Born in London, UK, in June 1969, and originally from the United Kingdom, I settled in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in 2007 and felt warmly welcome in what is one of the colder climes.

As the letters after my name suggest, I have a background in engineering and worked as an electronics/software engineer and a project leader for about 11 years, successfully bringing several industrial and avionics projects to fruition.

Over the years, I worked in several firms in several capacities, including oveseas work in oil exploration, which took me into the jungles of Burma.  Regarding my work in mainstream engineering, I quickly gained experience and expertise and the projects that I lead were executed on schedule and were profitable for my employer.  Most of the electronic hardware that I designed worked without modification at version 1, and my software would typically achieve stability at versions 2 or 3, which was not typical in the business of mission critical software.  Later, after becoming a freelance consultant I was hired to fix intractable bugs that survived in the ROMs of various systems.  The sophisticated black boxes that I designed and extended are still in service on Harrier, Tornado, Eurofighter Typhoon, and other aircraft.

In 2003 I put my career in engineering behind me and moved with my partner to a mountainous region of Southern Spain, where we lived off-grid on solar power.

When we arrived in Spain in the Spring of 2003, there were no existing buildings or infrastructure on our finca, just aging olive and almond orchards interspersed with pine forest, and a borehole well.  We camped outdoors while we built a large water tank in the adobe style.  As winter approached we moved into our new water tank where we lived until we had completed the construction of a cave-like domed retreat space.

Having so much first hand experience of living off-grid and a background in electronic engineering, it was a small step to become a photovolatic consultant.  In my attempts to boost the inevitably meagre output of our main energy source, I designed a sun tracking mechanism that ensured that our solar panels would always face the sun and, in my quest to remain connected, I became proficient at configuring long range WIFI networks using 'shotgun' antennas made out of carefully selected tin cans.

In 2004 we got permission to build a proper dwelling and completed the foundations of what was to become a large, modern, and elegant house that I had been conceiving all the while in my sketch pads.

The winter of 2004 was punctuated by the sad but heart-opening passing of my mother, followed by my partner leaving me.  For the next 2 years I continued the construction of the house and, for a stretch, worked with an amiable Columbian of a similiar age to me, who, after being forced to surrender his taxi at gunpoint, had left his family in Columbia in search of new opportunities in Spain.  Despite our language barriers we had a tremendous respect for each other.  I paid him well and he sent some money back home to support his wife and children.  At some point he moved to the coast and brought his family to Spain.  Both of us had arrived in the midst of a huge property bubble that nobody recognised at the time, but which would, in a few years, unravel with significant economic repercussions.

Apart from the construction work, managing the substantially wild almond and olive orchards, chopping the winter firewood, agriculture and irrigation of our new gardens, I was living well, enjoying the company of my eccentric friends, the majestic mountains, lakes, and fresh fish.  We were a varied and eclectic assortment of foreigners numbering a couple of maya shamans, a salsa teacher, raw food fanatics, yoga instructors, home schoolers, and artists.  Almost everyone was engaged in some kind of cutting edge costruction or agricultural project and we found all the expertise we needed near that one whitewashed village, which had yet to fully transition from donkeys to automobiles.

I lived on the steep, arid slopes of the Sierra Prieta mountain range for over 3 years.

I started work as a software products developer at Manascisaac Architects in February 2008, and developed the following software applications for our firm:

• an enterprise wiki,
• a content management system,
• an enterprise blog,
• a project portfolio,
• a company directory,
• an invoicing system for our subconsultants,
• and a Customer Relationship Management, newsletter, and event management system (ongoing).

All our systems share in common the objective to be fun to use, intuitively obvious, and aesthetic.