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Stef 's computing career started in 1973 at a diamond mine in what is now Namibia. Starting in operations management he went
on through applications development to systems programming, adapting and extending with early releases of online and database
systems (1975 vintage online systems using Motorola radio for telecommunications up the Skeleton Coast).
Afer moving to Europe, during the early part of his career Stef worked in organisations across a variety of industry sectors,
with technical, development, operational line management and executive responsibilities, managing high security networking,
on-line customer outreach, data collection, work flow and messaging systems.
Through the 1980's, as Group Director, Stef was responsible for some 200 staff across European IT Operations and Development
for Dun & Bradstreet Europe. He spearheaded a systems architecture initiative to reach out to customers electronically whilst
empowering internal business operations across more than a dozen national European operating companies and over 50 branch
offices. . Stef initiated and led restructuring the development process and reorganized the department to establish business
aligned development methods. This initiative was published under the auspices of the British Computer Society 'Best Practices'
scheme as "Reengineering Information Technology (by Stephen Baxter with David Lisburn - Prentice Hall 1994).
In 1992 Stef established international operations for XcelleNet Inc (then a small company that would become the market leader
in mobility management). Stef took the role of Vice President International; as a one-man-band initially, within three years
grew International to 10% of corporate revenues and customers.
Having established an organisation for ongoing expansion across EMEA, in 1995 he moved to the US headquarters as Senior Vice
President to head up Operations. Stef's primary focus in the USA was to restructure how XcelleNet managed its growing customer
base and to realign distribution channel partners utilising the (then) emerging capabilities of the Internet to provide greater
intimacy between the company and its customers and partners. At this time Stef also led an initiative to harness web technology
to deliver integrated 'point of presence' customer services and training to 2,000 corporate customers world-wide.
Stef returned to Europe and early in 1999 joined established Wheatstone Consulting with a focus on mobile computing and helping companies expand their markets. Stef has an active interest in Open Source,
is also active in the local Linux Users Group and provides web services to local charitable institutions. He also initiated
and publishes a portal as an industry resource for anyone interested in mobile data at http://portal.mobiledata.org.uk.
He recently translated Mozilla's Firefox into Afrikaans in web-based collaboration with a South-African open source team,
as well as working with a globally distributed team to translate Millennia Corp's 'Legacy' genealogy product into Afrikaans,
providing the web infrastructure for dictionary/translation tools.
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