Frank Cook
I
began as a physicist with a degree from Imperial College, London
followed by a postgraduate spell developing Image Intensifiers, after
which
came work.
The
first job was developing LEDs, but drifted backwards from
solid state into CRT applications, that’s right, old fashioned valves
(vacuum
tubes).
We
built the recording head, used by III (Information
International Inc) to print the graphics for the original Star Wars.
Based on
an 11” inch CRT (“TV tube”) with 8,000 line resolution; they could
display a
full TV picture on every square inch of the face. Similar designs were
developed for Mergenthaler to print Newspapers.
Other
smaller tubes were for avionics displays, including the
helmet mounted displays for the US helicopter gunships.
From
there I moved into management, first as Product Manager, then
later into Manufacturing and had a great two years running a “get well”
program
for Lockheed Aircraft. A manufacturing line making avionics for the
Lockheed
TriStar was very sick and I took over as project manager running a get
well
program.
Then
came the inevitable with industry mergers and
rationalization. I am sure you all know the story about the manager who
wrote
today’s redundancy list and then was asked to put his name on top.
It
is true, it was me; 7:30 on a Wednesday evening; it hurt at the
time, but in retrospect it was another great opportunity. I went
freelance and
have never looked back.
Got
a contract developing computer networks, including the
military communications for the Royal Air Force, just in time for the
first
Gulf War. Then came a spell in the salt mines. At 600 feet down it is
radio
quiet and ideal for EMC testing.
For
the past few years, I have been teaching and that’s a job I
really enjoy. I now
work half time at
the Manchester Metropolitan University and teach for the Open
University and online
for the Postgraduate courses by Liverpool University/Laureate.
I
have had long experience with database systems, starting with
Pericles, a hierarchical database, similar to IBM's IMS, which I used
for
production costing. Later I used dBase II to develop a manufacturing
cost
program and worked on converting an insurance database from IMS to Wang
Pace
4GL. Currently, I teach Database Development using mySQL, Oracle 10g
and
Developer/2000, which provides the windows GUI for Oracle. These like
many
other applications today are heavily XML biased.
In
my spare time, I like gardening. My wife, Irene and I have a
small garden that we like to call an orchard; half a dozen apple trees
and a
couple of pear trees amongst many flowering shrubs, magnolias,
camellias,
rhododendrons, hawthorns and many others. There is always something in
bloom
I
also like good music: classical, brass band, country, even pop,
but most of all I love jazz. I used to be a fair trumpet player, but I
don’t
get enough time to practice these days.