I've been developing software applications and systems for about 16 years. I spent about 13 years at Nortel Networks (it was called Northern Telecom when I was hired), working in several different areas of software development. I developed Engineering tools, switching system software and spent my final years at Nortel working on web applications.

When Nortel began downsizing in 2001, I was in the R&D organization, which was hit very hard by some deep budget cuts. I was laid off and was out of work for a while.

In 2002, I was hired by a small start-up company called Silicon Mobius. It was a great experience - the most fun job I've ever had. My role was to help with any software-related tasks, including the web site. It was a great job until the company ran out of money at the beginning of 2003.

After Silicon Mobius, I worked on a contracting assignment at Cisco. It was very interesting and challenging work. When I completed the Cisco assignment, I was back in the hunt for the perfect job. A friend working on a government contract recommended me for a position with that company and I was hired in the fall of 2003.

In my current job, I'm developing applications with Perl, MySQL and Ruby on Rails.