I am…
A natural born educator, and I’ve been teaching people computer and technical skills for over 20 years.
A professional stand up comic (although that will obviously be going on hiatus for a while).
An entrepreneur, having ran my own business, Grunt Multiservice for over 2 decades. There’s more about that further down the page.
A gardener, fitness enthusiast, award winning podcaster and blogger, writer, life long learner, iconoclast, auto-didactic solutions specialist, raconteur and amiable dinner companion.
I will also entertain offers of almost any money-making task my skill set makes me appropriate for (that has included doing yard work/assisting in landscaping, doing inventory at Fabricland and basic “grunt work”/temp manual labour). I’m entertaining the idea of being a taskrabbit. I’ll insert a link to that once I decide if I am registering with that service.
For those of you who prefer, click here to see a resume. It’s a little dated, because I’ve only had to submit a resume maybe 5 times over the past 20 years.
And if you are needing a grab bag of facts about me, you can click here to see a fact sheet about me and of some of my accomplishments.
What I do…
I am a computer skills instructor and technical tutor. I specialize in the Microsoft Office warhorses of Word, Excel and PowerPoint and am also well versed in their Google based counterparts. Although I teach all sorts of adult computer education classes, I have carved out a niche helping seniors come to grips with technology. Here, I work right from the most basic computer, phone and/or tablet skills to more focused customized skills training. I will also sit with clients and try to answer a grab bag of questions they may have about all their technology. I also teach people how to make online photo books, how to do basic internet banking and how to buy and sell online.
As a result of world affairs, I am now pivoting my business to deploy virtual training and tech support. I only needed to see the number of panicked seniors at a local bank to see that there are many who are not ready to live online. My first focus will be to get people comfortable with learning from home, and accumulating the skills required to take care of the business of life online.
I still work for MacEwan University, Metro Continuing Education and the Northgate and Central Lions Seniors Centres, but even those organizations are seeking ways to teach their students online. So what I learn teaching for them, I can pass on to you.
So What on Earth is Grunt Multiservice?
This is the logo we started and stuck with for over 20 years!
Long live the Empire of the Boar!
In 1998, I decided to leave a secure government position, and dipped my toes into the waters of self-employment, then promptly spent the next two years regretting it. But after a tumultuous and rough start, I had established a large enough network and skill set so that word of mouth naturally helped my business grow. I have worked with MacEwan University since it was known a Grant MacEwan Community College, and they have been a mainstay of my business. I have worked with Northgate and Central Lions Seniors Centres for almost as long, and they too have supported this business for over a decade. The Provincial Government of Alberta, and the relationships I forged while working there, also provided me with much needed work in Grunt’s initial 5 years. Of course, interspersed in their is a vast array of clients, both large and small, who have kept this business rooting along! And although I’ve been involved in a diverse range of projects, most have been based in educating others. However, I will entertain almost any project that pays decently and gives me a chance to learn something new, or try to use technology to streamline a process.