In May 1976, few months after receiving my university degree (Diplom-Ingenieur) in Industrial Electronics at the Vienna Technical University, I’ve entered with excitement the Agency premises, situated at that time in the good old Grand Hotel on the Vienna Ringstrasse, proud to be aboard this noble organization aiming at preventing the misuse of nuclear energy and promoting its peaceful uses throughout the world. In the first six month I worked as statistical clerk in the Safeguards Information Treatment Unit. My pride grew successively with increasing responsibilities and positions I have been entrusted with - soon I was given the possibility to participate in the development of the Safeguards data processing system. What a challenge - testing procedures for data transmission from Member States, testing input and loading of data, error analysis, development and maintenance of software. And all this using a computer positioned in a bathroom (a huge bathtub can be very helpful for spreading out endless printouts) - after all it was the Grand Hotel! We started with data transmission on punched cards (I still keep a set of cards in my office as a souvenir from those days), moved through magnetic tapes and all possible sizes of floppy disks to advanced electronic media.

Just when Bill Gates gifted the world with Windows 98 the Agency decided to promote me to the professional category. As one of the database administrators in the System Infrastructure Support Section I’m involved in support of databases used for the International Safeguards Information System containing over 30 million records with more than 2.5 million accesses per day.

The decentralization policy (client/server concept) and the introduction of new applications increased the complexity of support needed as well as dispersing the data over different hardware and software platforms.

The multi-lingual and multicultural environment meets my lively interest in other people and I enjoy working with colleagues from so many different educational fields - most of my close friends I have met through working with them.

Another great reminiscent is the years I spent with the VIC sports clubs, i.e. VIC Runners and Cyclists. The WHO, FAO, UNESCO, etc. mix during the yearly Inter-Agency-Games, where you will never meet a formal VIC-colleague, but friendly, relaxed and smiling people only carrying out the UN-Olympics in its finest form. The most memorable event was that night at the rail station in Tarvisio, when one of my cycling colleagues and I found ourselves without passports, no Lira, 9 bikes of great value (sentimental or financial) and no idea (at the beginning) how to get them to Milano Marittima... But this is another long story.

And there are other things to make me feel good... I'm most fortunate to have two wonderful children who do understand when their mother comes home only late in the evening because of demands at her work place... And living in a wonderful city... Vienna is different, and in past 22 years it developed from the 'sleeping beauty' to a modern, lively town, full of artistic and cultural events.