I have always enjoyed and been good at Mathematics and when I finished Year 12, I looked for a way to turn my interest into a career. I started with a science degree, majoring in Mathematics, at UQ. Then in late 1986 I was offered and accepted a job at OPCOM, an Operations Research and Software Development company.

Since then my career, and OPCOM, have gone from strength to strength. OPCOM started as a small company doing whatever work came along. However, as we have grown, we have focused heavily on three core products: IPTIS, PLANZ and OPCrew.
IPTIS is an Integrated Public Transport Information System. It is the backbone of the TransInfo service accessed in Brisbane by phone and internet as well as similar services in Perth, Auckland and many locations in the UK.

PLANZ automatically designs transportation networks to move mail between mail centres. OPCrew determines the optimal crew schedules for operating public transport services. All of these systems have a core of advanced mathematical algorithms and about one fifth of OPCOM’s employees are heavily involved in algorithm development.

Mathematics has been very good to me but the most important thing is that it has been fun, and that I still enjoy maths, both for its practical applications and for its beauty.