Hatfield, England

Start of the project at Tesco (a major supermarket chain). For this POC, we need to demo the CICS e*Way, and (doing development on-site) adapt my Cobol/IP Sockets API (originally written for CICS) to work in both IMS and batch. The SeeBeyond team met in the lobby in the AM, and had a planning session over breakfast; we were an international mix: Eric Williams (Welsh), Adam Turnbull (English), Marjo van Diem (Dutch), Stefan Franczuk (a Scot of Polish descent), and myself. The Tesco headquarters were in Welwyn Garden (what would be called an “industrial park” in the US), some twenty minutes from Hatfield.

Back at the Jarvis in the evening, we all had drinks and dinner, after which Marjo (pronounced mar-yo) and I staying up late, talking—forging a friendship that would last for years.