"A life in IT is a life of service...that's fine by me. It's like being a samurai but less messy."

Jonathon’s programming career began at the age of 12 when he began writing games in BASIC for his Commodore Vic 20. Originally from a farm in the back blocks of Coroglen on the Coromandel Peninsula, Jonathon completed his college schooling to bursary level (Year 13) and then moved to Auckland to complete a Bachelor of Science in physics followed by a Masters in applied mathematics at The University of Auckland.

The five years of hard study taught Jono many things but the biggest discovery for Jono was that he loved working with computers and didn’t want to work in the academic world! Following that hard-won inner discovery, Jono subsequently applied for a position as a programmer in the very early days of Zeald (2002). Jono was successful in his application, became one of Zeald’s first employees and moved up the ranks as the company started to grow.

Jono is now the Chief Technology Officer at Zeald and manages a team of programmers and network engineers. He has been directly responsible for the development and implementation of many of Zeald’s internal operational systems using his substantial computer networking and systems administration skills. Jono has a huge desire to learn and is consistently looking for operational improvements to his team and the various other departments within Zeald. He is a passionate advocate of open source software and has personally contributed to many projects including Interchange, KDE, Perl and many others.

Jono lives just north of Auckland at Arkles Bay on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula. He loves to escape from technology, sail his yacht (a classic kauri Townson 32), and considers himself a bit of a chef who can cook a range of meals from around the world.

FUN FACT: Jono’s master's thesis was 30,000 words long and entitled ‘Saddle-Node-Hopf Bifurcations in a Biological System’.