Nick's Page

Brief Biography

I was born in the UK in 1962. My mother was a schoolteacher and my father was an Electrical Engineer. My brother and only sibling, Jeremy, is a year and a half younger than me. We moved around a lot when we were kids, living in Halebarns (Cheshire, England), Mito (Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan), Rochdale (Lancashire, England), Glenrothes (Fife, Scotland), and Storrington (West Sussex, England). We lived in Storrington for about five years and it's the place I really remember best from the UK.

In 1977, we moved to Reston (Virginia, USA) and except for a year in East Lansing (Michigan, USA) I lived there continuously until 1996. I attended Oakton High School (Class of '80), George Mason University, and Michigan State University. I studied Physics and Electrical Engineering but dropped out before graduating.

I started dating Kaite in November 1989 and we were married in March 1996. We moved to Nye in Stillwater County, Montana USA in May 1996 after spending several years choosing a place where we wanted to live. We built a house and moved in October 2001. Our first daughter, Maggie, was born in January 2002. Our second daughter, Ally, was born in October 2005.

Brief Resume

I am an Electrical Engineer working in the industrial electrical motor drive field (including controls and systems). I work on architectures, power circuits, microprocessor and digital circuits, control software and algorithms, industrial communication networks, and user interface hardware and software.

My current position is as Vice President of Bardac Corporation. I designed and implemented the drive.web system. (I also designed the 888 and B-series AC drives.)

Long ago, I worked at SSD / Eurotherm Drives (now Parker Hannifin SSD Drives North America) where I was the architect and primary designer of the SSD Link products and the Link2 products. In ancient times, I worked at Eurotherm Controls.

Trips

Interests

I enjoy SciFi novels, movies and TV shows, computer programming, computer games, etc. I also enjoy skiing, backpacking, hiking, and mountaineering. My main interest (and time-sink) for the last few years has been designing and building Ghostwood.

Philosophy

I'm an atheist, a secular humanist, a freethinker. I'm a civil/social libertarian and a fiscal/economic moderate.
What is an atheist?
What is a secular humanist?
What is a freethinker?

Wikipedia on Atheism
Wikipedia on Secular Humanism
Wikipedia on Freethought
Douglas Adams on democracy

Noted Thinkers on Religion
American Atheists
Atheist Alliance
Freedom From Religion Foundation
Skeptics Society
Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
Brights
Council for Secular Humanism

Entertainment:
The Political Compass (quiz).
What Do You Know About The Separation of State and Church? (quiz).

Other Stuff

I've written some poetry and done some painting (link coming someday).

And here are a few recipes.

E-mail