September 11, 2005

.. has more than the obvious meaning for me. In addition to being the fourth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States, today also marks the 20th anniversary my consulting career's start in Southern California.

I started V-Systems with school buddy David Droman on September 11, 1985, originally to do the same kind of consulting I do now; software development and system administration (though we also did hardware sales, something I don't do as a consultant). In the late 1980s David stumbled upon computer facsimile, and the VSI-FAX system was born. This was one of the first, and still the most popular, commercial UNIX fax system.

I really preferred the variety of consulting, so with David's blessing left the company to take care of our original customers. I nevertheless did a fair amount of fax software development — all the modem drivers, and most of the port to Windows NT — and our informal partnership continued until V-Systems was sold to Esker Software a few years ago.

But throughout all this, I kept with my consulting customers. I've gotten to work in many different industries and with many different technologies, and this has really contributed to what I hope is a decent depth and breadth of experience.

Our first customer was MG Bookkeeping Services, which did accounting for ARCO am/pm Mini Marts on AT&T 3B2 computers, but they've long since changed their focus to payroll under the name Telepayroll. We've had some rough times over the years — the ARCO contract evaporating was particularly memorable — but it remains a delightful relationship to this day.

I still have several other customers from the eighties and early nineties, but nothing gives me as much pride as the endorsement of consulting to one customer for twenty years.

Michael, Martin: it's been an honor.