Brock University
Department of Computer Science
GLIMPSES OF VLAD

5. Former Experience

1981 -1988: Vlad was the cofounder, partner and Vice-President (Technology) of PRAISE Systems, Ltd. At this time he is no longer an active partner in the company. Below is the outline of his achievements in that environment:

In 1981 Vlad joined Dr. Robert Knoop of the College of Education, Brock University, in his research on a system of performance evaluation for educators. This research venture was funded by the Ontario Ministry of Education. Dr. Knoop was involved in industrial psychology and organizational behaviour, while Vlad focused on systems design and development. By 1983 the Ontario Government spent approx. $200,000 on funding this project. Nevertheless, after a change of government there was also a change of plans. The Government of Ontario surrendered to them all the rights to the results of their R&D efforts.

They decided to continue by establishing PRAISE Systems Ltd. PRAISE is an acronym for Performance Review, Appraisal and Improvement System for Educators / Executives / Employees. All the PRAISE software was of Vlad's design. Vlad was also the Chief Programmer supervising several programmers on a contractual basis. They have also contacted some venture capitalists who were favourably impressed with the novelty, quality and potential of their ideas.

PRAISE Systems Ltd. was an R&D software house. The product required a new approach in marketing. PRAISE therefore entered into joint (non- exclusive) marketing agreements with Convergent Technologies, Corvus Systems, and later Apollo Computer. From the management consulting world PRAISE enrolled Thoughtware Inc. and Wyles & Associates to act as agents in Canada and the U.S.A. respectively. PRAISE customers included a host of boards of education in these two countries, the police forces in Texas and Ontario, and the Ontario Hospital Association.

Vlad has brought into being three generations of the software: one running on VAX under VMS, another on Corvus Concept machines, and the last one on Convergent Technologies machines running under UNIX.

1979 - 1981: Vlad worked as a Management Scientist for the Field Service organization of Digital Equipment Corporation International (DEC) in their European Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. As a consultant to the management, Vlad performed operations research and simulation pertaining to the development and optimal organization of various Field Service branches, districts, subsidiaries, regions, etc. Vlad also simulated the optimal organization of implementation of computer networks from the maintainability point of view. He had a thorough exposure to data base management issues and computerized remote diagnosis problems.

Vlad was also the administrator of several database systems; the largest two of them were spare parts consumption recording and forecasting system and labour / manpower system recording the activity of then approx. 5000 engineers and servicemen taking care of 90,000 computers located in Europe, Asia and North Africa.

While in DEC Vlad became deeply familiar with VAX/VMS, RSTS/E, TOPS-10, TOPS-20 operating systems and DECnet. He has an excellent working knowledge of ADA 83 and 95, MODULA-2, ALGOL, PASCAL, FORTRAN, BASIC (including VAX BASIC, BASIC-plus, BASIC-plus-2 dialects), COBOL, being high level languages; PLAN, COMPASS (assemblers), CSL, CSSL, DYNAMO, S/360 CSMP, GPSS, SIMSCRIPT II.5, SIMULA 67, CEMMA, PACTOLUS (simulation - both discrete and continuous), SPSS (statistical analysis).

1975 - 1979: Vlad was a Lecturer in Computer Science at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria. He lectured there Operating Systems, Computer Organization and Architecture (then mainly DEC, IBM, ICL and CDC systems), Simulation Methodology, Nonlinear Programming, Statistics and a variety of programming languages.

At that time, due to his former experience, Vlad played a significant role in formulating the expansion of the Computer Centre of the University and the acquisition of new equipment (the then state-of-the-art CDC CYBER 6000 Series).

Vlad left Nigeria in 1979 when Polish authorities denied him permission for longer stay there. He settled then in Switzerland.

1971 - 1975: After his M.Sc. graduation in 1971 Vlad had a significant exposure to Chemical Engineering, while working within the Institute on several applied projects for the Polish industry. The most important were the coordination and control of the largest Polish refinery PETROCHEMIA in Plock, and the process of extracting aluminum from common clay as raw material.

Administrator: Vlad Wojcik
Revised: Thursday, November 28, 2019 7:06 AM
Copyright © 2005 Vlad Wojcik