Member of the Institution of British Telecommunications Engineers and the Federation of Telecommunications Engineers of the European Community.
I set up Croucher Consultants Ltd to allow me to work for myself, providing consultancy and training to other companies, specialising in networking (especially multimedia and TCP/IP), and Unix services.
I have been involved in several major Voice over IP projects for companies such as Mason Communications and Protek Bolden James, IP Version 6 for BT plus a project on the implementation of GPRS and WAP for Nokia. I developed and presented a suite of 5 courses on data and voice communications for Morgan Stanley, a LAN Technologies course for Colt Communications, a course on Information Technology and Communications for PricewaterhouseCoopers, and a series of courses on IP and Packet Switched Networks for BT. Additionally I have presented courses on LANs, IP, Voice over IP, Network Management, Telecommunications, and ATM for Cap Gemini, Silicon Graphics, IIR Technology, Logical Training Services, SHL Learning Technologies, Phillips Omnicom, Frost and Sullivan, European Technical Support, and Learning Tree International.
I was the Technical Editor for the Learning Tree course on LAN Troubleshooting.
I was a Networking Specialist providing consultancy, training and documentation in all aspects of data and telecommunications. Projects included writing courses on the IBM ATM Campus Products (switches, concentrators, and bridges), IBM bridges and routers, and IBM Frame Relay Access Devices, as well as giving courses on CISCO routers and HP Openview, plus data and telecommunications. I also designed the cabling system for the company office in Dorking, and was the company's webmaster.
My official title was Full Time Instructor with the primary responsibility of presenting approximately 20 short, intense technical courses per year. I specialised in Wide and Local Area Networks, but also presented software development and project management courses. The typical course length was four days and locations varied from Learning Tree's Education Centres in London, Sweden and Washington to customer sites throughout Europe and the USA with occasional visits to Asia. I was frequently involved in modifying courses to meet the customer's requirements as well as developing customer specific courses, and providing technical editing services for courses customised by other instructors. I frequently attended beta tests of courses.
During the period 1994 to 1995 I took on the temporary position of Quality Controller, with the responsibility of gaining ISO 9002 Certification for the UK Subsidiary. I reported directly to the Financial Director who also took on the role of Quality Manager. In addition to managing the process, and ensuring that the Quality Manual, Procedures and Work Instructions were all developed, I was also the Lead Auditor with responsibility for the other auditors and also developed the Quality Induction Training for all existing and new employees. As well as achieving certification in 1995, an important result was the management recognition of the poor communications within the company and the lack of IT.
Thus overlapping with the above I was also responsible for managing the introduction of a PC networking system, based on a Novell 3.12 File Server, and a LotusNotes server running on OS/2 with routers linking the two UK offices via an ISDN link giving every employee access to the IT systems. Following this, I was involved in the porting of the complete Quality System onto LotusNotes. More recently I was responsible for implementing e-mail access to the Internet and hence direct communications with the other instructors.
I was also involved in the recruitment and training of new instructors, gave pre- and post sales support including meetings and presentations, attended numerous exhibitions, and was Exhibition Manager for Networks 95.
The position of Full Time Instructor ceased to exist in April 1996, and I was made redundant.
I was the Unix Product Support Manager, managing a team of four responsible for the maintenance and support of Unix systems (including applications) throughout Europe, liasing with the Hardware and Communications groups when required. The team also carried out acceptance testing of new releases, as well as the X.25 and Ethernet communication systems.
Product Development Manager responsible for the design, development, introduction and support of the Option Computer based on the 68000 chip, Unix and applications.
I left the company as it was moving its operational base to Letchworth, and I was not willing to relocate.
Communications Manager responsible for all pre- and post sales support involving networks, mainly RS232/V24 with some 2780 and X.25 plus ARCNet. I designed and wrote an email system for the Ford Motor Company using Montotype computers as user agents and a Prime computer as a message transfer agent which supported both simple text messages and the transfer of documents. The company sold Ontel computers running MDOS and HDOS, and later CP/M. As a result of a management buyout the company was renamed to Optim Computers.
Senior Programmer designing and writing code in Coral 66 and Babbage on GEC computers for the Clapham Junction Signalling System. I resigned as I was not getting the involvment in the communications systems that I had been led to expect.
Senior Engineer responsible for computing in the Aeronautical Department which used IBM model 360 computers running MFT/MVT/MVS and VM programmed mainly in Fortran IV with some PL/1 and Assembler. I was involved in a major project to implement TSO and was put in charge of a project to develop interactive computing using Tektronic equipment. I was also reponsible for the introduction of personal computing in the department using PET and HP computers. I left to get more involved in the developing communications industry based on mini and micro computers.
Student Apprentice on a thin sandwich course - my first introduction to computers on DEUCE, Mercury and 1900 series computers using Assembler, Autocode and Fortran..
The courses I have written and taught for ETS include General Data Communications and Telecommunications, Ethernet, Token Ring, FDDI, ATM, Bridges and Routers, and TCP/IP (including voice and other multimedia applications). Additionally I have presented courses for vendors such as BT, Cisco, Cabletron, IBM and Hewlett Packard, and presented courses on behalf of several other training companies.
The list of courses that I have presented for Learning Tree includes Introduction to Data Communications, Telecommunications and Wide Area Networks, PC Networks, Troubleshooting LANs and WANs, Network Protocols, TCP/IP, LAN Troubleshooting, X.25, ISDN, Mobile Communications, Structured Analysis and Design, Object Oriented Analysis and Design, Client/Server Systems, Software Quality Assurance, Testing, Maintenance, Project Management, Unix, Unix System Administration, Solaris etc.
1970's Courses on IBM 360 architecture, assembler, JCL, Fortran and PL/1.