Mike Westerfield

Mike started programming on a PDP-8 using a teletype terminal. As the personal computer revolution got going he sold his car and rode a bike for several months to raise cash to buy an Apple II computer. He wanted to write a chess program but could't find a good assembler, so he took a summer off to write his own. Two years later he finished ORCA/M, which went on to become Apple Programmer's Workshop, the Apple-labeled development environment for the Apple IIGS.

Born the same year as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, Mike made the mistake of getting an education instead of getting rich. A slow learner, he graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1977 with a degree in Physics, earned an M.S. in Physics from the University of Denver, and was Working on a Ph.D. when he started making more money from his sideline software company than from the Air Force.

Since then Mike has developed numerous compilers and interpreters, software for mission-critical physics packages for military satellites, plasma physics simulations for Z-pinch experiments, multimedia authoring tools for grade schoolers, disease surveillance programs credited with saving lives of hurricane Katrina refugees, advanced military simulations that protect our nation's most critical assets, and technical computing software for iOS.

Mike currently runs the Byte Works, an independent software publishing and consulting firm. He is a PADI scuba instructor who lives in Albuquerque with his wife and cat, enjoying being an empty nester and spoiling his grandchildren. Read More Read Less