Karin used to write code for musculoskeletal computer models/simulations at The University of Calgary and at Arizona State University as well as in a corporate research environment. It was great fun to laser digitize and reconstruct Australopithecus Afarensis in computer code to make 'Lucy' walk and to help design and evaluate the performance of high-end soccer boots using computer models. Then one day a (now) dear friend came over for coffee. Those who know Karin well - know this is a great way to start talking to her...
Karin's friend who worked full time supervising kids at a school - served in 'her spare time' as Board Chair of a National Canadian Charitable Organization - supporting young mothers/families across Canada. Karin and her husband themselves had very much enjoyed this organization's support when their 3 kids were young.
Karin "you know about computers - can you please help us out?". They had hired a company to build them a website w/ Membership functionality - and it had taken 18 months and tens of thousands of dollars already - and there was no end in sight.
Karin picked up the pieces and sought out Alan Dixon (mr civicrm.ca ) to provide hosting, server administration/security services as well as expert advise and direction - as Karin had never heard of either Drupal or CiviCRM. But the little bits she had read thus far - quickly convinced her that she wanted to learn more - a lot more - about both.
It didn't take her long to get really addicted to Drupal and CiviCRM - She jumped right in re-migrating lots of data from Income Manager (an old desktop application) to CiviCRM - as crucial data like Contributions and Canadian Postal Codes had been missed first time around. Karin added new Drupal and CiviCRM functionality to create a virtual National Office with a truckload of functionality.
Karin has been doing Drupal/CiviCRM full-time since. To date Karin is one of the contributors of the CDN Tax Receipts extension - https://civicrm.org/extensions/cdn-tax-receipts - is also one of the maintainers on the iATS Payments Extension: https://civicrm.org/extensions/iats-payments - Semper IT still works together very closely with Alan Dixon Consulting - currently supporting Drupal/CiviCRMs for a dozen Canadian Organizations: National and Provincial Charitable organizations in health/education/sport, Professional organizations, Education/Research Institute - a School and a Political Party.
In her childhood - in The Netherlands - Karin used to play tons of Lego (on those rainy days...). Drupal/CiviCRM feels like Lego to her - you can build anything. Sometimes you just don't know yet how you'd go about it or you simply don't have all the pieces yet - but for sure it's got to be possible - it's just a matter of time until you figure it out. And in CiviCRM land - there are lots of people who can and are willing to help you figure out how to figure things out.
If you "know about computers" - you too can find a way to help. You too can make a living empowering organizations that do good - do so much more. There is nothing more rewarding that just that.
