updated January 23 2008

Thanks for wanting to know more about me.

I have been fortunate to have always had interesting work and interesting people to work with, mostly in the technical, engineering and marketing spaces. I have at various times in my 35 year working life:

• designed electronic products (from both analog and digital, dc to microwave, from communications to veterinary pelvimeters and solar collectors)
• helped discover a sunken Spanish galleon, demagnetize submarines and locate mineral deposits under the ground and from space
• designed stage lighting and sound studios
• learned computers when there were punch cards
• installed major home theatre systems before they were called "home theatre systems"
• and now I'm a digital video mechanic and a concerned citizen of earth.

For the last fifteen years or so, I have been primarily helping people to tell their stories through video media by providing and supporting the equipment they need. My current vehicle for this is FastForward Media Inc, a business that sells and supports high performance computer-based video editing and animation systems. They are pretty good (the systems and my customers).

I also have several projects underway that are intended to show how to build useful things with simple tools and processes, primarily from an energy point of view. Thinking globally and acting locally is translating for me into things I can build (and show others how to build) that use less resources, save energy and act smarter. I'm writing about one such  project here http://georgesworkshop.blogspot.com/ 

My engineering background and my experience with computers and machines have helped me design and build conservatively rated and superbly performing equipment. I tend to be conservative. My attention to detail makes for reliable systems that become the main video editing and graphics design tools at over three hundred locations in the area (Southern Ontario). My regular customers range from the major networks to individual producers in home studios.

Here are some of the other, very different things which I've done at various points that I hope may interest you. Except for the photo of me, you can click on the images to enlarge them.

	George Plhak, Acton, Ontario, Canada Photo (from video) courtesy of bobfleckcreative.com
	In the late seventies while an engineer at Varian Associates, I lead a small team in developing a new magnetic locator for the US Navy called the "Mark22 Unexploded Ordnance Locator" based on an earlier Varian design called the V-75. Here I am on the Bruce Trail near Silvercreek trying one of the first working prototypes.
	Here is a version of the same magnetometer in a housing for underwater survey that we also designed. News article about the magnetometer Varian article about measuring the earth's magnetic field
	About the customer and the treasure he found with it. Toronto Star article Excerpts from the book
	The treasure of the Concepcion (Later note - It turns out that this is a different Concepcion than Burt Weber's Concepcion, but a neat web site none the less)
	Mark 22 Unexploded Ordnance Locator designed for the US Navy (while at Varian Associates 1977-1991)
	Later, during the 80s, still at Varian, I had product line responsibility for high voltage power supplies. They were pretty good at producing stable high voltage at high current. My job was to find new markets for their technology. in semiconductor manufacturing, lasers, XRay generation and physics laboratories, up to 100 kV.
	I wrote the business plan that guided Varian successfully into these markets.
	Geophysical survey equipment designed while at Barringer Research
	Airborne survey equipment worked on while at Barringer Research (1975-77)
	Interior of Trilander exploration aircraft, a main project for me while at Barringer Research
	Whole home theatre and survellance/communications system in 1970