In This Section:
Who We Are | How We Work
 

Who's Who at Oak Bay Softrends

When you hire our company, we throw in the personalities for free. Here are the people who make Oak Bay Softrends hum:
Steven Barer
Peter Cross
Steve Cooper
Doug Hilton
Noam Sturmwind
David Wikström

Steven Barer
You might expect the founder and leader of a software company to be a bit of a propeller-head, but that's not what you get with Steven.

"I'm not the whizziest technical guy, my strength is in understanding and resolving problems that businesses face."

Steven describes himself as "a person who listens, understands business, identifies issues, and manages a team of highly competent specialists who create solutions that work." He assesses the business proposition up front, ensuring that members of the team are always working on solutions that deliver value. He thrives on business issues, process, workflow. He's the guy who makes sense of chaos.

Of all his business achievements, Steven is most proud of building a tight, intelligent team - a team that really works collaboratively, and really has integrity and honesty. "There's no glitz or overstatement here. We work closely together with our clients, bringing real value to their business - what you see is what you get".

Peter Cross
Peter's unofficial title is director of development. We're not big on titles at Oak Bay Softrends, but what this means in the trenches is Peter plays the technical supporting role on a host of projects, as well as the lead developer on a handful.

Whether spending time with clients, developing solutions or helping other team members, Peter's favorite place is mulling over complex problems and coming up with elegant solutions that make a positive difference for our clients.

Peter enjoys the complex demands of his work, especially when his efforts benefit the users of a solution. "To me the biggest charge I get from my work is when I can automate a time consuming task for a client. I think that computers should be doing the boring work. People have more important stuff to do."

If Peter weren't doing FileMaker development, he'd be a full time DJ and music re-mixer. Peter could very easily take over a club with his infectious dance mixes and is always looking for the next great tune. Have a party coming up or just looking for some great mixes? Peter's the man!

Steve Cooper
Some of our clients see a lot of Steve. He gets involved early in a project, when the focus is on understanding the business and conducting a needs analysis. He then takes this information and designs and programs software solutions. "I enjoy getting to know how the client's business operates, plus having the creativity to come up with a solution that meets their needs.

"I spent a long time in project management before becoming a software developer. I think this is the ideal career for me. I can't think of anything else I'd sooner do. Unless someone wants to pay me to go skiing."

Doug Hilton
It was a chance meeting, the nerve for change, and some positive karma that landed Doug Hilton at Oak Bay. Doug's consulting business of 10 years was contracted by corporations like BC Hydro and Motorola. By all accounts he loved having his own company and the challenges of working some very large, complex development projects. Now he's enjoying the intimacy and camaraderie of a small team, and the chance to have close personal contact with small business clients. He describes joining Oak Bay not so much as a career change, but a lifestyle change.

For Doug, change is good. So good that he does it for fun - in his own improv theatre troupe! "Software development means you have to plan, anticipate, be thorough and meticulous. In improv theatre you don't know what will happen. You have to learn to trust your own deep intuition, and you have to trust other people. Learning to be playful, flexible and interacting outside your normal persona is liberating!"

It was Noam who met Doug at an improv theatre workshop, and suggested he contact Steve. Not knowing why, or where it would lead, Doug picked up the phone. And the rest, as we say, is history.

Noam Sturmwind
Noam is our official tinkerer. An enviable position, really, as he gets to explore new technologies and plug-ins that might enhance our customized FileMaker solutions. When not tinkering, Noam helps design and program custom solutions, working with our clients to ensure that our designs work for them. Both activities reflect Noam's innate curiosity and love of learning.

"If I wasn't here, I'd either be in university - perhaps studying physics or astronomy - or I'd be travelling. But to be honest, I'm too happy working here to think about doing anything else right now."

David Wikström

“Filemaker is a very personal thing—every developer has his accent,” says developer David Wikström. Of course, David knows accents—he was born in southern Sweden, and comes to Vancouver by way of Paris, France.

“I’m a very curious person; I could live anywhere,” but it’s good news for Oak Bay that he moved here in 2008, and discovered that this company was a hand-in-glove fit for his experience and philosophy.

David has the resumé of a classic FileMaker developer: he started out dabbling, improving a local filemaker project while working on a Ph.D. in 1996, and has honed and broadened his skills ever since. He’s now a firm believer in best practices, and always ensures that his data is well-structured and his entities well-defined.

For our clients, David tries to anticipate their problems and future growth in his development. “You have to leave possibilities open for the future, and ensure the software can continually embrace the inevitable changes.”