My journey to netlogx began as a computer science major in college writing Fortran code on punch cards and writing a Pascal compiler in assembly. One year for Christmas my parents bought me one of the first IBM PC’s so I could write code in IBM Basic. It had the lightning speed of the 8088 4.77Mhz processor with 64kB of memory for the PC DOS 1.0 operating system. Yes, that is an M and a k. I still have the processor chip.
During college, I worked weekends in computer operations creating microfiche. I would go out to the computer rooms of companies, banks, etc. and pick up the magnetic tape reels and then mount them on our computer systems and process them. You know, the ones large enough to stick your arm through so you can carry 10+ on each arm. No? Well, this was in the mid-1980s. You can find them on eBay for $40 as collectibles now.
My first job out of college was in database administration for a company that scored standardized tests. It was a small company, but it was my introduction to larger systems—in this case, VAX VMS systems and the VAX Rdb/VMS database. I remember realizing I was in the right career for me when I made people’s jobs easier and the CEO happy that he could finally understand the entirety of his company’s data.
Living in the horse capital of the world, the next position was at a company that kept track of horse breeding information and then expanded to owner, trainer, and jockey information. After beginning as a Database Administrator, I transitioned to systems administration and programming. If you go to the horse track today some of the information in the racing program originated from our programs.
A colleague moved to Indianapolis to work for a shopping mall management company. She called me a short time later and said they needed my expertise and asked if I would be interested in moving to Indianapolis. I said yes and have been working in Indianapolis since.
After two years, I was recruited by another colleague to a global IT services company. Long story short, I worked there for almost 20 years. This is where I expanded my knowledge of systems, programming languages and began consulting for multiple customers. My main customers were a pharmaceutical company and the U.S. Department of Defense.
That IT services company was bought out and laid off a lot of people. Unfortunately, I was one of them. So, my full-time job became looking for a job which meant joining LinkedIn, getting resume help, and working on getting myself known.
I did a short contract with a company that did Medicare processing and on the way home on my last day, I got a call from Nick Taylor at netlogx. What timing! To be honest, I don’t know or remember where he got my information, but I’m grateful he did. Twelve fulfilling years later I appreciate all the people I’ve worked with and everything I learned. My prior employment was good, and management was always good to me, but none compared to netlogx.
Retired from IT, I am now the CEO of Bard’s Custom Fishing Rods of Indiana😊.
Written by Stephen Bard
