I’m Dave Woodbury.
TLDR; One-time co-founder of infrastructure management software company Riva Modeling. Now an independent freelancer, consultant, cook, reader, Calgarian, family lover, and player of games.
In a display of true indecision, I majored in (in order) economics, chemistry, and computer science over 4 years. Finishing none of these endeavors, I found myself employed in the retail sector in the early 80’s. After managing various retail stores, I decided to actually get some sort of certification. I then took a legal assistant course, graduating at the top of my class. I also bought my first computer, an Atari 130XE, complete with a whopping 128kb of RAM, a 300 baud modem, and a tape drive.
I immediately found employment as a marketing manager for a cleaning supply organization based in Calgary. It was here I first learned Pagemaker, Corel Draw, and Microsoft Word (all on Windows 1 to Windows 3.1). I spent the first four years there building writing and producing monthly newsletters in Pagemaker. I also decided in 1988 that my organization needed to have a web presence so learned HTML and Paradox. In 1991 I rolled out a full inventory system, written in Paradox. During this time I also took on the role of human resources manager, seeing as I had so much spare time.
In the mid-nineties, I had reached the glass ceiling in the family-run organization and had no possibility of rising further. My brother in Toronto asked me if I would like to join his software development firm as a technical writer and customer support guy. The pay was more than I was making as a middle management flack, so I started writing part-time from my living room. After a year or so, I realized I could double my income if I went full-time. My brother insisted I join him, so on the condition that “I would not program code” I accepted.
What followed was 20 years of commuting from Calgary to Toronto. Loki Innovations was the name of the development company, and it consisted of five engineers and one jack of all trades (me). We built software for banks, grocery chains, movie theater chains, City governments and private organizations. Our primary tools were Powerbuilder and Microsoft.Net. I wrote all the help files, manuals, and promotional materials, so I had to set up working environments on my laptop to run them all.
In this way, I taught myself Java, C#, HTML, JavaScript, Powerbuilder, SQL, XML… well, you get the idea. By the turn of the century, I knew a lot of code and was building user interfaces, databases, and whole solutions. That’s when our little firm (5 people) came up with the idea for Riva Modeling – an asset modeling application that would determine the optimum lifecycle of physical assets, and build a real plan for maintaining them. We thought we’d have the whole thing built, and the company sold, within a couple of years. What actually happened was a 15-year overnight success story. We culminated in selling the company in 2016, and I hung up my executive hat.
Now I am an independent, self-directed data hound. I love news sites, and absorb it whenever and wherever I can get it. I buy new gear as soon as I can get my hands on it. My wife has long since given up on attempting to get me to hold onto a laptop for longer than 6 months. I spend my days reading, writing and coming to grips with a life where I find myself with enough time on my hands to think about giving back.
Thus the blog idea, where I can share thoughts, ideas, and stories that may be of benefit to others. It covers a variety of topics, and while not about one single thing, I hope it is interesting.