My Journey
They say time flies when you’re having fun, which may explain why thirty years in the IT industry has gone by so fast. I wasn’t necessarily aiming for a career in IT; so much that we take for granted today didn’t even exist 30 years ago! I just kind of…fell into it. I got a job that involved using a PC way back in the late 80’s (a 286 with very little RAM, for you other old folks!); I was curious, so I read up on these things, and next thing you know…I was hooked.
I found that I had a knack for software, almost intuitively gasping how it worked. In 1990, I took on my first IT job for a computer reseller in Montreal, but what he needed was a network engineer. I knew nothing about networks: Ethernet, Token Ring, IPX/SPX, TCP/IP, NetWare…all of these were foreign to me. But I dug in, studied, and obtained my CNE (Certified NetWare Engineer) pretty quickly. Turns out I was good with network operating systems as well, and soon customers started asking for me.
A few years later I ended up going it alone as a consultant. So here was another new adventure: I had never expected to be in business for myself. But opportunities ramped up, and soon I was very busy. I partnered up with another CNE, and we started growing. Like many partnerships, after a few years we had differences in our visions, and we parted ways; I bought him out a kept growing the team.
Like many businesses, there were ups and downs. Since I didn’t have any formal business training, I had to learn along the way. I had some great mentors and coaches, but in 2016 I hit a “down” that I couldn’t recover from and closed the company.
I worked for a few years for one of my mentors, someone I’d already known for about 25+ years. There, I learned a lot more about running a business; more than once, I slapped my forehead and thought, “Wish I would’ve known that earlier!” However, I’m a firm believer that there is no such thing as failure; you simply learn how not to do things!
After a short stint in Ireland in the first half of 2020, I came back to Canada, hoping to find a role with an IT service provider, but two things happened: 1) I didn’t get the role I was expecting, and 2) opportunities started presenting themselves to me. So here I am again: working as a consultant and loving it!
The intent was to focus on cybersecurity audits for small- to medium-sized businesses, but referrals from my old friend and mentor, and others, have got me working not just on cybersecurity projects, but all sorts of things involving business administration, sales & marketing, product management, and the other myriad hats involved with business.
It would appear that throughout my journey, I learned important lessons about entrepreneurship: on how to do things, how not to do other things, and that all this accumulated knowledge and wisdom has value enough for people to engage my services.
And there’s nothing I love better than helping other entrepreneurs! With age also comes another trait: honesty – at this stage of my career, I am having no problems being absolutely forthright with customers. As it turns out, most prefer paying me to hear honest opinions rather than what I think they want to hear (or, as I often confirm before discussing something with them, “Do you want me to be honest or polite?”).
