Greg tells his story of Building Stuff.

My passion has always been in “building stuff.” From burglar alarms made from mouse traps in grade 6 (my parents weren’t too fond of that one), to a myriad of electronics in grades 7 and 8, and eventually, primitive video games on KCSS’s then cutting edge Commodore Pet computers (with an eye popping 64K of RAM no less!), and on to the large scale systems and business I’m responsible for today, I have always had my hand in creating things.

Academically, KCSS’ world class science and math departments gave me a solid foundation for pursuing my passion for “building stuff”.  I received a corporate sponsorship coming out of KCSS that paid for my engineering education in the United States.  Once there, thanks to the excellent academic grounding I received at King, I did well in the core science and technology courses, and was able to get a solid grounding in systems design and software development practices. This ultimately led to the founding of my company, Intelliware Development Inc., where, with a now large team of software engineers, we have forged many innovative paths in software development. Intelliware has built a wide range of large, enterprise applications that touch many in their daily lives, including HealthWatch for Shoppers Drug Mart that manages prescriptions and ensures safe dispensing of drugs, and several core “back-end” transaction processing applications that ensure reliable handling of your financial assets.

I credit KCSS for giving me the foundation for all things that I have had success with later in life. While in high school, I parlayed an enthusiastic love of sports sparked by my parents and nurtured by KCSS’ outstanding Phys Ed department into participation on a wide range of teams, including basketball, football, tennis, badminton, skiing, and rugby. Through sheer participation more than anything else, I was fortunate to receive both athlete of the year, and most dedicated athlete honours over the course of my time in high school. More important, from these teams, I took away life lessons in how to contribute in groups, the satisfying results of hard work, and deep friendships that have lasted over the past 25 years.

My company, Intelliware, has been a personal, business and technical success for me and my family, and is a direct result of pursuing my passion for “building stuff”. What I’ve discovered is that “building stuff” means so much more than assembling physical “things”.  “Building stuff” is an investment in effort that creates families, organizations, companies, friendships, teams, music, films, cars, books, software, houses and homes. Investment in anything you build is more effort than just passing time, but your passion and the results reaped always make it the more rewarding path. As Henry Ford once said, “Chop your own wood, and it will warm you twice.”  Thanks KCSS, for helping me discover this.

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