My  name is Tom McLaughlin...my nickname is tomax, hence if you take my first and last name and squish them together, you will get "tomax".  People ask me what "sign" I was born under, I always tell them "Maternity Ward".

I used to be in the Air Force at Cold Lake, Alberta and moved down to Calgary in Dec '90 taking small odd jobs and decided in the fall of '91 to attend Southern Alberta Institute of Technology.

I signed up for the Computer Science Programming course but wasn't really a programmer, and switched over to the Business Management and Marketing department.  I would do some web pages, computer tutoring and troubleshooting to get free meals! I also signed up at Geocities and became a Community Leader, overseeing 500-1000 websites and helping people with their sites during my time at college.

SAIT grad, 1995
Business & Marketing

I graduated in 1995 and started selling mutual funds and life insurance. Our office was the top seller in Canada and things where really coming together for me.  But I got out later that year not really enjoying always fighting other insurance agents on how they took advantage of clients.

In 1996 I was hired on by Schlumberger Oilfield Services in Wireline operations center in Calgary. I had to learn a new computer language, VAX/VMS and handle thousands of dollars worth of information at the same time....but with the low oil prices in 1998, they decided to lay off quite a few people and I was one of them.

Deciding to do something with my future, I took my severance pay and enrolled in night courses for Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) certification and during the day I went to a small business course. While I was doing the day and night courses I also managed to attain my PC Hardware (A+) certification at this time.

Talk about not having a life!  My wife only saw me when I came up for food while I was studying...

I was hired the day after my small business course was over to be a MCSE teacher's aide at Olds College. Had a great time, I think sometimes I learned more from the students then what I taught them!

In the fall of 2000, I enrolled into a wireless e-Business course taking Visual Basic, XML, InterDev, SQL, Unix, and other programs. Talk about becoming a geekenoid or what? But it's opened doors and I'm teaching all over Alberta.

I have taught at Drake, CTC, Netcor, ATTA, Norquest College, Red Deer College, and currently at Bow Valley College in Calgary. I have also done a few on-site training sessions at various locations across the province in between.

- Visit Tom's biography section! 

- Tom is on FaceBook: 
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=300782&id=846995857#/tomax7?ref=profile

- Tom in Dodge Ram Commercial