About

I am a developer for CRM Software, a company that I was pushed into.  I joined the US Navy in 1978 and was a “Data Systems Technician” (DS1) .  Data System Technicians were a pretty unique group as they were the first group of people to be trained specifically to work on computers.  Until then, computers were not really a specialty, but rather something that other ratings were trained to work on.  The Navy saw that computers were going to change the world, and becuase of a system called NTDS, (Naval Tactical Data System) they needed people who were trained in maintaining and repairing these new computers.

I was one of the rare DS’s, as I actually started out as a regular sailor and I read an article somewhere that computers were going to change the world.  Remember at this time, the only computer that a regular person could purchase was a Timex Sinclair, and I had already bought one.  I was stationed on the uss long beach, and I went to the computer shop and talked with the Chief in charge, asking him if I could become a DS.  I was told that you could not, becuase you had to go to school first and that only people who were signed up for that school before joining the Navy could get into that Rating.  I persisted in asking and befriending the people in that show, and after about 3 months, they decided to let me “Strike” for the rating, probably the first person to every become a DS thru on the job training.  After a while they send me to  2 years of school, from Basic Electricity and Electronics to advances computer systems.  After school I went back to a ship and became very good and maintaining these state of the art computer systems.  I actually got the nickname “Supertech” from the guys in my shop.  To this day, I don’t know if they called me that becuase I was so good, or because I thought I was so good and they were being sarcasitc.  Either way, I actually was pretty good and I also had a passion for these computer systems.

During my 8 years in the Navy, not only did I work with these computer systems on the ship, but I also dabbled in various PC computers, the Kaypro, Commodores, Osbornes and Tandy computers, learning how to program and use these newfangled systems.  As they progressed in capabilities and hardware capacities, I progressed in my learning how to use them.  Due to an unfortunate accident at sea, about a year before getting out of the Navy, I injured my back pretty severely during a time when our ship was trying to get out of the way of a hurricane.  I think it was hurricane Gloria.  I was transferred to Portsmouth Naval Hospital for a limited duty tour.  They wanted to see if my back would heal up, as I could no longer be on a ship because of the physical requirements in getting around.   When I arrived for my limited duty tour I was promptly assigned to a job with the lab.  Every day I was to pick up urine and blood samples from the wards, and give them to the lab.  Knowing that I had great computer and electronic repair skills, I went to the bio-medical shop and spoke to the Chief in charge, telling him of my skills and asking if I would work with them.  He reluctantly agreed to let me work there, and in a very short time, I was able to fix equipment that the bio med techs could not fix.  It was really not their fault as they only had electrical training and I had lots of training and experience in fixing electronic stuff.   Before long, they decided to send me to a seminar to learn how to work on X-ray systems.  I began to work on the X-ray stuff and became pretty good at it.  While this was happening, my back was not really getting any better, so I wound up having surgery and after a month or two, my back, while still hurting was much better and I had some mobility back and could function normally, but with some pain.

As fate would have it, I decided to get out of the Navy and I wound up talking ot a company that was looking for people to repair Cat Scanners.  The requirements were pretty tough and hard to find.  What they really needed were people who understood X-ray and computers, and up until this technology was founded, there really where no people who had worked on both, but I had.  I got out of the Navy and began working for Mediq, a company that repaired Cat Scanners for private companies and hospitals.  This job was unique in that you carried a pager and worked out of your home, additionally, since you had to respond to emergence calls within 2 hours (ON SITE) you really could not be working all the time.  You were basically paid to sit around and wait for something to break.  This left a lot of spare time for a hobby.  My hobby was computers so I began to install and configure networks and software for a variety of businesses.  I still dabbled in programming but with the tools you could not really develop a commercial application without a team of people.

Enter Visual basic and windows.

In the early 1990′s Microsoft introduced Visual Basic, Windows and Microsoft Access.  I became very involved with them on CompuServe and with the help of Microsoft engineers, I learned those software programs and began developing software programs for a variety of industries.  In the course of a few years, I developed over 200 applications.  One  of them was a software program that we called “BAM” standing for Basically a Monkey because we thought it was so easy to use.  Somehow due mostly to the efforts of Greg Friedman  of Friedman Associates, financial advisers began to purchase the program.  In 2000 we formed a company CRM software and partnered with Charles Schwab.  They agreed to market, sell and support the software, and we would continue development.  After about 2 years, we both, in a very amicable way, decided to take different directions and we altered our relationship.  We licensed our software to them, they changed the name to Portfolio Center Relationship Manager and we kept the name Junxure.  We both developed on different tracks, with them selling their version to advisers who kept assets at Schwab and us marketing to anyone who wanted to purchase the software.  After a while and seeing that it did not make a lot of sense to have basically the same program but two places to purchase the software, we worked out a new relationship with them were we took over all of the Relationship Manager customers and converted them over to Junxure.  This was the best move for the customers and it was a fairly smooth transition.  The customers wound up with a system that had many more enhancements and we wound up with a bigger market share.  Schwab wound up giving their clients the best version of the software and there were now able to direct more development efforts into their flagship product PortfolioCenter.  It truly was a Win Win Win relationship.   Today we have over 1300 offices and about 8000 users the program has had a name change, it is now called Junxure.  Around  2003 I left my job at Hitachi and devoted myself to working full time on Junxure.  The program has evolved into something much more capable that I had ever dreamed of, becoming a leader in the niche marked of Financial Advisers.

I still have the same passion for programming and working with computers that I had back in 1978 and I have a hard time choosing between my 2 passions, programming and fishing.  Living in south florida, we fish the waters between Stuart Florida and the florida keys, and go a far east as the Abacos in the Bahamas, but I still get a comparable thrill, by spending a day programming instead of fishing, although I do enjoy fishing also.