April 2013 CIPS Volunteer of the Month:
Jon Nightingale, I.S.P. (ret)
President, CIPS BC
About Jon:
What is your Background?
I originally came to IT indirectly. I started my university education at UBC in mining engineering. I had several summer jobs in the far north, and during the last one got involved in a project using a software program for doing open-pit mine design and planning. At that point I decided working in the wilderness was not for me and computer programming looked interesting. I switched to computer science and graduated in the first year UBC offered a degree in computer science. Upon graduation I took a job at the UBC Computing Centre, which ended up as a 20-year career, primarily in client support areas.
In 1993 I took the opportunity of a severance package from UBC and went out on my own. A couple of years later I was back at UBC as a contractor doing some website design work. During that time I was also doing work for a small Internet start-up company and this eventually morphed into a full-time job. The main focus was web-based image collections, primarily in the museum and fine-art areas.
I cut back to part-time work a couple of years back and am now pretty much retired. For leisure these days I walk a lot to stay fit and enjoy travelling and photography.
What type of Involvement have you had with CIPS?
Over my many years in CIPS I have served in multiple roles at the local, provincial, and national levels. My CIPS career started in 1976 when my UBC boss Al Fowler, then on the CIPS Vancouver Board and later a CIPS National President, asked me to take care of the Vancouver membership list. I spent much of the next few years working on membership matters locally and nationally. Long before the Internet we actually ran the national membership system on UBC's mainframe, with the National Office accessing it via Datapac.
I was on the National Executive in the mid-80's when we had the referendum that started us on the path to our professional designations. In 1996 I joined the Certification Council which I chaired for a number of years, and I also chaired the council experience committee that reviews the experience reviews of I.S.P. applications.
In 2004 I took on the role of Chair of the Governance Committee which, over the next several years, moved CIPS to its new and current structure. Subsequent to that I served on the CCITP and am currently completing my second term as President of CIPS BC.
What value has your involvement with CIPS provided?
My early years in CIPS contributed greatly to my professional development. It provided an opportunity to interact with a variety of people at different levels in their careers, from students to CIO's. Local dinner meetings and seminars as well as the annual national conferences kept me up-to-date on the industry.
The greatest pleasure of involvement with CIPS for me has always been working with a large, diverse, and dedicated collection of individuals and this, more than anything, is the reason I have remained active so long. Through CIPS I have developed a network of colleagues and friends that extends from one end of the country to the other.
