Orcas Net, Inc.

Bill Wulff

Before Bill founded Orcas Net in 1996, he and a partner operated Laguna Software, developing wholesale distribution software and point-to-point communication systems. Laguna Software's customer list included Campbell Soup, the Red Lion Hotel chain, the London Underground Railroad, and Gaines Pet Foods. Prior to Laguna, in the mid-70's, Bill computerized his own wholesale fastener distribution company. That successful implementation marked the start of Bill's love affair with computers and the beginning of his software career.

His leisure pursuits include crabbing, traveling and classic cars.

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Stuart Selig

Stuart is our CTO and lead systems engineer. He is responsible for converting ideas to reality. He literally knows computers inside and out, with experience ranging from board design to network and communication design and implementation, to software development and implementation on a full spectrum of platforms. His profound understanding of all related systems allows him to craft deceptively simple, elegant solutions to the complex requirements of our customers.

To most of us, however, his credentials (Electrical Engineer, Microsoft Certified Professional) pale in comparison with another Stuart-talent—his fluency in Layman’s English.

In his spare time, Stuart follows his son Kyle around to auditions, callbacks, performances and awards.

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John Wulff

John Wulff graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in Informatics, the science of gathering, classifying, storing, retrieving, and manipulating information. Both in college and after graduating, John worked for several small companies developing web-based applications. In 2009, he joined Orcas Net, where he applies his information science background developing robust, pragmatic, elegant applications.

In 2006 John began working professionally with Ruby on Rails, then an emerging technology. He has since become very involved in the Ruby community, attending many conferences and contributing to Rails' development. Since joining Orcas Net, John has developed and deployed several Rails applications.

John has always had a strong interest in the securities industry. As a high-school freshman he started his school's investment club. He's enjoyed the opportunity to combine his passion for software development with his interest in finance.

John lives in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. He walks to work at our offices on Dock Place where he works all by himself, until Dan moves to Seattle.

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Kate Birchell

Kate moved to Orcas from Eugene, Oregon in 2004. Prior to joining us, she had worked in technical support, retail management and administrative support. She's proved herself to be so thorough and quick that we've bestowed upon her the title of "Download Queen", a lifelong appointment! She thrives on organizing data and solving problems.

In her free time, Kate raises Tennessee Fainting Goats and enjoys sewing, painting, and creating jewelry.

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Paul Carrick

Paul Carrick studied Computer Science at California State University, Northridge, and has been involved in computers since 1977. Over his career he has served as Software Engineer, Technical Lead, Systems Administrator and Support Engineer in fields as diverse as networking, email, printing systems, web design, graphics, office automation and real-time systems. He has worked with such distinguished companies as Computer Associates, Lucent Technologies, The Equitable (also known as AXA) and Amazon.com. At Amazon.com Paul was one of the first software engineers in the warehouse group. He wrote most of the original software that Amazon.com uses to ship hundreds of thousands of packages a day and was awarded a "Just Do It" award for his accomplishments there.

His hobbies include music (both vocal and instrumental), photography, cooking and gardening.

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John Clancy

John Clancy received his masters degree in Criminal Justice from the School of Criminal Justice at the State University of New York at Albany in 1973. Since then he has gravitated to freelance writing and editing. He has written plays, fiction, technical manuals, numerous magazine articles and interviews and has edited for magazines, publishing companies and writers.

More recently, he has become a member of our dataVISION documentation team, helping to create the written and video help resources for our system. He is also actively involved in system testing and usability analysis.

A natural fool clown, John has been sharing the joy of improv with kids on Orcas since the early 1990's. He presents at an annual symposium for educational leaders dedicated to breakthrough results for children at the College of Education at the University of Oregon. And he is the co-founder of Improvissimo, an improv troupe which has brought its wildly spontaneous creativity both to the stage and into corporate settings for companies such as British Petroleum.

He says he feels incredibly grateful for the opportunity to live and raise a family on Orcas Island.

Orcas is grateful, too.

