The Founder is the Author of most pages on this website. He lives in Angus, Ontario, and tends to work remotely online from home, which is very common these days. He has diverse work backgrounds, beginning part-time in the 1970's as a paper boy with The Winnipeg Free Press, which was a great way to meet and learn about people, and how to interact well with customers. This was followed by various part-time retail and hospitality industry jobs in Calgary while completing high school. Included in this diversity of employment and experience, the Founder attended most of the first year, of the two year Telecommunications Technology Program at The Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) in Calgary from Sept 1980 to Feb 1981. However, finding that calculus and transistor physics did not agree with him, he withdrew from the program. The next day he started work for a live fresh water tropical fish importer and wholesaler. Then starting Unviversity in Sep, and working part time for The Hudson's Bay Company's Pet Department until that Department was phased out. Then he worked part time and as a summer job in a book store.
The Founder did however continue to maintain an interest in computers and systems and even belonged to a computer Club in Calgary. He was one of the few who operated a 'dial up' Bulletin Board System (BBS) in Calgary in the 1980s with an Atari 600 XL 300 Kbps modem and a floppy drive. In essence these were the forerunners of websites. Later in early 1987 on his student desk in the Army bararcks, he used a mail order kit to piggy back a mini mother board on the main mother board, then solder and rewire the motherboard of the Atari 600 XL from 16 Kbps of RAM to 64 Kbps of RAM!
WRS Web Solutions Inc. was founded by Captain Warren R. Spence, OCT, B.Ed. P.Log, CD, serving at the time in Her Majesty's Canadian Armed Forces. This was done near the end of his service, as a side line (these days often termed a 'side hustle'), as part of his second career planning. The aim was to explore offering web design, web hosting & related services as a potential second career. This did become a second career and later expanded to include home internet plans in Canada.
OCT means Ontario Certified Teacher, a certification granted by The Ontario College of Teachers. B.Ed. means a four year Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Calgary in 1985 (and no the Army did not pay for his degree, rather he worked part-time and summers in The Militia to pay for it, which at times meant rucksack on back, rifle in hand at places like the Infantry School at Combat Training Centre (CTC) Gagetown in New Brunswick. If there was a harder way to earn money some of those three summers, he failed to find it.) P.Log. means Professional Logistican, a designation granted by The Logistics Institute. CD refers to The Canadian Forces’ Decoration (CD), in this case with clasp (bar). The Founder was also awarded the Special Service Medal (SSM), with NATO bar.
In total the Founder served with the Canadian Armed Forces from June 1983 to Feb 2013. This included service with 14 (Calgary) Service Battalion, part of 'The Militia' from 1983 to 1986. He joined as a Private in 1983, did six weeks of basic training in Dundrun, SK, including canoeing down the South Saskatchewan River to Saskatoon, (then was temporarily licensed and employed as a trucker driving Army trucks in the field, and later became a supply technician).
Later in 1983 he was Commissioned as an Officer then soon after put on a Driver's Course so he actually become qualified to drive Army trucks, (which Officer's do not normally ever drive), but the two weeks employment over Christmas was very welcome for a University student! As a new Logitics Officer, this was followed by two weeks at the Airborne Training Centre in Edmonton, AB, but did not involve jumping out of serviceable airplanes (or anything else), but it did involve a lot of time running through the condemned obstacle course and other ammusements. It was intended to 'prepare' one for the follow on training. This was followed days later by Infantry Officer training, which seemed to include at times, the timed running though a brand new obstacle course in Gagetown, NB - one made of concrete! The summer was rounded out with an Army exercise in Dundurn, SK, and a military convoy road move back to Calgary. Then back to University!
The summer of 1985 in Borden, ON, (right after completeing his Teaching Degree), involved learning all one needs to know, and more about being a Logistics Officer on the European WW III battlefield, in an Army Corp environment (Land Field Force Logistics - LFFL), followed by the Supply Officer course. This was followed days later by a Brigade level exercise in SK. That was immediately followed by leading an 'armed' convoy road move to Calgary, transporting a shipment of military weapons. Then as a civilian working fulltime in a warehouse, then retail, while staying part-time with The Militia, and working on a transfer to the Regular Force, as the economy was in very rough shape and there not being any Teaching positions available to get hired into.
