Average Joe Restoration

• You used to ride around in the back seat when you were a child; you acquired it from your uncle.
• You had one in high school; now it’s your graduating student’s turn to experience life through the windshield of a classic Mustang.
• You had purchased it new off the show room floor and have owned it ever since; now it’s time to relive the experience.

For me it was the culmination of a few things. I didn’t just wake up one morning and say “I’m going to get a Mustang to restore”; it was a progression from being around and loving and working on classic cars to being around and working with computers.

I have two real passions cool old cars and innovation, so I ventured off into technology on an opportunity to automate a time consuming inspection process, it was a few years before technology caught up with the vision that I had laid out but it was clear my transition was already on its course from cars to computers.

The technology transition made itself clear with the release of Microsoft's .NET Framework and the Tablet PC; now all of the requirements to fulfill the vision were in place aside from some talented developers to put the vision into bits and bytes . I knew that this project would require some sharp enthusiastic contributors and fortunately I found a developer that fit the bill; Carlos Santos of Black Belt Solutions who became the senior architect, and later Rajesh Barha and then Shawn Hemple.

It was a long 5 years on this project; Carlos and I modeled it out on a part time basis for a couple of years prior to getting a commitment from the company that we would finally go full time on it and get it to market. The following year and a half would be spent firming up the architecture and interface as well as bringing in new team members.

The last year and a half was still exciting and innovative but the passion for what we were doing was slowly being degraded by the business unit that it was developed for; they had a character over there in a high position that was a total unprofessional (you know what!). Ultimately his character and action led to the disintegration of the entire development team, Carlos being the first to pack his parachute and jump out of the plane, then Rajesh, and then Shawn; I was the last man standing.

I knew that if the business unit remained silent with no clear plan then I would eventually have to leave too; needless to say I was blind sided by what appeared to be a poorly executed layoff notifying me by email to stop work until further notice. The company went on to hire a new developer or two the same week and later paid a high price for me to come in and do some maintenance.

It was quite an enjoyable experience and quite gratifying to see the vision come from nothing to a full fledge product. I am grateful that I was given the opportunity to execute my vision and meet some really great developers along the way.

I found myself in a “midlife career crisis”, classic cars on one side and technology on the other with the pendulum on its way back over from the tech side to the car side; I literally woke up one morning and decided that I was going to get a Mustang to restore.

I still had to convince my wife that I was going to set up shop in the garage and I had a lot to think about; where would I find the car, what about tools, how would I set up the garage and how will I fund the project. I had a pretty good premonition that I wasn’t the only one out there facing these same questions and decided that I would publish the process so others may find value and knowledge in all that is published and experienced throughout the project.