Beginning my career
I began my web career as a web designer hand-coding HTML before WYSIWYG editors existed. After adding a degree in computer science to my art degree, became a web producer, then a web project manager.
New technology is something that always interests me. In my most recent position I saw that chat and SMS technology would become the next important way to engage customers, I took the initiative to learn how to build chatbots, created a working demo and pitched it to management; I also discovered a competitor was planning to launch a similar technology. This caused the organization to pivot their strategic direction.
I originally studied art, getting my BFA in 1992. Not long after, I decided to go back to college at night to pursue a degree in computer science, which I received in 2002.
Before the web
![john at his desk](https://i0.wp.com/jthomaslynch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/SNNJ1-e1534042386131.jpg?resize=250%2C298&ssl=1)
I actually did stuff before the web! Since my original degree was in art, I started out as a paste-up artist. My first art-related job in college was doing paste-up for A&P. They had an art department in Paterson, NJ. I got a part-time summer job creating boards for newspaper ads for the entire northeast.
Later on, I would get another part-time job at the local newspaper, while taking art courses.
I made the transition to computers at work in my final year at college. At that time I got a job at a company that did the printing of pharmaceutical labels and inserts.
General minutia
I live in New Jersey with my wife, daughter and two cats. Well, they aren’t technically my cats, since I didn’t want cats, but they adopted me.