Bio: Mark Riffey

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This Clarion Bio was originally published on the Icetips News Network

Bio: Mark Riffey
19-Dec-2001 -- Susan Pichotta
 
In our last biography for 2001, the Icetips News Network is pleased to present an interview with one of the more active (and amusing) Clarion newsgroupies. A devoted coder, he also has a mainframe past, but was more involved in the technical side of things. On a personal note, he gives good advice on the requirements for moving to a rural area.
 
Who do you work for?
Depends on who you ask. I own Granite Bear Development, but when you own the company, you sort of work for every single one of your customers (some more than others<g>).
 
My first career was in the mainframe world. I was a main-
frame programmer and VM systems programmer at EDS. That progressed into a job as a programmer and CICS / BTAM (yes, BTAM<g>) geek at a small banking/ATM software company. From there, I became an IDMS dba, then moved on to be the MVS / OS390 / CICS / JES / VTAM systems programmer at a very large rubber products (belts and hoses, not those other things) company, and then finally ended up as a mainframe productivity tools / utility developer (among other things) at a small mainframe ISV.
 
While I had done some PC-based consulting here and there since the late 80's, I hadn't really gotten serious enough about it to make a living at it until we decided to move to the mountains. As a result of being in the right (or wrong<g>) place at the right (or wrong<g>) time, I've made a 2nd career out of CW stuff. Telecommuting wasn't too popular with employers in 1998 (as if it is now?) so I had to do what every guy who wants to move to a rural mountain town has to do (Rule # 1 of moving to rural mountain towns is "bring your own job, and bring your own woman because we don't have enough of either"). Took a while to make it into a living, but here we are.
 
This is a winter view off our back porch. The white dots are not dust spots on the negative (really Rocky, I swear), they are the fill flash reflecting off of snowflakes.
 
What do you like best about what you do now?
Anything that forces me to get off my keester and learn something new. I seem to have a knack for marketing, though I have little time to deal with it. Fortunately, someone else deals with that now (for us).
 
What has been one of your biggest challenges in using Clarion?
Ripping DET and PowerBrowse out of 2 apps I "inherited" while keeping the users happy with the apps. Most of the time, I don't really find Clarion that much of a technical challenge. All (ok, most) Clarion-related challenges can be resolved with sufficient time. Time management is my truly daunting challenge. Clarion is just a tool to deal with that, fortunately it does so fairly well.
 
What has been one of your biggest challenges in business?
# 1 - Figuring out how to get 48 hours of work, 6-8 hrs of sleep, several hours with the family and some time with my guitar, golf clubs and hiking boots - all in a 24 hr period and all while keeping the wife and kids happy. Andrew Guidroz is my hero in that respect. How that guy keeps a job, does off-hours consulting, cooks up a storm, keeps his family happy, keeps himself happy, and manages all that he does without popping a vein is simply amazing to me. Must be that 12 minutes of sleep he gets each night:)
 
# 2 - Remaining calm, pleasant and just an all-around good guy while surrounded by a sea of PEBKAC:) Editor's note: PEBKAC=Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair
 
Do you use any computer languages besides Clarion?
Mainframe-stuff aside (ALC, Cobol, PL/I, Fortran), I'm an ex-VB, Access, pc assembler and xbase hack, among other things. Currently the only active task outside the CW world is related to Ultradev/ASP. I keep jumping over to C++ now and then but never manage the time to stick with it.
 
When did you start using Clarion?
Sometime in the 90's around the time C4 came out I think. I don't even remember which version I bought first. We've taken over apps that were based on 1501, 2002 and 2003, but everything living is now running on C55EED. The remainder is C5EEB.
 
A guy I worked with had CDD and was dealing with the 3005/6/7/8/9 mess while writing a new app. It scheduled kids in elementary classes based on parent requests, gender ratios, behavior problems etc. It was an interesting app. Anyhow, he showed CDD to me and he ended up moving the app to 2003 or c4 and somewhere in there I got interested enough to buy a copy. I wrote a couple of utilities for my employer but we didn't do PC stuff for sale so it didn't really go anywhere. After that, I waffled around a bit with it, then over time stumbled across the 4 apps that Granite Bear sells and now I'm nose-deep in it.
 
