Bob Lyons knows computers almost from the start of commercial computing itself. Since his earliest experience as a night-shift programmer on an ancient IBM 1440 back in the early sixties, Bob has literally seen and done it all in the world of computer applications. And as a result of his nearly 30 years as a programmer, consultant, and trainer, Lyons has amassed a wealth of professional knowledge that he readily shares today as a Consultant-Senior Instructor for CCCI.
Been there, done that? In Bob's case, it's an understatement.
"My first mainframes had about two megs of RAM,"
he laughs. "Our support equipment included card sorters
and punchers, and we had to wire the plugboards ourselves on card
reproducers and interpreters."
By the late sixties, Bob was in the Army, serving as a computer repair instructor and, in his own words, "really learning computers inside out." Following the Army came stints at Computer Science Corporation as a Senior Scientific Programmer creating communication system simulations for the Army, and later at Gray Drugstores, as that $1 billion company's Director of Inventory Systems. In 1981, he relocated to Texas, where an initial job as Director of Planning at Handy Dan Corporation, the nation's leading home center at the time, led to a decision to launch his solo consulting career.
"As a consultant, I worked a lot on early PC-based networks," Bob recalls. One of the high points of this period was Lyons' successful conversion of a $1 billion company, Hard Hanks, from mainframe to a 45-file server network. Though briefly lured back into the workplace as Manager of Network Systems for Multi-Net, Inc., Bob soon returned to consulting up to the point that he joined CCCI in early 1995.
At that time, Bob was conducting independent training for a competitor of CCCI. "It was lucrative," he says, "but the company had nowhere near the professional status of CCCI, which always hired top-notch technical people. So when CCCI made me an offer, I jumped at it!"
According to Bob, the opportunity to conduct training with Cisco Systems products was an additional motivator. "Cisco is far and away the industry leader in overall quality of the devices they sell and support," he affirms. "No router today has the breadth of functionality that Cisco routers do. There's simply no one who can rival them."
As a Senior Instructor, Bob currently crisscrosses the country conducting an average of 30 CCCI courses each year. Specific classes include Introduction to Cisco Router Configuration, Advanced Cisco Router Configuration, HP OpenView, and Introduction to Network Protocols. (Lyons originally developed the latter 3-day course as a custom program for Southwestern Bell prior to joining CCCI, and has since modified it for on-site training at such companies as Hewlett-Packard.)
In his courses, Bob is quick to dispel any misperceptions of high-tech mystery surrounding networks and their construction. "I don't think networking and routing is nearly as complicated as many people believe," he says, "so it's sometimes a challenge to get students to understand how simple overall they are." Lyons also firmly believes that common sense plays a major role in the learning process. "You don't have to be a heavyweight technically as a generalist, I'm certainly not. There's always a simpler way to solve a problem, especially in configuring routers. That's what I try to demonstrate in my CCCI courses."
Even with the high evaluations Bob has received from his students, he remains modest in his own self-assessment. "As a CCCI instructor, I try to relate to my students on a professional and a human level, " he notes. "If I can help someone do their job better, I feel good about it."