In the mid-eighties, Don Baarns owned a small, growing catering company. It served lunches to office workers around the Burbank, California area. As the business grew he purchased an AST 286 (10 MHz) computer and Microsoft Excel version 2.1 (which used run-time Windows 286). His rusty, college time-share, punch card programming skills were put to good use as the catering business grew to 600 salads and sandwiches per day.
Don used the primitive macro language in Excel to automate the ordering, financial management, and ingredient breakdowns. For example, ingredients needed for a particular salad would be broken down in relation to the number of orders. The spreadsheet would calculate for the kitchen staff the exact number of items necessary to prepare and fill the orders. Of course, spreadsheets were also developed to handle the inventory and finances of the business.
After a few years of programming for his own business needs, Don became an expert in Excel, while the rest of the world was still focused on Lotus 1-2-3. This experience of running his own business also taught him about business management, the value of automation, and the power of custom programming. His company was running with half the management staff of its competitors and was much more profitable due to the business automation.
Little did he know this humble foundation would lead to products shipping worldwide directly from Microsoft and building high-availability intranets with millions of pages processed each week.
During the success of the catering business, Don served salads and sandwiches to the owner of a training company. The company had a contract teaching computer skills at ARCO Products. ARCO asked the owner to refer any Excel developers he knew for a high profile executive reporting project. The owner didn’t know anybody with Excel automation skills except his food delivery guy. Rather than tell ARCO he couldn’t find anybody, the trainer sent Don Baarns. He assumed that Don would not get the job, but he could at least say he tried…
Instead, Don showed them the automated program he created for his food company and ARCO asked him to start a week later. While juggling his food business and writing code for ARCO, Don decided that development would become the center of his financial life. Eighteen months later the food business was sold and Don was off and running with a new career as Microsoft heard about his success with ARCO.
The association with Microsoft began long before becoming a Certified Partner. As early as 1989, Baarns Consulting participated in Microsoft's Excel "Swat Team" to assist corporations making the transition from Lotus 1-2-3 to Microsoft Excel. The early Baarns' team comprised the very best of Excel developers. As evidence of Baarns Consulting Group's prowess, they were selected by Microsoft to create the Software Developers Kit for Excel 97 (Microsoft Press) and Y2K compatibility components, which were shipped worldwide by Microsoft.
Baarns also developed software for Pitney Bowes that shipped in Microsoft Office 97 Small Business Edition.
Extending and adapting Excel created a foundation of Visual Basic and database experience. Consequently, Baarns Consulting was well placed when the Microsoft Office suite became the de facto standard for the corporate desktop. During this period, the Baarns team consolidated their business consultancy and integration skills. These were put into effect for corporate clients such as Occidental Petroleum for their worldwide budgeting system. Excel was used on the front end and all data was saved via leased lines to Sybase SQL servers in Westwood, California. Baarns worked with scores of other clients including Microsoft, Octel Communications, Disney, Ryland Homes, ARAMARK Uniforms, Chevron, and many others.
As Internet technology became an accepted vehicle for accessing business data, Baarns Consulting put to use their years of Visual Basic skills, integration expertise, and business analysis experience. Baarns now specializes in using Web technology to release the latent value in business data assets.
Achievement with Internet applications was recognized early when, in 1996, Microsoft Corporation chose Baarns Consulting Group as the first case study for its Site Builder Network Site of the Month. This site featured over 500 pages of materials dedicated to Office 95 (and later upgraded to Office 97). This was followed by a string of successful projects for clients in various lines of business.
Baarns built an early, database-driven job board and dynamic calendar and was noticed by some staffing/HR firms. Remedy Temporary Services and then AppleOne hired Baarns to build sites.
The AppleOne site started with a simple project to upgrade their public site. Baarns then became involved in their private intranet and worked for two years developing applications to provide central services to 400 nationwide offices. Baarns built a series of custom applications (including the server farms), and managed the servers for AppleOne. Today those systems process literally millions of pages per week, with a few million database transactions supporting the pages. Each of the 400 offices has custom scheduling, printing and management, and can see decision support data in real time.
Responding to the pace of change in technology, the marketplace, and the clients' needs, Baarns Consulting continues to evolve. The company has a focused, dedicated staff of seasoned professionals who can assess the real benefit of emerging technology and who are agile enough to exploit it for its clients. This depth of experience and commitment to quality uniquely equips Baarns Consulting to assist your company in developing business solutions.
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