Hello from Kevin O'Brien

I'm very happy to be working with Karin and Althea in presenting this course. Karin suggested I tell you a little about myself, so here is a brief biography and description.

I was involved in politics earlier in my life, including a presidential campaign. In the course of this, I got very interested in problems of economics, started reading about it, and finally went to graduate school to get my doctorate. I was a full-time professor of economics when the personal computer thing started to take off, and got interested in computers. Then, as the Web started to take off, I saw the potential for using the Web and online methods to help in my classes. My first web site was created using Netscape Gold, and was frankly awful. But I stuck with it, and learned how to do things right (and as Karin has already told you, learning how to code with a text editor is how you learn to do things right.) My current college Web site can be found at:

http://www.cuaa.edu/~obrienk/

I got involved with my wife in creating Web sites for corporate clients, and in consulting work. At the College, I found myself involved more and more with computers, and found I had less time for teaching economics. I am currently the Help Desk Director, and recently, Webmaster. We are in the midst of an extensive redesign of this 1,000 page site to comply with accessibility concerns, among other things, but none of that work is at the stage where I can display any of it yet, unfortunately. I am part of a faculty group that is creating a new major in Information Systems Management, and as part of that I am creating a course in Web Site Administration. This course will cover some amount of HTML, as well as server management issues, optimization, accessibility, graphic design, etc. So I have a certain amount of experience in this area, which I hope I can share with you.

Aside from the "business" concerns, I sing with a semiprofessional choral group, do a lot of gardening, listen to books on tape (just one more thing Karin and I seem to have in common), and have four dogs and a cat. My wife and I have been married for 20 wonderful years, and it keeps getting better. We never had children, so our "zoo" seems to take that place in our lives, and we lavish a great deal of affection on those animals.

I'm very excited about this course, and I hope you are as well. Creating Web sites can be a lot of fun.

Kevin B. O'Brien