Jeff VanWest

Jeff Van West started working with computers on his middle-school's Apple II with 24 KB of RAM and no disk drive. He opened and saved his programs by attaching a cassette tape recorder borrowed from the math teacher. Over the years, he taught himself the ins and outs of various Apple, MS-DOS, Macintosh, Windows, and UNIX systems, as well as basic new software packages whenever he needed to use them. Jeff has always had a passion for teaching and spent several years applying his technical and design skills developing science curricula for elementary and middle-school teachers. He also developed a program linking teachers and students over the Internet in the early days of the Web.

Jeff now has over a decade of experience as an instructional designer, freelance writer, and corporate trainer. He has worked internationally to facilitate collaborative projects in numerous fields, including information technology and the aviation industry. His books and multimedia technical training programs have been used in North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia.

When he's not writing, teaching, playing with his children, or cooking dinner (what he refers to as "satisfying his inner Jewish grandmother"), Jeff can often be found at the controls of an airplane. In 1998, Jeff added flight instruction to his teaching repertoire and has loved sharing the freedom of flight with students ever since.