Office where he assisted in the day to day technical needs of employees on the road as well as supporting the ever growing client base. By year five in Support, he was the Assistant Director of Customer Support. He had also developed a training program whereby hotel employees could go to NSS for in-depth training on Delphi (the proprietary Sales software) as well as training on Novell networks, Crystal Reports, Monarch Report Writer as well as the usual Microsoft Office products. This eventually evolved into an in-house, full blown "university" with over 20 different classes offered to the customer base.
As the company continued to grow, it was determined that a full time Employee Training Dept needed to be developed. John was tapped to become the head of this department. By the end of his time with Newmarket Software, the department had a staff of 5, and was conducting training sessions with over 40 new employees per quarter. By the time he left in 1997 to buy an inn in West Dover, Vt, the company had grown to over 350 employees.
At the inn in West Dover, VT (near the Mount Snow Ski Resort), John received training on how to design, write, optimize and manage websites. Even today, John is continuously refining his techniques and learning new aspects of this wonderfully creative process. To do otherwise, would just be plain old boring!
In addition to his web design work, John contracts his network and pc skills out to various individuals and businesses in the valley including the West Dover Fire Dept and various real estate offices.
When not working the inn, designing sites or troubleshooting networks and pc's, he can usually be found involved with his three boys in one capacity or another - either coaching a soccer team or a t-ball team, or chasing after them down the slopes of Mt Snow in the Winter. Community involvement has, again, focused on the youth of the valley with having been a School Board member for a number of years as well as sitting on the local Youth Services Board.
