I grew up in Queenstown through my primary school years which was awesome!

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I fondly remember the plentiful outdoor opportunities: skiing, mountain climbing, four-wheel driving or motorbiking into places like Macetown, hunting, fishing, ice skating (completing my ‘Kiwi’ badges), bonfires were some of my favourite things to do. I proposed to Pearl on Cecil Peak. My family then moved to Dunedin where I attended intermediate and started high school, before I moved to Balclutha to finish off highschool – I got bored at school so got my first after school job making coffins.It’s a different perspective looking at someone and sizing up their coffin.

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After a year I started working after school and in the holidays at an engineering workshop doing all the important jobs: getting smoko, sweeping, grinding, more grinding, etc. At 16 having passed 6th form certificate I decided to leave school (lost interest in most school subjects), leave home and moved into a granny flat in Dunedin to begin an engineering apprenticeship (the granny flat was awesome as the landlord used to cook meals for me). $6.22 per hour before tax was not enough to pay rent so I worked the evenings in the Dunedin clubs’ distinguished positions of dishwasher, glassy and doorman.

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After going steady with Pearl for a number of years, Beven (Pearl’s father) suggested I advance my education at university. After being rejected from University I begged for a position at the Otago Polytechnic’s business school who allowed my entrance on a diploma trial. Beven offered to support my education via a fulltime assistant job – turns out, that translates into do everything no one else wants to do (work weekends, holidays, evenings, fix anything broken, solve the problems, etc.)

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During the Applied Management Degree, I was allowed to apply my ‘assignments’ to real business issues (did not really see the point of not applying the knowledge to real issues), thus, for three years I found organisation’s who were seeking assistance within the areas I was studying and developed strategies and systems. For example, I improved cashflow by developing a fuel ordering system. After completing the Applied Management Degree, I went and studied a Masters of Business (MBA) at the Otago University (finally I was no longer a reject). I continued to apply my ‘assignments’ to real business issues. I was a member of the team who received the Ronald J Moore Memorial Award for developing an Australian market strategy for a New Zealand organisation.

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The conclusion of my MBA was the development of a Strategic Decision-Making System for the Otago Polytechnic (never forget those who help you). I founded Gummybear in our basement by complete accident by just helping organisations. It began by helping DebtorInfo redevelop their software and we started helping other organisations, soon some highly skilled and talented people hung around too long and ended up staying and then the basement became too small. Now I get to build cool digital stuff everyday.

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