Van & Jody Vangor

He got his first one in 1983 and has been in love ever since.  He developed a passion for computers that long outlasted his first computer.  Between his Junior and Senior year in high school, Van took some computer programming classes at Florida Atlantic University.  This is where he got his first experience with IBM personal computers.  During his senior year in high school, he worked full time at a small hard drive company through the Diversified Cooperative Training program.  

After high school, he moved back to southwest Florida and enrolled at Manatee Community College and completed his AA Degree with a significant concentration in Computer Science courses, all the while working at any computer related job he could find.  (And those were hard to come by Southwest Florida in the mid to late ‘80s!)  He then moved on to the University of Central Florida where he gained a wealth of experience by working full time in the Computer Services Department.  He started in the PC Repair Shop for a couple of years and then was eventually promoted to the Administrative Network Services Group.  

He worked his normal job during the day, and overtime on any computer or technology related projects that other groups within the department needed help with on nights and weekends.  Somehow, he also managed to earn his Bachelor of Science Degree in General Studies with a Minor in Computer Science and Math and Business as the other two areas of concentration.  He worked with the Telecommunications Department learning how to run and implement new data and phone cables, with teams charged with installing large offices of computers from start to finish.  

UCF had a large variety of computer systems that had to interface with each other including IBM mainframes and minicomputers, Unix-based systems, and Novell fileservers.  This mixture of equipment gave Van an extensive range of network troubleshooting experience.  Those “learning” years have certainly paid off in that Van now has an exceptionally broad knowledge base of not only computers, but of the infrastructure and other technologies that they rely on. While working in the Administrative Network Services group, Van was able to achieve his Novell Certified Netware Engineer (CNE) Certification.  

In late 1995, Van took a job for a manufacturing plant in Wisconsin.  This involved migrating the company from an existing Manufacturing Resource Planning system (MRP) and helping the company develop a new one.  All the while, he maintained and expanded their existing Novell Network.  In early 1998, Van & Jody moved back to Florida, and Van went out and started working on his own.  That same year he became a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE).  Van has been providing technology support ever since.    

In his spare time, Van’s favorite thing to do is…yep, you guessed it…play video games.  He loves to have friends and family around the country log into one of the Internet Gaming Sites and join him for a game or two.

Jody Vangor

Jody’s computer experience starts in the mid to late 80’s when she had to utilize computers to pursue her studies in high school and college.  In fact, Van and Jody met in the computer lab at Manatee Community College.  In 1989, she completed her Associates Degree at MCC and moved to Orlando to continue her education at the University of Central Florida.  

She worked part time in the Financial Aid Office at the UCF while finishing her Bachelor’s degree.  After finishing her degree in 1991, she took a full time position in the Financial Aid Office.  She found that she liked adapting new technology and programs to getting her job done more efficiently.  

Whenever a new program needed to be brought into the office, Jody volunteered and usually got the task.  After she was comfortable with a particular program, she helped others in the office learn the program.  This is where she discovered that she had an aptitude for training others.  She also discovered that she enjoyed streamlining the existing practices to make them more efficient.  She continued to take classes at night at the local Vo-Tech to learn new programs such as PageMaker.  In late 1995, she moved to Wisconsin with Van to take a new job at a manufacturing plant.  Within a couple of weeks she was promoted to Materials Manager.  

While working as the Materials Manager, she helped improve the various business processes involved with balancing the customer schedules and materials ordering in order to keep the machines running on the floor.  She helped in the development of the new MRP system that was being developed at the time as well.  She also aided the staff with learning the new MRP program and other computers issues that arose.  In early 1998 she moved back to southwest Florida and took a job in the Financial Aid Office at the Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota.  While there she continued to learn new programs, improve existing business processes, and assist other staff with various program and computer-related problems.  

She also did a 2 year stint with H&R Block during tax season during this time period as well.  In 2000, she left Ringling to work with Van full-time at Vangor Computer Technologies.  She has continued to provide technology support ever since.  

One of the newer technologies that Jody enjoys is digital photography.  She takes lots of pictures with her Sony Mavica camera and organizes them into slide shows using ACDSee.  When she’s visiting relatives, she doesn’t bring a photo album but brings her laptop instead to show her latest pictures.