Let me start out by telling you a little bit about myself and why I started Biffco International.  My given name is Thomas Walton Johnson, but everybody calls me Biff.  As you can see from my resume if you click on this link to view my resume in PDF format, I've been in the Information Technology field for over eighteen years.

Throughout those years, I've been a hands on IT Manager and a software consultant.  The past two years I've been developing a Point of Sale program (Biffco POS) and refining and marketing the FaxImagination software that I developed with one of my former co-workers.

The idea of helping small business and home users came when my sister downloaded the recommended Windows Updates and when she restarted her computer she got nothing but the blue screen of death.  My solution was to upgrade her system from Windows ME to Windows 2000 (she was running on an older PC) leaving all of her data intact.  I wondered what do people who don't have a loving brother like myself do when they're confronted with the same sort of problems.  Pay for a support call where they'll spend hours on the phone and probably won't get their problem resolved?  Research the problem on the internet at the office and then try the solution at home (day after day after day)?  I decided, why not have them call Biff.

I've devoted myself to coming to your business or home on your schedule to get your computer hardware, software or networks back in working order, and you will have the added assurance that nobody is looking into your personal data.

And what's this about the 'International' in biffco international?  Chalk that one up to a twisted sense of humor.  Anyway, I've visited both Canada and Mexico.

It started in college at Purdue University where I was required to take two courses in computer programming.  This was back in the days where you would sit at a typewriter which would create a punch card for each line of your code.  From there you would place your stack of cards in the card reader and wait for your program output to be manually placed in the output bins.  I loved it!

Two years after I graduated from college my father came back from a Computer Show the winner of a door prize - a VIC-20 computer.  Thankfully, he gave it to me.  I hooked it up to my compact television and the geek in me came alive.  I soon bought the cassette tape drive accessory so that I could store the programs that I was writing.

From there it was a natural graduation to the Commodore 64 where I was able to add a 5 1/4" floppy drive which held 170 kb of data!  I took my Commodore and my television into work where I was the quality control manager for a coffee roaster.  With the Commodore 64 I was able to produce statistical reporting on the weight variances and the residual oxygen level of the coffee pouches.

Then it happened, my geekishness had been spotted.  The president of the company had purchased a Compaq Portable Computer (35 lbs) and an IBM PC and he had no idea what to do with them.  I set up some spreadsheets for him to use and taught him how to use the word processing program.  Two months later I was moved into the Data Processing department as a programmer.  There went the degree in Industrial Management.  Six months after that I was promoted to Data Processing Manager.