ProTechs-Online

Chad McCue

A brief history

I first became interested in computers during my early years in high school. My first exposure to a computer was the school main frame terminal. Even then computers were used for fun. Having only a printer for a display we could play text based computer games and one driving game which wasted a lot of paper in the process. Needless to say the school did not allow that for long. The school soon had a computer lab made up of Apple II's. I liked them and learned my first two programming languages; Pascal and Basic.

After I dropped out of high school I had many unskilled labour jobs and found it hard to make ends meet. I won't get into details but I eventually owned and operated some small businesses. Without proper operating capital it was still hard going. Finally I ended up as a professional painter. Painting wages were good and life became easier.

My interest in computers had not waned. Early 1994 I noticed an exciting change in computer technology. Computer operating systems, processors, memory and hard drives were increasing in power and capacity at an exponential rate. I had to get involved. Painting was becoming increasingly depressing. That's when I decided to go to night school as much as possible. By this time I had a small family and had to put in long hours to keep up our life style. Needless to say my family didn't see me a lot during those night school years. I followed my heart when it came to the courses I completed.

I was stuck in the old catch 22; educated with no practical experience.

Just when I though it was never going to happen I became a contractor doing cable internet connection hookups for Shaw Cable in Calgary. Then I went to Seattle to do cable internet connection for AT&T. Once the boom for high speed cable internet was over I went into satellite internet connections. I was flown all over western and northern Canada doing these installations. After satellite it was high speed radio wireless internet connection. Often after installing the customers internet connections I would be contracted to upgrade their PC's, servers and network systems. This was long before the ISP's discovered that there was a market for this in residential and small business.

In 2003 I moved my family to rural Manitoba. I continued to contract satellite internet installations and network support in Manitoba for another year. Then in 2004 I was hired as an IT Administrator for a large company.

As a IT Administrator my experience has grown exponentially. Being involved with a good company that is committed to improving their information systems has been rewarding. They have also involved me in research and development which allowed me to use my programming and electrical skills (much to my surprise).

I hope you enjoyed this summary.

Chad McCue

Certificates and Completed Training

• SANS Developer 536 Secure Coding for PCI Compliance, 2011
• Limited Specialized Trade (Voice Data Video) Electrician License, 2009
• Telsat Satellite Installations and Service, 2003
• Lincsat Direcway Satellite Industry Canada Installation Certifications, Level 3, 2002
• Unix Certificate, S.A.I.T., April 2002
• A+ and Radio Frequency Certificate, Shaw Cable, 2000
• PLC Control Applications Certificate, S.A.I.T., 1999
• Advanced Fibre Optics, S.A.I.T. 1999
• Computer Networking Certificate, S.A.I.T., 1998
• Network Cabling (Copper), S.A.I.T. 1998
• Object Oriented System Analysis & Design Certificate, S.A.I.T., 1997
• Visual Basic, S.A.I.T., 1997
• Oracle, S.A.I.T., 1997