Meet the Author

Norman Gibat is a product of the 'eastern midwest' of the United States. He was born in Fostoria Ohio on Wednesday, October 30, 1929-- a LONG time ago. This was the day after Black Tuesday, which marked the start of the stock market crash now popularly known as The Great Depression.

Fortunately his parents were very poor and owned no stocks. So they didn't suffer from the depression. Which is probably a good argument against wealth. That's how Norman explains his own lack of great wealth.

He attended the Fostoria City Schools where he was treated with great disdain; which is as close as he ever came to greatness. Consequently, while in the 10th grade, he stomped out of high school and joined the Marine Corps.

After 6 years in the Marine Corps Norman returned to the scene of his childhood, Fostoria, to gradually phase into his adulthood, which quickly became fraught with problems of its own. Since he didn't complete High School he thought he'd skip everything in between and go straight to college and success. Both of these latter goals proved to be elusive. Nevertheless, by dint of hard work, many late hours in the library and exam answers cleverly inked inside his shirt cuffs, our hero eventually graduated with Honors. Well, maybe not with honors, but there's no mention of cheating.

While in college Norman worked for the Federal Aviation Agency at the Cleveland and Columbus airports. Following college he taught electronics at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City before attending Graduate School at Oklahoma University in 1963. Following Graduate School he went into business for himself in--of all places--Norman, Oklahoma.

Norman co-authored his first book in 1964, a little tract called HOW TO BUILD A STILL. And it did just that. In 1970 he co-authored another "how to" book with Kathleen Howard. This was a wine-making book titled "Making Wine, Beer and Merry".

In 1973 he, once again, moved back to Fostoria and, in partnership with Kathleen Howard, started a printing equipment repair business. Norman, once again, co-authored with Kathleen Howard a book which eventually became a classic in the 'how to' category. More than 30 years after it was first written it still sells about 5000 copies a year. The title of this book is "The Lore of Still Building" and it can be found on Amazon.Com as well as at many home wine shops in Canada and the U.S.

In 1977 Norman and Kathleen discovered there were a number of tiny businesses abounding--Apple, Microsoft, Ohio Scientific, Interact and Commodore, to name only a few--that specialized in one aspect or another of merchandising computers. They bought their first computer in 1977 and in 1978 produced their first programs for businesses. And they've been doing this ever since at the same old place but definitely not in the same old ways!

Today, in 2004, Kathleen directs all of Noguska's programming activities while Norman manages Noguska.