What's the coolest project(s) you've worked on using Clarion?
Our ad agency says "Your products are dull as dirt". They are pretty much right. We really don't do anything I would consider cool, programming-wise. If I had my Outlook integration done, then I would say that, but it isn't, so I won't:)
 
We are about to start a remote synch project with our Photo One product, so that might count even though no code exists for it yet. This would allow multiple sites to replicate data to each other, without SQL, and without high bandwidth connections. The main reason we are doing this is because 4 of us are in different places (CO, MT, NY, MA), one of us only has dialup access, and it is no fun transmitting our databases back and forth. Fortunately, we have some customers who need this functionality, so the ROI will come from that. Hard money beats soft money any day:)
 
Have you done anything for a living other than software development?
Since leaving college, I've just been a geek, at least so far. At one time in college (BSCS/IE, U of Arkansas, '82), I had 3 jobs at the same time. I worked part-time at a liquor store, I was an evening security guard at a women's dormitory<bseg>, and I was head photographer/photo editor for the UA student newspaper. If I had to start over tomorrow, I really don't know what I would do. Opening for B.B. King would be the ideal choice, but I'm afraid I am not qualified to open anything but a door for him<g>
 
What are your hobbies/what do you like to do when you're not using Clarion?
Hiking, camping, photography, skiing, golf, plus I am fairly involved in the Boy Scouts. I also run a week-long camp for Cub Scouts each summer. Tech support for newbies has nothing on spending a week with 150 7-10 year olds, as far as altering your level of sanity<g>. My relationship with my guitar has been on vacation for a while, or I would put that in the short list. My kids want me to try snowboarding this year, so if I show up at ETC2002 with a limp, you'll know why.
 
This is Alex and a friend at last weekend's Scout campout. We made and slept in snow shelters called "Quincys". A Quincy (or a snow cave) will stay warm (32 is warm when its 10 below outside) and save your life if you get stuck outside.
 
Married, children, grandchildren, other close family you want to mention?
Married to my high school sweetheart, Jacki, since 1983. Two boys, Alex (12) and Jonathan (9). Two dogs, a black lab mix named Milli (born 12/31/1999, ie: millennium dog according to my boys, thus the name) and a golden retriever mix named Blondie.
 















First, there's Jacki. :) Then, a picture of the boys that was taken at a swim meet in Fort Benton, Montana. They are doing their best Jake and Elwood impression (in HOB Jake/Elwood t-shirts). The sunglasses came from a Montana state patrol officer :) And last is Blondie when she was quite young (and much smaller than nowadays). This is still one of her favorite positions.
 
Where were you born?
Harrisonburg, Virginia, which is also the birthplace of Ralph Sampson, one of the NBA's greatest underachievers. I met Ralph once in a "famous to Harrisonburg" cafe (Jess', if you're familiar) during a trip to visit my grandmother (she adored him). I practically had to drag her away from him<g>.
 
Where do you live now?
Columbia Falls, Montana. It's about 20 miles from Glacier National Park in NW Montana. We're a mere 17 hour drive from Denver, 10 from Salt Lake City, 10 or so from Seattle and about 5 from Calgary. IE: right in the middle of nowhere.
 
What's interesting about where you live?
It's right in the middle of nowhere. 2 ski mountains within 10-15 miles. Glacier Park is 10 miles from here, we are surrounded by mountains and clean rivers, there is no humidity to speak of (17-20% is average), and other than June-Sept there are only around 4000 people here. From June - Sept, 2 million or so people visit Glacier and a great many of them have little choice but to drive thru our town to get there. Fortunately, they don't stop except to eat:)
 
Have you lived any other interesting places?
Virginia's Shenadoah Valley is probably the most interesting place. Lots of history there. Our choice of Columbia Falls goes back to how the Valley was when I was young.
 
Which person, from past or present, do you most admire and why?
Tough one that I never seem to be able to answer very well. My grandfather, people like DaVinci and such. It had to be hard to a geek in the Renaissance (or whatever).
 
What is your favorite food?
It's easy to get my attention if you are waving any of the following near me: Steak from Ruth's Chris, Andrew's boudin, my mom's cheesecake, broiled/grilled salmon, creme brulee, but hey if you have something else, try me:)
 
What is your favorite drink?
Depends on the situation. Good red wine, homebrew, diet Dr Pepper, strong coffee, booniefied spring water coming out of the clean end of my Pur Scout water filter. The latter is especially tasty when you and a fellow hiker are enjoying it somewhere where you have a couple zillion acres of nothing to yourselves.
 
What is your favorite type of music?
Blues and stuff with blues roots. You might find me listening to BB King, Albert King, Santana, Neal Young, Pink Floyd, Mark needs a chick (yes, that's a band, wiseguys), Phil Collins, Ted Nugent, Type O Negative, Fourplay (yes, that's a band too) or who knows what else. I don't own any country or any opera, but I own at least a few of pretty much any other genre. My taste goes all over the board.
 
If Clarion never existed, what do you think you would be doing at this time?
Coding, I suspect.
 
This is a pic I took of Alex standing in (er, *on*) McDonald Lake in Glacier National Park while doing his best Eddie Van Halen impression. To make this picture really worthy of comparison to Eddie V, Alex would need to have Hanspeter's hair:)