About Us

About Us

OK its just me with a little help from my friends.

Rick Coleman in a previous life

There's more information here than you really need to know, but here you go...

Born in Marton a 5th generation New Zealander I was raised on a farm, trained in horticulture, then parks and recreation management at Lincoln College, I worked as gold panning tourist guide at Shantytown, and became self-employed market gardener, then two years as a bar manager before a short stint overseas...

...which turned out to be well over 7 years on the road. Employed as a motorcycle courier and dispatch rider in London involved in delivery of consular services, banking deposits, media scanning deliveries and reprographic services. It was while working with Screaming Colour reprographics I first glimpsed the future in the form of a dedicated ISDN line sending gigabytes of data down wires cables. It occured to me that an office could be anywhere there were cables.

While later in Western Australia it was assay laboratory assistant, underground airleg miner, hydrodynamics technician (alright then - it was as pump boy) then from field technician in open pit gold mining to exploration geologists assistant on what later became the Cawse Nicket Project.

 

I returned to New Zealand and wrote about many of my experiences which were subsequently published in newspapers and magazines, I was then employed to write the cover stories for a new tabloid sized rural newspaper distributed to the top of the South Island and the West Coast.

Rick Coleman in a previous life

So how on earth did I become a website designer you ask? Well I've always been creative artistically and theatrically and then later as a writer which led to a desire to extend my reach to editors wherever in the world they may be. The internet was an obvious answer.

As fate would have it I met a friend who I'd couriered with in London who had taught himself HTML and was working on the Telecom business website. I said, "If you can do that I can do that, please tell me how to do it." He kindly installed some computer programmes for me, gave me the 'Hello world!' lesson, pointed me to web development tutorial websites and provided a very convenient 0800 number that went to his mobile phone. An on call mentor.

That was in 1998. Website design and maintainance paid better than journalism and travel writing did and my office is now anywhere my laptop is plugged into those cables I mentioned earlier ;-)

Today I live mainly in Italy with my young family, Frida (10 years) and Dylan (5 years) and their remarkable mother Stefania.

 


 

by   Site Productions