Tom Worthington: Educational and Career

Tom took just two years to pass his Queensland Secondary School Certificate 1972-73 and that sent him on to Griffith University 1975-1978 for 17 units Computing, Mathematics, Economics, Electronics and Environmental Studies. While he apparently never completed a degree, he was obviously eager to embrace the exciting new world of computers and programming.

Restless, he attended two more Universities where he was assesed (sic) as follows, University of Queensland 1981 for 2 units computing and after a period in the workforce, at the Australian National University 1985 for a further 2 units computing. He was to end his formal education with the piece of paper he'd always wanted, a Certificate in Audio Visual Video Production from Canberra TAFE 1989.

But damn it, a degree is hardly essential to run the nation's defence web site, and an AV certificate is all you need to start a war (see Tom's exciting I ran a war from Mallacoota ).

It's experience that counts when the <tags> are down, and Tom's got it. Starting on the machine of 1979, the DEC PDP11, he cut a swath as a Junior applications programmer in BASIC that took him on to a position he held for two years as a Collector of Public Monies and Paying Officer (Clerk class 1, Acting 2/3). The life in the Accounts section was heady but a future beyond Queensland beckoned.

In 1982 he headed for the ultimate seat of power and the big lights of Canberra. There he was to offer, modestly, Simple programming and programmer support to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, where in just four months of programming in NATURAL, COBOL and PL/1, he became a Computer Systems Officer Grade 1, with all the raw computing power he'd been looking for. Tom was in control of the User Database and was Data Dictionary Administrator for the Population Census ADABAS Database on the speedy FACOM M200 main frame.

The Tandy TRS-80 M200
nothing like the Fujitsu FACOM M200

The next two years as Computer Systems Officer Grade 2 where pivotal in the formation of Tom's career. He added the skills needed to program in SAS on an IBM computer main frame, and after a six months break to study and re-evaluate his career, he moved up to Computer Systems Officer Grade 3 for a brief five months when he had charge of five staff. Whether it was the supervision experience or Tom's desire for fair play, the position at the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman as Information Systems Administrator (Administrative Services Officer, Class 8) was next to fall to the steam roller that was his career path. The implemention of word processing on a national Convergent Technologies multi-processor network was a heavy and thankless task.

Always quick to spot a digital trend, Tom was attracted at this time by the gloss of multimedia. He says,
"I noticed that "multimedia" was becoming fashionable, so I took courses in graphic design, video production, marketing and media". The skills he learned in those short months, are evident in his presentations today.

Over the previous two years, Tom had contributed insightful articles to publications such as the Australian Computer Society Inc. Canberra Branch Newsletter. Honing his journalistic skills on topics such as "Suggestions for the Use of the Ada* Programming Language in the Australian Public Service", it was an article that almost passed un-noticed in the 2 February 1990 issue of Computerworld, that we remember as an example of Tom's ability to see into the future. The Network Computer is of course now a reality, yet this was over six years ago, when he wrote with characteristic wit, Terminals on way out? Not bya (sic) long chalk.

This is not the only instance of Tom's presentience, he says, "In February (1996) I gave a talk about "future history" of information technology in Australia in the year 2005 to an ACS Chapter. That was only seven months ago, but already some of what I was predicting for the year 2005 has already happened."

All this time, his involvement with the ACS was growing, and the impact of the Internet was being felt around him. Of course Tom had long ago seen how important the Net was going to be. He was determined to seize the day and the opportunities that the Web offerred. In 1996 he was elected President of the ACS and in his opening address vowed to raise the profile of the organisation. You need only ask someone who has been online in 1996 if they've heard of the ACS, and the answer snaps back, "yeah, that's Tom Worthington's thing, isn't it?" In his unique way, Tom has made the ACS his own.

On December the 7th, 1996 Tom made his latest move, to become Manager, Defence Information Management Architectures (Senior Information Technology Officer, Grade B). Information Management Branch, Department of Defence.

His next task is to prepare the Defence Information Management Architectures, in consultation with defence and other agency staff.

For someone as experienced as Tom Worthington, it should be easy, we wish him well for the future and we're sure he'll tell us how he goes.

From March 1995 Tom managed the Defence Home Page and Minister for Defence Home Page as Defence Web Master!

Tom said, "We will be launching the Defence Home Page MKIII in September ('96) and I hope to incorporate some of these (new web) techniques. It is easy to build a Web page with lots of flashy animated graphics which look good in a demonstration environment; it is difficult to build one which looks good and also gets useful information out to the public, but it is possible".

Tom's Defence Force Home Page won a Bronze award from the Australian Newspaper (sic) even before version MKIII. In September he changed the background from grey to a lovely pale green.