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Frieda Cron

Frieda's resume includes many years of legal secretarial and administrative assistant work. For Orcas Net, she creates fantastically complex interactive forms that appear to magically fill up with information from dataVISION and just as magically fill dataVISION up with information. Her precision, speed and endurance in updating customer web pages are legendary.

Frieda commutes to work on a wee little boat from a small neighboring island that is not served by a ferry. With air patrol provided by eagles and herons, and with seals, otters, and swimming deer in the HOV lane, her nontraditional commute has provided many interesting experiences, most of them involving fog, wind, snow, and rain in varying combinations. "Sort of like the postman," she says.

Besides boating, she enjoys walking, reading, music, and photography.

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Shaun Grady

While still in high school, Shaun immersed himself in the art, craft and science of web design. He freelanced for a small web design company, developing his technical skills.

After high school, he recieved a Bachelor of Fine Arts in graphic design at The Art Institute of Seattle, gaining a solid grounding in the fundamental techniques and concepts of graphic design, and enhancing both his artistic and his web skills.

Born and raised in Seattle, Shaun moved to San Diego County, where his continually expanding technical and artistic abilities are bringing a contemporary, state-of-the-art functionality and look-and-feel to Orcas Net's web presence.

On sunny days, he enjoys riding his motorcycle.

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Daniel Grover

John Lennon said that "life is what happens when you are busy making other plans." If that is true, computers are Dan's life. He's been programming since he was in 7th grade. On the side, he served in the Marine Corps during the Gulf War as an Electronics Technician, received an AA in Liberal Arts from Mesa College in San Diego, and studied Cognitive Science at UCSD.

Dan currently lives in San Diego, where he is working on a program for storing and transporting sunshine for his upcoming move to Seattle.

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Michael Hurwicz

Michael is the lead writer on our dataVISION documentation team, bringing his writing and technical skills to our written and video help resources. His writing career started with freelancing for the technical trade press around 25 years ago. He has delved into topics such as local area networking, wide area networking, the Internet, web graphics, Macromedia Flash, discreet 3ds max, streaming media, ColdFusion, wireless technologies and security. He has also written several books and created video tutorials on web graphics and 3D animation.

When not at the computer Mike can often be found singing locally or even as far away as Florida. Mostly, Mike performs with his partner Sharon Abreu but is also with the Parking Lot Angels, and was the lead in a local performance of Godspell. He is the son of Leonid Hurwicz, recipient of the 2007 Nobel Prize for economics.

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Brook Meinhardt

Brook was born and raised in New York City. The daughter of two architects, she was surrounded by art as a child. She majored in art at The High School of Music and Art in Harlem, studied at The School of Visual Arts, The Art Students League and Cooper Union, and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design. A freelance illustrator since college, Brook's work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, TIME, and The Wall Street Journal. She has also done work for The Gap, MTV, Pottery Barn, Old Navy, Barney's New York and Sephora. Her perceptive, often whimsical illustrations add an invaluable element to our system documentation.

When not at the drawing table, Brook spends her time trying to escape the quiet natural beauty of our island and figuring out which of her kids is cuter.

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John Treankler

John Treankler received his BS in Information and Computer Science from the University of California at Irvine in 1976, while working for Pick and Associates (later Pick Systems) as an operating system programmer. After implementing the Pick OS on Honeywell hardware to launch the Ultimate Corporation, John started his own software development and marketing company, JET Systems, Inc. The "JET" word processor was the premier word-processing system for Pick and Pick-like computers in the '80s. After selling JET to VMark in 1992, John branched out into web-based client/server technologies connected to Pick-like server databases.

He lives near the small rural community of Salmon, in eastern Idaho, where he enjoys fishing, hunting, and boating on the Salmon River.

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Courtney Wulff

Courtney Wulff is the office manager at Orcas Net’s Ballard office. She is originally an Orcas Islander. Before coming to Orcas Net Courtney worked in commercial property management and residential real-estate sales. Courtney received a degree in Sociology from the University of Washington. Courtney is married to Orcas Net Vice President, John Wulff, and is happy to be part of the family business.

In her free time, Courtney spends time with her dog, Buster, and dabbles in art in various mediums. She and John are enthusiastic home cooks and gourmet eaters.

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