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Born in France near the Belgium border
in 1957. Dad was an
officer in the merchant navy and Mum was very pretty, she still is. One
younger brother Benoit, one younger sister, Laurence.
Secondary education in a variety of catholic private boarding schools of
unequal repute. (College Notre dame de Valenciennes, College de Juilly,
College Sainte-Marie de Meaux, College Join Lambert de Rouen.)
Trip to Greece, I particularly like Crete, specially the south west coast.
At that time, horse riding is my passion.
Baccalaureate, Scientific Section obtained in 1977 in Rouen, France. (The
Baccalaureate is an important certificate marking the end of
secondary education.)
Trip to Portugal.
Never set foot at the faculty of biology where I was enrolled.
Instead I practice sky diving. Free falling is kind of crazy.
I then made several trip to western and
central Africa, driving old second hand Peugeot's 404 to resell with a
profit. During these years I visited Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Niger,
Nigeria, Cameroon, Zaire, Chad, Togo (where I got really sick and would
probably have died without the help of my friends. Thanks buddies!!) ,
Mali, Burkina Faso. Nigeria was by far the most fascinating country and
where I made the most money.
Returning to Paris I enroll in a school of computer programming for 6 months and immediately find
a very lucrative job in the Sentier area of central Paris. EPSI is a
French private engineering school.
http://www.epsi.fr
Other trips to Africa will soon follow because at
25 years of age, office life is kind of unbearable.
Also took several small jobs such as building
swimming pools in the French Riviera with Herve, handling concrete by the ton...
a very cool job, I had well defined muscles and a great tan....
...
I meet the daughter of a client, a very beautiful woman of 7 years my senior who taught me the
ancient craft of etching on copper plates and many other tricks.
Etching was not bringing in any money and I became a courier in Paris for
a few months. I was very good at it and took pride of my cunning
driving and astute
itineraries.
Returning to Paris penniless after some failed adventure down south, I
meet a very sexy girl from Bordeaux. She offers me accommodation in her
Menilmontant flat. We have a truly great time. Her name is Marie-France
I wanted to surprise her and bought two tickets
for Sydney.
We spend a few months in New Caledonia at the time
when the island was in a state of civil war. We then left for Tahiti where we
stayed a couple of years. We had the bed in front of the front door which
was always open so we could watch the sunrise from our pillows. Early in
the morning I would go fishing in the lagoon and get back home to wake her
up and make some fresh coffee that she would finally drink sitting on my
knees, naked, warm and soft like a toffee caramel... We were young,
beautiful and free, living the good life in the tropics, far, so
far from the grey Paris, the cold rain and the never ending winters of
northern Europe.
I worked as a programmer for a small bureau called IMAG. Clients
included Oscar Temaru's Faaa mayoralty, The South Pacific Experimentation
Center (a facility to test nuclear weapons) and Robert Wan's budding
empire, Tahiti Pearl.
Birth of our first daughter, Nina.
We got married in Baneuil in 1985 (Dordogne, France) in the family home, for the
worst and for the best and for ever. We return to Noumea an apply for a
New Zealand permit. Our strategy was to use our NZ resident permit as a
stepping board to live in Australia.
I find a Job in New Zealand for Sofrana Shipping. I was their Auckland IT
Manager from 1987 to 1990. This was my first position in New Zealand. I was
responsible for the redevelopment of all the information systems and
also had day-to-day responsibility of running the IT department, reporting
to Head Office in Nouméa, New Caledonia.
With the birth of our second child (Timothée) and third (Margo)
we settle and become suburban house makers. Finished with travels and
adventures. We work like crazy to make the dough, pay the mortgage
and feed the family.
I quit Sofrana's poor salary and work as a Contract Developer, mainly for
IBM New Zealand Ltd until 1998. Most notable assignments included:
• ICMS Project– ( Integrated Customer Management System )
Analyst Programmer, RPG
• National Fault Project
Team lead for the Network Testing System – Unix, Oracle, C++
Development manager for Network Activation System – Unix, Sybase, C++
The money rolls in. We buy a nice house in a leafy suburb, become members
of the local yacht club, buy budgies, cats and a fat shares portfolio,
business class travels, skiing holidays, a circle of select friends of good education,
their trophy wives driving red sport cars complete with fancy little
doggy, are into
charities or into swinging or both.
In December 1997 I joined Binary Research as Development
Manager to help
this young company to implement its expansion plans, leading a small group
of 10 software engineers. Symantec, an US software
company, acquired the company in July 1998. I
was subsequently offered a similar role at Symantec and given the
challenge of demonstrating that efficient and cost effective software
development was possible from New Zealand.
From July 1998 to September 2003 I work for Symantec NZ Ltd, Auckland
with the bombastic title of Senior Director, Research and
Development, holding responsibilities for the development of the Symantec
Ghost product line, leading a team of up to 47 engineers and technicians.
Based in Auckland and reporting to head office in California, this senior
leadership position carried overall responsibilities of the Development,
Quality Assurance, Project management, budget, technology acquisition and
partnership as well as licensing agreement negotiation for the product
line. My influence included the creation of strategic direction and the
establishment of long-term technology plans.
I was very well paid. During the week ends we went to shopping malls to
buy loads of "stuff" to fill, first our house, then our
garage. Then we needed to extend the house to store all of that "stuff" of
ours.
The role at Symantec also included general management responsibilities for
the direction of the Auckland site (60 employees)
During my tenure at the head of the product group, the team grew from 10
employees in 1998 to over 45 permanent and contract staff in 2003 and the
product revenue grew 10 folds, becoming the market leader in its category.
In September 2003, I eventually got fired from this lucrative job
and Marie-France encouraged me to become an
artist.
Since then I draw nude ladies and I am loving it.
We live on Waiheke island in the company of a few other privileged souls.
On August 25 2006, we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary.
I am also learning bronze casting and having a ball.
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