VSJ – April 2001 – Members’ News

John Ellis is standing for Council this year. Here he talks about his background and hopes for the Institution.

I am married with 4 children and have been a member of the IAP since 1992 and been involved in computing since 1977. My career began as a computer operator working on ICL and Honeywell mainframes for medium-sized computer bureaux and within a few years had progressed to programming primarily working in COBOL and RPG. I have been involved with systems ranging from Order Processing and Stock Control to Finance Systems in the retail/wholesale food industry. I spent 9 years in Local Government as an analyst/programmer and, finally, development manager. I was responsible for introducing Community Charge, Council Tax and Housing Benefit systems, plus most of the rest that goes with the territory. In later years I have been working on Insurance and Finance systems for software houses and financial institutions. Throughout my computing career I have been fortunate to be at the forefront of many new business applications, from the introduction of Barcodes in shops, introducing PCs to the business as a real tool to designing e-commerce solutions. In local government, I spent many years dragging them out of the dark ages into using desktop applications and VB to reduce costs and improve development times, opening the way for more efficient use of people and their time. While being currently employed by a financial institution, I also have business interests that include technical support, video-editing and software design companies and, of course, a Web design company. (They say the more you do, the more you can do.)

As I am primarily an application programmer I feel I am probably well in the mainstream of IAP membership. I would like to see the IAP grow in terms of its membership and would work to that aim by providing a timely information resource for members.

Don’t forget to email eo@iap.org.uk with items of news about you or your company.

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