Bio: Katherine DuGarm

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Bio: Katherine DuGarm
23-May-2002 -- Susan Pichotta
 
This week, the Icetips News Network is pleased to present the bio of a programmer who used to be a baker, then a librarian; now, she's working on interfacing Clarion with an IBM AS/400. She has an interesting comparison of SQL to mathematics, and some fun photos, including a great picture of cross-country ski trails.
 
Who do you work for?
I am self-employed and have been for about a year, since my last employer ran out of funds to pay most of their expensive programmers.
My company name is DuGarm Information Management.
 
What do you like best about what you do now?
I like best the opportunity to keep learning, solving new puzzles. When I have to revise an application I wrote months or even years ago, I see how I should have coded differently. I learn so much in just a few months.
 
What has been one of your biggest challenges in using Clarion?
One of the biggest challenges has been getting my mind around OOP. I keep trying to write all the procedural steps to accomplish something. Then I have to step back and find an object oriented way to do the same thing with only a few commands. My guiding principal is from a professor in a SQL class - SQL uses the calculus to describe the results I want, rather than the algebra of listing all the steps to get a certain result.
 
What has been one of your biggest challenges in business?
Marketing myself and my service is my biggest business problem. I have a lot of trouble putting myself forward, I'd rather just do the work. Finding new clients is hard for me.
 
Do you use any computer languages besides Clarion?
I have taken classes in Ada and Pascal, but the only language I use in business is Clarion. I know I should learn another language to expand my horizons.
 
When did you start using Clarion?
I started using Clarion in 1995 or 1996, with version 1.5. Clarion was already in use at the Air Force Association, my employer at the time. Since I was learning the language to ease the load on my boss's boss, I had the learn the language he used. I have skipped around versions since then, using CW2.003, CW4.5 and CW5.5PE
 
What's the coolest project(s) you've worked on using Clarion?

Katherine and Delano in Minneapolis

Probably my current one because it will be the most widely used.
 
There is an existing membership database on an AS/400. The Clarion applications I work on don't yet touch the AS/400, and there are many electronic spreadsheets or paper documents, none of which touch the AS/400. My project uses ODBC, to touch files off the AS/400, so contact data in the Clarion apps will be up to date. Future aspects of this project will get people away from their spreadsheets and paper documents, and onto Clarion apps. All staff will then have access to current contact information, yet still maintain control over their own mailing lists and rosters.
 
The cool part is planning the new SQL-friendly data structure, and hearing my client when I finally use the right words, and he "gets it" when I talk about all the pieces working together.
 
Have you done anything for a living other than software development?
My professional degree is in librarianship. I worked as a law librarian both in paraprofessional (while in school) and professional capacities. I learned many good lessons in customer service and dealing with difficult customers, while working at law firms. I gradually moved over to the technology business when I realized that I was challenged more by, and therefore I enjoyed more, working with electronic information than hardcopy.
 
I worked in food service right after college. For a few months, I was a baker at the Au Bon Pain in Harvard Square. I enjoyed the morning shift, because I got to ride my bike through quiet city streets on the way to work. And I finished work in the middle of the afternoon, so there was still sunlight to play in.
 
What are your hobbies/what do you like to do when you're not using Clarion?
Number 1 hobby is reading. Primarily I read regency romances for entertainment.
 
My husband and I play outside. That is one of the great things about Minnesota. There is so much to do here. In the summer, biking and camping. In the winter, snowshoing and cross-country skiing. Though I haven't had the table space to indulge recently, another indoor hobby is sewing my own clothes. My husband is a wargamer, which also needs a lot of surface area. In a few months we plan to having duelling tabletops, his table with a game, mine with a sewing machine. We can face off in the evening.
 
Married, children, grandchildren, other close family you want to mention?
I am married to Delano DuGarm, and have been for almost 10 years. No children, but I do have 8 nieces and nephews. In my father's family, and in his father's family, there seems to be the child who moves while the rest stay put. My grandfather and my father were ones who moved. Of my silbings, the boys stayed put or returned to Rhode Island, while the girls moved. So, I'm a mover.
 
Where were you born?
Providence Lying In Hospital, Providence, Rhode Island.
 
Where do you live now?
Now I live on the East Side of St. Paul.
 
What's interesting about where you live?
There is so much to like. We have a regional park across the street, containing wetlands, bits or prairie, river bluffs, a creek, and mile of bike trails. Culture is affordable and bountiful in the Twin Cities, so we can go to a concert or something about once a month. We are almost on church supper season. Each weekend we check the paper to find out which church to go to that weekend for supper. Ethnic food is much better at a church of that ethnicity, than at a restaurant serving an Americanized (blanded down) version of that cuisine. For instance the enchiladas at Our Lady of Guadalupe! I've only once had Mexican food that good in a restaurant.
 
This is a transportation lover's paradise. Sometimes I ride to work with Delano on the bike trail that runs along the BNSF main line, and the Mississippi River. The river has tow boats and barges. Airplanes are coming in and out of the St. Paul downtown airport. Oh yes, there is a highway between the bike trail and the train tracks.
 

Camping with a few hundred of our closest friends at MASHout... the Mid-Atlantic States Homebrew club campOUT. Mashing out is also a brewing term for the last high-temperature rest, which destroys any remaining enzymes and fixes the sugars before drawing off the wort or sugar water.

 
Have you lived any other interesting places?
Well, whenever I move some place, I go because I think it will be interesting. I enjoyed the excitement of the DC area when I moved there. Then I got tired of the hot humid weather, and the "me first" attitude so prevalent on the roads. I liked living in Arlington, and would have been happy to pick up the county, and plop it down somewhere with better weather, but that wasn't possible. So I moved to an area with better weather, and plan to discover oportunities in St. Paul like the ones I had in Arlington.
 
Which person, from past or present, do you most admire and why?
Hmm. Not sure.
 
What is your favorite food?
Well, different foods for different occasions. Nothing is as satisfying as a pulled pig sandwich, I don't think. Delano's peanut butter chocolate chip cookies are a favorite sweet. Krispy Kreme doughnuts are good on a road trip, with a thermos of coffee.
 
What is your favorite drink?
Tanqueray martini, straight up with lemon zest.
A float made with Ben & Jerry's vanilla ice cream and Guiness stout.
 
What is your favorite type of music?
Loreena McKennitt.
 
What is your favorite book? Movie?
Movie - The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai across the Eighth Dimension, or Strictly Ballroom. Both have elements of romance and silliness.
 
Book - anything by Mary Balogh.
 

Katherine with GLOB (the Gorgeous Ladies of BURP) BURP is the Brewers United for Real Potables. www.burp.org I am in the middle of front row, between the woman in the black sweater and the woman in the white v-neck sweater.

 
If Clarion never existed, what do you think you would be doing at this time?
Well, I wanted to be a faculty wife, but by the time Delano got his Ph.D. in Russian history, the USSR had fallen apart, and Russian history was no longer sexy enough for universities to hire new professors. The Professors that are hired are more likely to be minority women, than white men. I am grateful for affirmative action, but in this case it turned around and bit me. Not that food supply isn't still an issue in countries with political unrest, but there aren't any professorships in food supply. Are there?
 
I would probably be running the PC Support at an medium sized company, or teaching software to beginners. I am pretty good at analogising, so someone can understand what is going on in the background.
 
Anything else you want to mention?
I am glad to be a part of the Clarion community. Even though programming is a solitary activity, there are people out there to chat with, or to help solve programming puzzles. It helps me to not feel so alone.
 

Cross-country ski trails at Fort Snelling, which is built at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers. Fort Snelling is on the final approach to MSP Airport, hence the airplane seen through the trees.