About Me.

How do you pronounce that?!.

It's pretty simple, really. Wielfaert is pronounced WILL-fert. Although this is not as fun or as embarrassing as the way some people say it, this is the correct way. My paternal grandparents were Belgian and the name goes way back into Germany.

Getting Started.

I graduated from high school in 1981. In 1983 I earned an associate degree in computer programming from Davis College in Toledo, OH. In 1984 I began work with a honey processing plant in Springville, MI where I would support and modify their accounting software. Soon after, we started a retail software company to sell this same software, which was Open Systems® Accounting Software written using Business Basic. I was in charge of modifications and tech support to the customers. In 1986 I took over as owner of the software company and renamed it Computer Concepts. I continued building the business until 1988 when I began concentrating on my expanding farming enterprises. I transferred most of my existing customers to other dealers and kept servicing only a handful of them for the next few years.

Continuing.

In 2000 I began teaching myself how to program Microsoft Access through Visual Basic for Applications. I have done the majority of my work in this environment. I have recently done some .NET/C# and SQL Server work and continue to expand my knowledge in these areas. I operate under the company name of WaterDrop Software, LLC.

In November of 2011 along with Eric Hammond of Michigan Mini Vend, I started AccqTrak, LLC to market our joint vending software project.

Personal.

I grew up on a farm and still reside about a 1/2 mile from home. In addition to corn, soybeans and wheat, we grew vegetables that were marketed in the Detroit and Lansing areas. My father always said that you couldn't make it with just grain crops on the farm any more, so the vegetables were his second job. They were also a tremendous amount of hand labor - which I didn't care for. This set me on a course of finding 'my' second job and is what led me ultimately to programming.

In 1988 due to my father's health problems, I took over the only remaining vegetable crop that they were growing, which was tomatoes. This was when I scaled way back on my programming interests and expanded our farming operation. We raised the tomatoes for 7 years and continued farming through the 2005 season.

My wife Sherri owns a barber shop in the area that she started in 1984. We have 3 children, 2 of which are married - Elizabeth married to Nate, Aaron married to Amy, and Rebecca.

Fun Stuff.

The Dilbert cartoon that, to me, says it all: