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Phil Bacon left Catalysts in 1996 to become Folio Corporation's 'Man in Europe', performing a diverse range of activities such as providing Folio's Partners across Europe with technical and sales support and providing consulting and training for companies using Folio Views to publish reference information.
In 1997 Folio Corporation was acquired by Open Market, one of the original Dot Com Internet start-ups who developed back-end software used by large enterprises to conduct secure high volume commerce over the Internet. Phil became an Open Market employee and was initially a Sales Engineer, later to be promoted to Technical Consultant in their Professional Services division. He reported into their Amsterdam office and became very familiar with Schipol Airport.
In 1999 the assets of the original Folio Corporation were acquired from Open Market by NextPage, a new company put together for the purpose by a number of former Folio employees. Phil was invited to join and did so, fulfilling a role in Europe similar to that which he had in pre-Open Market days.
In 2000 NextPage promoted Phil to lead a new development team in Utah where he was tasked to develop adapters to enable NextPage products to access and index content from other third-party products such as Lotus Notes, Interwoven and Vignette. Phil and his family suffered a prolonged delay waiting for his work visa but eventually they all relocated to Utah in February 2001.
Nine years have passed and despite starting with only a 2 year contract Phil is still there in Utah. He reports that his youngest daughter was born there in 2002 but her two older sisters are now almost as 'American' as she is. The family love living in Utah with all it offers by way of climate, great outdoor activities (skiing and paragliding) and a safe environment for children. A 15 minute commute to work is also a blessing after the M25, apparently!
Phil stayed with the company when NextPage was acquired first by FAST Search and Transfer and then later when FAST was acquired by Microsoft in 2008. He is now a Senior Software Developer in Microsoft's Business Division (the division responsible for Sharepoint and the Office range of products). Phil has travelled far from our tiny business in Tunbridge Wells and we wish him and his family every success in the future.
Kath Welland (neé Anderson) was Catalysts' original Girl Friday at our offices in Tunbridge Wells. She tells us she enjoyed her time, especially as we did not keep her too busy to prevent her organising her social and sporting life on company time. Kath was a keen horse rider, lacrosse player and tri-athlete - so the social and sporting organisation was pretty important to her! It never caused us any problems so it clearly was not too much. She left Catalysts when she worked out what she really wanted to do with her life.
She first did a foundation course in Kent and won her place to study (successfully) in Coventry to become a Chartered Physiotherapist. She went on to live and work in the Coventry area and more recently she has extended her qualifications to include Veterinary Physiotherapy as well. This has enabled her to combine her career with her love of horses and she now works quite a lot with racehorses.
We lost touch with Kath on a regular basis for quite some time though Christmas cards were always exchanged. Latterly though, with Kath now married to Neal Welland and with a young daughter and an adopted Labrador puppy, she has been in touch regularly with Nigel Phelps who lives now in Rugby - having moved there from Kent in 1992 - as well as with Phil Bacon, albeit by email to Utah. Kath says she feels that Catalysts provided her with several business and life skills that have been of value since she left. Presumably how to misuse company time without being caught! We wish her every happiness. |
