Meet this Month's Featured Staff: Nick Verwymeren

At first read, you may be wondering if this month's featured staff has been to one too many science fairs in his time. However, with delightful inserts from his adoring and vivacious wife, you'll discover that this techie guy actually has a huge level of depth, quite a love for people... and a bit of a cheeky edge as well! Join with us as we get to know Nick Verwymeren...

RTO: Where are you from Nick?
NV: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

RTO: What's interesting about Winnipeg?
NV: Actually, its a pretty ordinary place. Well, they shoot lots of movies there. Brad Pitt was just there for the movie about Jesse James.

RTO: See! Its an exciting place!
NV: (Laughs and says sarcastically) Yeah! its awesome

RTO: Favourite Colour:
NV: Probably blue.

RTO: Music?
NV: Pretty much anything but country.

RTO: What do you do in your spare time?
NV: Camping. We don’t get to do much of that these days. I really like gardening too.

RTO: What are you harvesting right now?
NV: Carrots and tomatoes, thyme, basil… doing poorly. Rosemary oregano strawberries and sage…

RTO: So, what’s unique about you?
NV: (sarcastically) I'm unusually good looking and smart.
Nick's wife Sara pipes in with the aforementioned adoration: He's so SMART! And, he can speak a language fluently and its called HTML.

RTO: True. Nick, where did your passion for technology, creativity, and media start?
NV: When I was young. My dad is an appliance repairman. (Sara pipes in again from the background – NICK CAN FIX ANYTHING!) I started being interested in taking things apart. When I was young my parents would buy me toys and I could take them apart. It all started from there. I liked finding complicated things and learning how they work.

RTO: Did you have any unsuccessful attempts?
NV: You know this little viewer toys that you can click through with pictures. I had one that played those disks and projected to the wall. I took it apart but it never went back together. There were too many springs. It was very sad.

My dad would bring home old microwaves all the time and I with one, I took the entire thing apart and put screws into different buckets to save the parts. It had strong magnets and I saved those. My room like someone chucked a bomb in a mircowave!

RTO: What's your giggest techie accomplishment
NV: I built a robot in grade 10 & 11. It was basically these 9” x9” square sumo wrestlers who had to push each other out of the ring but you controlled it yourself. The next year I wanted to build something that does everything on its own. I built one of those. It took me 2 years to make. I had to teach myself everything. It totally worked and everything but then the group took it to Calgary without me. It didn’t work in the competition because a sensor was broken.

RTO: Okay... your "group?" Be honest. Were you in science club?
NV: (Laughing) No. We had an electronic class as an elective and we could enter the contest.

RTO: So why did you come to Reef to Outback for a DTS?
NV: I did a DTS because I went travelling after high school for six months in South east Asia & Nepal. From there, I had a desire to travel and had a desire to grow in my relationship with God because I wasn’t the strongest at that time. My uncle is Alan Lim [an Intl YWAM leader] who was living in Singapore at the time. Because RTO had the technical schools like the School of Design and School of Digital Communication, I decided it might be good to go there… and because of the camping!

RTO: Did you have a funny or embarassing DTS moment?
NV: Well, my friend Cliff & I pretended like we were really good at singing. We entered a talent show and put the same CD on in our headphones and sang out loud for everyone. It was horrible. A few people in the back were snickering but everyone else was really stunned, not knowing if we were serious or not. It was more embarrassing for everyone else than for us!

RTO: Did you break any rules on your DTS?
NV: Well, I told Sara I liked her. During DTS you're asked to not necessarily start relationships. We decided not to do anything about it until afterward though, which was really good for us.

RTO: So you and Sara ended up getting married & you’ve been married for a year now. What’s your favourite thing about her?
NV: She’s just the best wife you could ask for. There are so many things. I wrote them all down once. I can always tell when she’s coming to the door because of the way she shuffles her feet. I love that. I would listen for the sound coming up to my flat before we were married.

RTO: Why are you here at RTO now? What are you passionate about? Why do you do what you do?
NV: I love learning and growing in what I enjoy. I enjoy computers, technology and coding. I definitely have a platform to grow in that here. But also, being able to see that what I do makes a difference. I like the fact that I get to help market something that is a worthy cause. Its for God. Its not just doing it for the sake of it. I love using our gifts to get people involved in something that has the potential to change their lives.

Also, I get to be involved in Youth Street as well. Even though its only one evening a week, its totally different but at the same time its accomplishing the same thing. Its very tangible and direct. In the office, we have a large impact but its less tangible. At Youth Street we are directly talking to kids and inputting into their lives and seeing them changed.

RTO: Okay. Last question. What are you reading?
NV: Online manuals! (laughing) And I’m reading through Acts with Sara. We’re up to Acts 16 today. We were reading Jeremiah but maybe it’s a bit doom and gloom for morning reading so we switched!

Read more about Nick on his website or at www.reeftooutback.com... (which is just one of the websites that he helped to create!)