ProfileUltranorman Website Design and Development is a Website design and development company based in Pittsburgh, PA and Boston, MA. Ultranorman Website Design and Development is a sole proprietorship which consists of myself, two computers and a phone. I work at home where my 6 and 8 year old run amuck, make noise, mess stuff up and create extra work for me so in a sense it's like working for a real company. I have a BS in Software Engineering and have been working with computers and programming since 1982. |
Skill SetTwleve years experience in web design and web development. Design tools include: Development tools include: |
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- Started out June 30th 1961 in suburb of Pittsburgh, PA. specifically, Mt. Lebanon.
- Graduated HS in '79. Band geek, computer geek, silly hair cut.
- Went to Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA for 3 semesters.
- Went to the School of Computer Technology in Pittsburgh in 1981 and received an associates degree in business programming (COBOL, RPG, Fortran, Basic).
- Moved to Dallas TX. to work for EDS in April of 82. Met H. Ross Perot a couple of times, nice guy, remembered my name.
- By 85 I'd had enough green text on black screen for minimum wage so I moved back to Boston to play in a rock band with some old friends.
- Continued playing music in Boston for 7 years holding crappy jobs and spending every penny on equipment and recording time and the van. Toured, made 4 albums with two bands, played on 5 or 6 other records with several other local bands. My first band, Hell Toupee, opened for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Run/DMC, 247Spyz, Butthole Surfers, and a bunch more but that's as far as we got. Great band, great tunes, no luck.
- 1994, the singer/trombone player of Squid, my second band, brought home five computers. Some 386s and a UNIX box. Our house was called Stumpworld, 11 people, 4 of which were in 4 different bands that rehearsed in the basement 5-6 nights a week. When it was decided that an internet development company was to be started the name was obvious. 6 guys, 4 computers, a file servers, a mail server and some other stuff in whatr used to be the living room.
- Smoke. Tons of smoke, everybody smoked and drank coffee all day, typing like fiends... Eventually Stumpworld attracted business people with connections who then joined up and got us some pretty cool gigs. I ended up doing Aerosmith's first website, the space donut, what a great project. We did Phish, MMW, Blue Note Records, a project for the Rolling Stones(that never went live).
- Stumpworld made a software package called Online Merchant that enabled anyone to create an e-commerce website with no technical skills. We also made a portal website called buyitonline.com that hosted all the sites made with Online Merchant.
- 1998, Stumpworld has exploded to 60 employees and moves into an actual office.
- 2000, Stumpworld gets bought by a big Canadian hosting company and we move into a BIGGER office, get big raises and lots of un-secured stock options. I buy a new car and my second kid is on the way.
- Business model is changed mid-stride, stock market swell begins to subside and tech. companies everywhere begin dropping like bird poop. Our new business model is going nowhere and all previous bridges have been burned. Half the company gets canned but since I am an original member I get to hang on for another 6 months.
- Stumpworld dies October 2001. Big party. Ultranorman Web Design is started and to this day most of my current clients are either old stumpers or connected in some way to the old company.
- 2002 through 2005 were very hard but I managed to finally get a college degree in Software Engineering.
- Freelance business picks up and I finally have some savings and would like to buy a house BUT real estate in MASS is MASSively inflated so we decided to move to...
- Pittsburgh, PA. specifically, Mt. Lebanon. Kids love it.