Content area
Full Text
A conversation with Nigel Leith is a little like riding a roller coaster. It is fast, full of twists and turns, and ends in a strange sense of satisfaction that one has glimpsed into something somehow more than one's everyday understanding.
[Graph Not Transcribed]
Leith is technical director, acting CEO and co-founder, with Dan Kaltiainen, of Pen Systems and he is the living embodiment of the word frenetic. Never seeming content to sit in one place position for very long, he will be reclined in his chair one second, then up to get a piece of equipment out of the company's tiny technology museum the next.
Kaltiainen is no longer with the company, having left to pursue other interests, but partners Alfred "Fritz" Grottoli and Michael McLaughlin joined Leith.
A self-professed "chip head," Nigel is an absolute believer in the paperless society, one that was promised in the early years of the computer, and he approaches the topic with an almost evangelical fervour.
"That's one of my problems with the IT industry because we promised this paperless society and we haven't delivered, and it seems to be okay that we haven't delivered," Leith says. "In fact, it also seems to be okay to live in an environment where your desktop is getting slower and the IT department can't close the backdoors to their own products. To me, that isn't okay."
The personal data assistant (PDA) device Leith developed, loaded with one of the company's programs such as Inspector +, is an obvious solution, he says. Capable of storing a large amount of data, the PDA is perfect for freeing someone such as an inspector who no longer has to bring a box of forms with him into the field, but can print documents on demand and can vastly improve his productivity.
"I guess we're enabling (with the company's software Inspector +)," he says. "Most think of this as a higher quality of life because someone like an inspector...