How it all started...my journey to Lotus Notes
Many others (too many to list here, although I've got a saved folder of all I've found in Bloglines) have discussed how they got into Lotus Notes/Domino development, and though I'm later than some getting my story out, at least I am getting it out. Here goes...
I went to Bowling Green State University (out of state tuition for my parents...oh they just loved that...) as a Computer Science major in the fall of 1992. Near the end of my sophomore year (Spring '04) I applied for a co-op/intern position and was granted one at Mead Paper (Fine Papers Division - at the time) in Chillicothe, Ohio, and I began my first real hands-on, take it apart, fix it, put it back together, upgrade it, install it, kind of work as a pc tech/help desk co-op. They were using PROFS and lots of other stuff on the mainframe using various types of terminal emulators and connectivity, from modems, to coax ,to some token-ring and who knows what else. I was working on XTs, PS2 model 50s-70s, 286 and 386 whatevers and pulling 10 or 20 MB hard drives and 512k or 1MB simms in and out of most of the hardware. This first co-op excursion was also the start of me dating my future wife - definitely an interesting time in my life on both fronts. Over the next couple of years I co-oped at Mead again every other semester and things progressed through DOS5, 6.1, 6.2, Windows 3.1, Windows 3.11, Windows NT 3.51... but we were still doing PROFS/OfficeVision for our email and such.
The end of the spring semester of 1996, when I would have had just one more semester to graduate with my BS in CS, I was asked by Mead to come work for them as the Manager of the Help Desk. They understood that I still wanted to get my degree finished up, and were willing to help with the cost of paying for night classes and allow me enough leeway in my schedule to drive up to Columbus to take them. Also once I did finish my degree I would get a salary bump as well. I was all for that, and it was a hard opportunity to not take, but Kath and I were planning to get married later in the year in 1996, and she still had her student teaching to do. We determined that she could do her student teaching in Columbus somewhere (that was the closest we could get to Chillicothe) and that I would take the job, start there after this semester, start night classes at Captial University, and we'd bump up the wedding to August.
I finished my degree by the spring of 1997, I think I even graduate on my birthday - May 10. I did get the bump in pay, and I was settling into my help desk management job, with some other co-ops/temps under me and a contractor group who was doing most of the footwork/repairs while we were managing the calls and first level support. At this point I was an NT admin, a Novell Netware Admin, a PROFS/CICS/TPX admin and maintaining lots of other system, including having brought in a product called Support Magic for our help desk solution. I also was picking up some network/infrastructure knowledge from some of our IT Engineer type guys and had helped pull cable, and block it down to the cabinets and setup the outlets in the walls in some of new buildings and areas. Somewhere around 1998 I think, we were asked if we wanted to some of the first ones to try this non-mainframe product for email - Lotus Notes. Pretty sure it was 4.0 and I was loving it. Looked like all my other Windows apps, instead of the funky emulated mainframe stuff.
As many help desk people do, I was getting a bit burned out by 1999, and at some point they started to notice, and I was asked..."would you be interested in moving to a programming role?" I was like, "yeah, that's what I went to school for after all". So I was thrust into a jack-of-all-trades programming spot where I was doing VB, COBOL - mainly for Y2k remediation, but some actual enhancement other places, stuff with RF Scanners, and wouldn't you know it...they wanted me to see what I could do with some LOTUS NOTES Programming.
Looking in my drawer at my class certificates, I see that I took my "Application Development 1" class on October 22, 1999. I don't think anything I did at Mead really touched the Web-side of things but I knew there were possbilities. So we got through Y2k like everyone else, then in probably March of 2000, I had just moved to a new office within the department, my phone rings, and on it, a head-hunter who was originally looking for the guy who just vacated the office strikes up a conversation with me and wonders if I would be interested in some opportunities he has elsewhere. We discussed possibilities back near my parents in Michigan, I think some in Pittsburgh, and then Cleveland. Kath's from the 'burbs of Cleveland and it would be 2.5-3 hours back closer to my parents, so we kinda focused on that area. I had one good interview with a chemical company, who seemed to be willing to hire then and there, but what there were offering wouldn't even handle a latteral move plus the cost of living increase in the Northern Ohio area versus the South. I then got a chance to interview for my current employer (nearly 8 years here now), had a pretty good set of interviews, and then on a trip I was making to demo a new app at a plant in the UP of Michigan, as I was arriving in the Green Bay airport, I got a call telling me they wanted to hire me. I moved up and lived with Kath's parents to begin work here in June 2000, Kath and Zach (no Katie yet) came up after we sold the Chillicothe house in the fall, and we bought a house in Parma.
I've been a Notes/Domino developer ever since, and now have been able to sink my teeth into other aspects of the Lotus products, like Sametime, Quickplace/Quickr and of course develop new apps.
That was long, I know, but it was nice to get all the thoughts I've been ruminating about over the last few days out. Enjoy!
Anyone else who hasn't spoken up yet have more stories to tell?