He has a diverse range of experience, starting out as a computer operator on a Fujitsu M180-II-AD mainframe running FSP, before deciding to study computing science.  On graduation he thought he’d be a mainframe systems programmer. However, fate intervened and he ended up writing Cobol data conversion programs to downsize from the mainframe to HP-UX systems (a process that he completely automated!).  That then led to a rather different career path involving Unix and after a while Linux.  Ironically at Uni he loathed Unix, mainly because his only exposure to it was on an Amdahl mainframe and some other ancient systems which had so little memory that vi was banned and the only editor available was ed.  He Naively thought that was what Unix was like.  Luckily a consultant working on the downsizing project enlightened him by showing him the power of vi and shell scripting!

 

Working for a small engineering company (Clyde engineering, later EDI Rail) He got to shape the IT landscape. Whatever new thing the IT manager wanted, Tony got to research and provision.  There was often a shoestring budget, so a lot of creative and perhaps unorthodox but successful systems were implemented.  He was responsible for the design, installation and management of LAN and WAN equipment, HP-UX, Windows NT4 servers, Windows SOE, progress 4GL, Lotus Notes, and various other IT related systems. During this time, he did a Master of Internetworking and these experiences created a very solid foundation.  Sometime after leaving EDIRail, he met a former colleague, who told Tony that within a year of him leaving they had hired 10 people to do the work he had been doing.  He wasn’t sure if there was any embellishment in that statement!

 

For the 18 years prior to joining Systemethix Tony was working at Aon where he worked on complex systems integration, solution design, Linux engineering and architecture with a focus on security and automation, both on prem and in the cloud.   He is proud of the fact that he had a 100% success rate for all change controls for at least the last five years at Aon.

 

Outside of work he enjoys photography, electronics, cars, playing Valorant and Fortnite and watching TV with his daughter (who got him into the gaming).