Who Is Jon Volks?

For all you stalkers out there I’ll save you the trouble of doing a background check on me and lay it all for you. I spent my entire life growing  up in the city of Glens Falls, NY which is located about an hour’s drive North of Albany, NY. Glens Falls is a wonderful place to live, the Adirondack State Park is about a five minute drive down the road which gives me access to a lot of great hiking and wilderness experience. A lot of my time is split between walking around in the woods and playing around on the computer. Although they seem like opposites, they are both a large part of my life and I can’t imagine being without either of them.

Schooling

I attended Glens Falls High School from 1997 to 2001. My interest (obsession) with computers started during these years. I initially taught myself about computers by just exploring the ins and outs of my old 386 running Windows 3.1. Glens Falls High School didn’t offer much in terms of computer courses during my attendance. I took typing and data entry during my sophmore year which taught me how to type without looking and some basics of data processing. My junior year, a new 2 year class sponsored by Cisco Networks started which focused on learning the ins and outs of networks and Cisco routers. This also gave me my first opportunity to work in group environments with fellow students who were passionate about computers as I was. Now I have to admit, some of our group activities were trying to figure out a way to get through the security of the computers so we could surf the web and listen to music.

The biggest leap forward during my high school years was during my senior year when a new class started which concentrated in web design. This class is when I was first introduced to Frontpage and taught how HTML code is formatted. I really enjoyed this class as it was taught by a favorite teacher in Glens Falls High School, Mr. Amberger. During my tenure at GFHS, he took on many of the new computer related classes being offered and did a good job at teaching us something new.

To further my education I went to SUNY New Paltz and majored in computer science. I entered New Paltz wanting to learn programming and had some hopes in becoming a video game developer. While there I learned a lot about different programming techniques in C++ and Java. Although I learned a lot about programming, I never really thought I learned what I needed to be useful in the real world. I blame half of that on myself and half on the school. I graduated in 2005 with a degree in computer science but was unsure of what I was going to do next.

Post graduation I went back to my web development roots and began learning PHP. I picked it up relatively quickly as my background in C++ was very similar to it and w3schools.com has an excellent beginners tutorial.

Job Experience

Throughout college I worked at Toys R Us to make some extra cash. I absolutely loved working at Toys R Us. Stocking shelves was easy, simple and had a lot less stress in my life. While I was their, I did a little bit of web work on the side. I took over my brothers website (adkwaterski.com) and worked on my own website as well. I continued my education by self teaching myself PHP and other web standards.

In the Fall of 2005 I was hired at Niche Concepts, LLC in Troy, NY as a web programmer. This job ended up being a jack of all trades type of a job. Even though I did work on their website (JonesCAM.tv) I had many other responsibilities as people left the company. I stepped in to help maintain the company. I learned how to to edit video, I ran the sales department and also was product manager. I learned a lot while working for this company, I owe a lot to the president, Michael Jones who taught me a lot of things about business. Being a jack of all trades caught up with me after a while and burned me out. I really wanted to concentrate my development on the web and was just not getting enough of it.

In Fall of 2007 I left Niche Concepts and joined Mannix Marketing, Inc in Glens Falls, NY. I am currently still employed by Mannix Marketing as a Web Applications Developer. At Mannix Marketing I am continuing by education in web development by learning ASP, Coldfusion and CSS. With Mannix Marketing I have had the opportunity to go to a conference in Washington D.C. to learn Coldfusion which I absolutely love. I am still looking to continue my education. If anybody knows of a good Masters Degree program with a concentration in Web Programming please let me know. I have been trying to find one but with no success.

Hobbies

I would have to say my biggest hobby is videogames. I play a decent amount of them on my PC and PS3. Currently I am playing Lord of the Rings Online which is a MMORPG that takes up way to much of my time. But its so much fun. The amount of content that is in this game is enormous. If you play on Meneldor Server, look me up, my toon is Gilidir. Besides video games, my other hobby is hiking. I love to hiking in the Adirondack Mountains. There is nothing like being on top of a mountain overlooking a beautiful lake or landscape.