Then Commissioned a second time in 1986, not long after having as part of the conditions of his transfer to the Regular Forces component of The Canadian Armed Forces, to 'relinquish his Commission as an Officer in The Canadian Armed Forces, as well as his rank of Lieutenant, in order to to become an Officer in The Canadian Armed Forces', so he could start over as an Officer Cadet at Basic Officer Training in BC, with no credit for military qualifications, they would need to be redone. For anyone who is curious, yes both Commissioning Scrolls contained the exact same text and both were signed by Her Majesty and sealed with The Great Seal of Canada. After completing his military service, being still entitled to use his military rank, he added the customary 'Retired' to his formal signature block, indicating that he was no longer 'on active service'. Though in practice most of the time he simply goes by his first name.
Later on his military service included eight years in National Defence Headquarters (NDHQ). He was mostly employed as a Functional Analyst on Defence computer systems. This included at times a degree of involvement in system to system interfaces, system security, GUI Design, SQL, database design, staffing user DND 199 Software Change requests and explaining the same to computer programmers and Database Administrators (DBAs), and other database topics. This included both mainframe based computer systems as well as Local Area Network (LAN) based systems, some using Oracle SQL Net distributed databases interfaced to a much larger database on the defence mainframe, and security of the same. During this period The Department upgraded his computer related skills and qualifications, to meet their requirements.
Part of this time period involved implementation, and being responsible for all aspects of a Defence Department subsystem of seven LANs, with approximately 900 users including a mixture of civilian employees, contractors and military members, over two provinces and four geographically separate buildings, including direct customer support at the cubicle level, database server backups, care of Banyan Vines comms servers and custom built AT&T Star Server E quad CPU database servers, each with dedicated separate network communications lines and modems to a defence mainframe that was some [redacted] hours drive away in [redacted], as well as troubleshooting, arrange system enhancements and implementations, and briefing management. This subsystem also gave these uses their very fist access to word processing and email capabilities, moving them away from a strictly paper based office work environment, which was both major technological change for them, as well as a major cultural change that they had to adapt to, and be supported in both major changes and beyond. (That system has long since been replaced by a newer different system.)
This, coupled with his earlier civilian computer experiences, laid a firm foundation for the founding of WRS Web Solutions Inc. including its later expansion from web design and web hosting into the internet service provider field. The Founder having other diverse skills and qualifications in other fields proved to be of further benefit to WRS Web Solutions Inc.
The Founder's military service employment included service with an Infantry Battalion, a few other Service Battalions and a Supply Battalion. Through the military and The Department of National Defence, the Founder successfully gained many qualifications (some more than once) and skills, some were rather unusual, including as an Army Officer becoming trained & qualified by The Air Force as an 'Aircraft Fluids Servicing Officer' to meet a requirement to 'be responsible for keeping visiting aircraft from falling out of the sky'. He was even at one time employed as Finance Office (without the formal qualification). He served as an Adjutant three times in different places, and once as an G3 Operations Duty Officer in a Divisional HQ, and once as a G4 Ops in another HQ, once as a Liaison Officer in a Brigade HQ, twice as a Base Supply Officer (two different Bases), and even a Decontamination Platoon Commander, and other varied positions. He gained some French language ability.
His responsibilities varied greatly from time to time, from position to position, and location to location, and at one time included minding a war stock of main battle tanks, working in uniform in bilingual support of an Election, supporting the 1988 Winter Olympics, and being a Base United Way Coordinator, and more. Along the way he did a few Major's jobs (or traditionaly Major's jobs now downgraded to a Captain's job so that he or others could fill them) as a Captain. He even found himself to some degree responsible at times for a large number of visiting Russian, Ukrainian, and other country military officers (at the sametime), of various religions, most of whom out ranked him rather a lot and were not fluent in either English or French, plus the occasional foreign Minister of Defence.
The Founder remains in good standing as an OCT with The Ontario College of Teachers. That can easily be verified by anyone, on their website. He is currently a P.Log. retired member of The Logistics Institute, and such certification can easily be verified. He is a 27 plus year Veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces, proof is available upon request, but cannot be verified online. The Founder is a church going man, a family man, and belongs to two serious fraternities and has filled various (unpaid) positions within both, you may ask about them if you wish. The Founder is currently 'Founder, President & CEO' of WRS Web Solutions Inc. Additional information may be available on the Corporate website www wrswebsolutions com.