User:FXF~enwiki

Occupation

I am the owner of Expert Systems Development Corp, an IT consulting firm. Since 1986 I have moved along with the burgeoning IT industry, first doing spreadsheet and implementation work, then database development, network installation, systems integration (mostly MAS 90 and NT/Exchange) and finally product and process development management, successively in Manhattan, Stamford and Vermont. In 2005 I began an engagement which later morphed into being the acting CIO/CTO of a small ($35m) regional property and casualty insurance company. In 2010 I returned to my consulting firm, having helped Narragansett Bay Insurance grow to a $75 million dollar firm with excellent financial backing.

Prior to 1986, I worked in the publishing field, lastly as the managing editor of a major trade house. During this time I got my first PC, a DEC Rainbow, and a copy of Lotus 123, and was off and running. The fun of interacting with various celebrities and getting lots of psychic reward but low pay in the publishing field petered out as I turned 30 and decided to take a stab at making a living working with IT. I had, after all, gotten into publishing out of college as a result of being one of the founders of a bookstore which served the baby-boomer driven alternative community. Our bookstore was the original publisher of one of the bestselling vegetarian cookbooks of the late 70s, and when I placed it with a mainstream publisher it opened doors for me in NY. However, my undergraduate degree from Cornell University's ILR college was essentially a major in organizational behavior and a minor in economics, a combination which greatly informed my IT work.

Interests

My wife and I enjoy travel and especially like living for a week at a time in the central downtown area of major cities (believe me that's a break when you live in rural Vermont). Although childless, we both have large extended families with who we are in close contact and who visit our paradisaical Vermont home regularly.

I enjoy reading the NY Times everyday, as I have since I started 6th grade, so it should be no surprise that my politics are somewhat left of center. In fact, I have served at the highest levels of the state party for the Democrats, and have a history of activism tracing back to the early 70s, when I was elected 3rd alternate to the 72 convention out of my congressional district in NY at the age of 18.

An inveterate reader (but you knew that....bookstore...publishing...) I find myself reading non-fiction almost exclusively these days. Like many of you, I devoured everything by Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, Simak, Heinlein, and the sainted Harlan Ellison between 11 and 15.

During my first wife's ultimately failed battle with lymphoma, we took up golf. That became a solace and new focus for me in my mid 30s and these days I am a 10 handicapper and golf course architecture aficionado. I am blessed to live an play golf in Quechee, Vermont, which is home to what amounts to a golf commune and which boasts two endlessly interesting courses by Geoffrey Cornish, which most consider among his finest work at the very height of his powers. As for other sports, I came very late to football but have always been a passionate NY Yankees fan. My interest in the game of baseball was well know to my peers in the publishing world and when Rotisserie League Baseball was in its infancy I was part of bringing it to the wider world.