Bill writes: "I began my career in the early 1990's, originally an Electronic Engineering major and, soon
after, the U.S. Navy. I soon found myself in a shut down engineering firm and was too stubborn to take
anything less. My shipmate introduced me to VB 3.0 and Access 2.0 and, for the next few months, I
found myself learning everything I could about VB. I began developing a phonebook program using VB
and MS Access. I would program 12 to 14 hours a day, including all nighters or until my hands got
numb. I read every book I could on VB, many of which were references and how to's. Everything I
wanted to do in VB I was able to, thanks to the language. After four months of steady learning, I landed
a contract position writing VB software to control data acquisition modules – luckily the majority of the
work was with VB and Access. I thought I knew everything after that. I earned a grand a week and soon
forgot about school. For my first three years I worked very hard and put in lots of hours, and I bought
and read even more books. Books like Dan Appleman's Programmer's API, which I didn't understand for
over a year after I bought it. As soon as Wrox books came out I was hooked. My first book was the
Revolutionary Guide to Visual C++. I liked the style as well as the straight forward information not found
anywhere else. As the years have passed, I have found learning new and other types of technology
much easier. I found it just takes time, dedication, and some common sense to succeed in this business.
I am the Technical Lead in my current position, introducing project methodology, new technologies,
standards, and training to development teams. I have spent some time consulting and have been
exposed to technologies such as ASP, Delphi, Pascal, COM, C/C++, SQL, Java, ADO, Visual Basic,
and now .NET. I currently live in Sacramento, California, and can be contacted via e-mail at
bforgey@vbcentral.net."
Thanks goes out to Wrox Press, Paul, Richard, Rob, Laura, these are wonderful people to work
with. Also thanks to the team of technical reviewers.
I'd also like to thank Desiree for being so forgiving for all those late nights and lost moments. I
could never write the words to express my feelings about you.
