Company Information

Tracy writes the code and does the site design layout. He hasn't been offline since 1986. While he hates to talk about himself or his achievements, the following are some of the speed bumps encountered while traveling on the information superhighway over the years:

1973 - Learned to program in BASIC.
1975 - While a student at Babson College, Wellesley, MA, he tutored BASIC while learning to program in FORTRAN. Discovered that the FORTRAN textbook was best used to level his couch. First use of "laptop" [it weighed close to 20 pounds] from remote site to Babson's computers via normal telephone lines.
1978-1980 - Developed several database programs for his personal business using Dbase II on CP/M machine and first generation VisiCalc spreadsheets on Apple II+.
1980-1985 - Became involved full time in the emerging computer telecommunications field using The Source™, CompuServe™ and several private BBS systems as a way to gather and disseminate various types of information.
1981-1983 - President - Katonah, NY Chamber of Commerce
1986 - Hired by General Electric Information Service's [GEIS] new online text system, GEnie™, to offer the first non-technical related computer forum offered on any national system. The GEnie Scuba RoundTable was born in August of that year.
1990^ish - Met and hired Lynn McKamey to help assist with the day-to-day management of the Scuba RoundTable.
1988-1994 - Wrote countless MS Excel templates for the Metro New York office of Reebok International Ltd, tracking sales, marketing, expenses, etc. Helped Reebok corporate headquarters design and launch laptop program for field sales representatives.
1994-1995 - Worked directly with GEnie™ management to prepare for the eventual move to the internet. Assisted the design team with second generation GUI interface. Worked with the marketing team on how to present the new interface to large corporations and special interest groups. Learned HTML programming for graphic based internet web pages.
1997 - Moved Scuba RoundTable to the internet renamed as WOWIE Scuba Online. Converted to HTML then shut down all text-only based forums and operations. Assisted with the transformation of Delphi Internet Services [now Delphi Forums LLC] to a web based product.
1999 - Officially started

Lynn designs all custom graphics and animations that you may want for your site. Lynn and Tracy have worked together in the online world since 1990 and have cemented a wonderful working relationship. Lynn and her son, Jeff, also run McKamey Media in southern Texas.

Graduate of SMU with degree in art, computer science, and business
Published garden writer and member of Garden Writers of America
Garden Editor of Principes, scientific journal of the International Palm Society
Published travel writer and author of many articles featuring Caribbean resorts, travel, and scuba
Staff member of Delphi Scuba Forum
Staff member of CompuServe Travel Forum
Staff member of CompuServe Caribbean Travel Forum
Freelance writer of resort reviews for popular web site www.where2stay.com
Member of Animated GIF Artist's Guild
Specialist in scanning and producing high quality photo images for web sites
Personal, extensive web site: www.scubamom.com

Tracy has been a photographer and scuba diver since 1968 and has written about his travels and has been published in many diving magazines, books as well as on the internet. He holds 12 different certifications from three different agencies including Master Scuba Diver, Ice Diver, Underwater Photographer and Computer Assisted Diver [no kidding!]. He and his late wife, Lori, have bred and shown Bichon Frise's and have owned several of the top ranked dogs around the world over the years. In his spare time, Tracy enjoys scale modeling. His favorite subject is the space program of the 60's and 70's. You can read about his famous Saturn V model here . He also collects space memorabilia from the same time frame.

What's the story behind the name WOWIE? It's silly, but it's true. If you're a Scuba diver, it makes perfect sense.

Tracy on assignment in the Caribbean

Tracy with Astronauts Walt Cunningham & Wally Schirra

Annie the Bichon Frise Puppy

A Very Cool Product!

As a space memorabilia collector, I came across this wonderful laptop/messenger bag with a piece of parachute that flew on the Soyuz TM-8/Mir mission in 1990. It's amazing how many people have stopped me to admire it and ask about it.

The manufacturer is here. Tell them that Tracy from WOWIE Web Design sent you!
This is an unsolicited plug. I just like the bag.