My first position after graduation from college, Information Retrieval Methods (IRM) near Farmers Branch in northwest Dallas, hired me as an entry-level programmer in October of 1983. IRM was a marketing software service company with clients including Nabisco and ALCOA, but their main client was Philip Morris with a custom system DATAVEND, tailored specifically for the tobacco vendor.

IRM operated on an IBM 370 mainframe machine running MVS, command level CICS and ADR Datacom DB database and many additional ADR products. The ADR experience proved valuable as my career progressed as it was the choice of several Dallas mainframe shops.