So, who is Graham?

So who is Graham? Good question. I have to admit I don't always know myself...

I grew up in a small Canadian city called Guelph. Located near the Canada's famous Great Lakes, it meant a childhood that was full of outdoor activities and trips. Summers were spent at the family cottage on a small lake near Lake Nipssing and at a boys' camp in Georgian Bay called Camp Hurontario. As a family, when I was older, we also cruised the islands of Georgian Bay on well-worn 31-foot sailboat that was the source of many adventures and stories. It was during these summers that I learned about swimming, canoeing, back country camping, and most importantly, sailing. Childhood sailing experiences included everything from small dinghies to full-sized keel boats that you can sleep on. Though I have to admit I'm not the greatest sailor, I still sail to this day.

After many years of working out of town, I am now very fortunate to be able to both live and work in my home town. The year 2010 was a year of change for me. It meant switching jobs to find something a little closer to home and taking the leap into home ownership. I'm now a proud owner a 140-year-old red brick Victorian house in downtown Guelph. The next several years will be spent fixing the place up and breathing some life into its many gardens. Who knew that home ownership would be so much work!

During the day, I work at a small consulting engineering firm that provides electrical, instrumentation/control, SCADA and system integration services, particularly for the municipal water/wastewater sector. My primary fields of expertise are automatic control system design, instrumentation, alarm system design, operator interface design, and overall system integration. I also do a fair amount of project management, requirements engineering, and user needs analysis. Throw in a some I/C (instrumentation/control) and SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) work, and you get an idea of what I do in a nutshell. It's a fun job because there are always new and challenging projects and you constantly get to work with interesting people.

I'm quite active with the International Society of Automation (www.isa.org), of which I have been a member since 2004. They are a volunteer organization comprised some 30,000 technicians, engineers and facility owners who have an interest in sharing knowledge about process automation. I am currently involved with their local Hamilton Section, the Water/Wastewater Industry Division, as well as helping with organizing their annual water/wastewater and automatic controls symposium. I also sit on the ISA18 Alarm Management and ISA101 Human Machine Interfaces standards commitees. Recently, I was asked to sit on the Standards Council of Canada's CSC/IEC/TC65 standards commitee for industrial automation based on my standards committee work with the ISA.

The year 2011 is an exciting year for me as, I will be appearing in print for the first time. The May/June 2011 issue of ISA InTech magazine will include an article on SCADA Standardization that I co-wrote with a friend of mine from the City of Guelph's Water Services department. We are also scheduled to present a paper on the same subject as a talk at the upcoming ISA water/wastewater and automatic controls symposium in St. Louis, Missouri, USA in June 22-23, 2011.

Though I finished my engineering degree a long time ago, I do have to admit I still like studying. At present I am slowly working towards a B.A. in history, one course at a time. As a part-time student at the University of Guelph, I take one night course every other semester. I think of it as having a weekly documentary where I can ask questions. Working on the arts courses is also a nice break from the engineering work I do during the day. Long term education goals? I'm not sure, but I'm not going to rule out doing a part-time MBA or MSc at some point.

I have been playing musical instruments since I was about five years old. My first instrument was recorder, which I played quite seriously up until I was I was in high school. Not familiar with recorder music from the Baroque Period (1600-1750)? The repertoire is actually quite extensive with many notable composers such as Bach, Handel, Cornelli, Telemann and Vivaldi. Two of my favourites are Cornelli's Concerto in C, and Telemann's Suite in A-minor. At fifteen I made the decision that I did not want to study Baroque/Early Music in university, so I stopped what had been my regime of practicing two hours a day. I don't play much recorder any more, mostly because I can't seem to find the time.

When I was twelve I picked up the clarinet and have been playing ever since. I am pretty much self-taught - back in Grade 7, I asked school music teacher for a fingering chart and never looked back. While I was in high school I played in the senior band, a jazz band that I directed, and a number of other ensembles. Ever since high school, I have been quite active on the community music scene and have played with various different community bands and orchestras over the years. I have also specialized on several of the harmony clarinets including: Eb clarinet, bass clarinet and contrabass clarinet. In addition to recorder and clarinet, I occasionally play a number of other instruments which include saxophone, trumpet and bassoon. Though I have to admit, I'm pretty lousy at playing the trumpet.

On a more personal and less organized front, I still manage to find some time for myself. On the water I still sail dinghies, and next summer I am looking forward to joining a community sailing club that is nearby. Back in 1999, I became a certified SCUBA diver and love exploring underwater. Other hobbies include European history, English/French literature, fixing musical instruments, mountain biking, going to the opera and trying to play golf. I also have to admit that do still enjoy catching the odd UFC/Boxing match.

Other photos: informal1 (low rez) | informal2 (medium rez) | formal (low rez) | formal (high rez) |