Melb PC Personality Profile

As Production Editor of PC Update Gary is one of the volunteers who contributes innumerable hours every month to maintaining and improving our award winning magazine. He was an Associate Editor for about 18 months mostly raising the profile of the SIGs, prior to taking on the production role a year ago.

Gary has tackled the problem of making PC Update more colourful and to attract a higher volume of advertising to assist that process. He designs many of the advertisements, works closely with our advertising representative Ron Freedman, shares the editing tasks with Peter Smith and Ash Nallawalla, writes the occasional article and compiles the SIG section.

Each month during some extremely long phone calls Gary works together with Peter Smith in laying out the magazine, placing advertisments, deciding which pages will be colour and so forth.

The production task also includes coordinating and expediting the advertising, doing typesetting and colour separations, gathering the print files from work done by Peter, Ash and himself and making sure these are turned into film on time. He collects the film from the Imagesetter, compiles and documents the entire magazine, including advertisements, and delivers it to the printer. He liaises with the printer until PC Update is at the Swale's for delivery. Over the two-week production period, Gary feels he goes through all the processes of "giving birth", yet each month it starts all over again.

The oldest of three boys, Gary was born and raised in Bendigo from fifth-generation Australians who migrated from Scotland in 1852. From Marist Brothers College in Bendigo, he left school as a 17-y-o to take a position as trainee engineman with Victorian Railways. However, this lasted a short time - Gary wanted to draw and be creative. So he came to Melbourne, went back to school and joined Bechtel Pacific Corp. That launched him into a long association with the Mining and Petrochemical industry as a piping designer.

When computers began taking over engineering in the mid-70s, Gary became interested and attended a 12 month general computing course at Melbourne Uni. From that day on he programmed everything he could get his hands on.

"Being driven by a Challenge" as his life's main motivation, he went out on his own in the early 80s, setting up a troubleshooting operation combined with expediting, inspection and quality control in the Mining and Petrochemical industry .

Margaret and Gary have been married since 1968. She was born in Ballarat and they met when they were 16. Working part-time for a Community Health Centre as a Financial Counsellor, Margaret is also a project worker for a major Housing Development Project. Always active, she has a huge amount of patience and enjoys handicrafts when she has time away from her work and being a mother to their three daughters: Sharon (25) is in Marketing, Carolyn (24) is studying Arts/Business at Monash Uni. (majoring in Marketing and Psychology) and Nicole (22) is studying Psychology at the Australian Catholic Uni. in Chadstone. They moved to Endeavour Hills in 1977.

By nature a very positive person, Gary likes to achieve mainly for personal satisfaction. From writing computer programs for his own operation in the early 80s, he developed his business consulting, designing software and writing programs for others. Despite being a "very private person", he found he was quite comfortable running training lectures on petrochemical piping design at Melbourne Uni., where he designed and ran a course in the early 80s. Nowadays, however, he does not seek exposure and prefers to take life more easily and quietly. The exposure he prefers is a photographic one (his hobby prior to computers) which he still enjoys occasionally and which comes to the fore at Waffle SIGs!

Running his office from the basement of his house, Gary has desks, paper, books and computers everywhere! Windows and doors stay open, no matter what the weather or time of day/night. So you may need to take your woollies. He insists on a through draft, which may clear the air but also rattles the teeth. Mainly into publishing and databases Gary "likes to program computers to do anything". While using FoxPro 2.5 for Windows as his main software development tool, he works with a variety of languages. "Like others, I find computers a stimulating environment because they're forever changing and challenging."

To a computer novice like myself the equipment Gary uses for PC Update and his personal business is awe-inspiring. The PC Update machine is a very fast 486 and his personal machine a 386. He uses Ventura Publisher 4, CorelDRAW! 4, Picture Publisher and Designer 4 as his other main software programs. (I had to write all this down - had me totally out of my depth). He currently runs a 14,400 modem but bought his first 2400 modem when he fell in love with communications in about 1987 - this I do understand.

Joining Melb PC in 1987, Gary became active in the Club when he offered to help fix the old membership database in 1988-9. He joined the committee in 1990, worked on a membership drive in 1991, and looked after the database during those two years. His position as SIG Coordinator was originally initiated to expedite information for PC Update, however it grew as the SIGs and their problems grew. Meanwhile he has stayed on the committee doing whatever else is needed and currently he is developing a completely new membership database.

Gary believes that, "The Club should be member driven. The only way it will ever reach its full potential will be when the majority of members get in and help to drive it". Yet, he says "I've watched Melb PC very closely. It is poised in the best position it has ever been. The committee and volunteers are the best we've had and we've never been so well set up as we are now." Along with Gary, I encourage all members to contribute what they can to our Club. Either as a novice or with specific expertise, there is plenty each and everyone can do.

Meanwhile Gary, my friend, we thank you for the hundreds of hours you have put into Melb PC, both as an expert in your field and as a tireless worker who stays up through many a night to ensure that we the members, receive our quality magazine on a regular basis. May your road be a happy and prosperous one.