David J. Dachtera's Personal Web Page(s)...

A Picture Gallery is available.

Here is some personal information about DJE Systems's fearless leader, David J. Dachtera (a.k.a. D. Joseph Benedict).

Biography

Born in Melrose Park, Illinois at Westlake Hospital, circa. 9:00 .am. (CST) on Sunday, 14-Nov-1954. David is second-generation American. His grand-parents were born in Poland.

Born the son of a factory worker and a baker / pastry decorator turned seamstress, David paid his own way through school. David's father worked in a brass foundry in the vicinity of the Twin Cities, Minnesota before taking a job with International Harvester and transferring to Melrose Park, Illinois where his employer had bought a plant that in war time was used to make aircraft engines. His father retired from IH with 35 years of service. David's mother was a baker and decorator for Gladness Bakeries in St. Paul, Minnesota where she was acquainted with the wife of James Totino of Totino's Pizza fame - Totino's was still a family-owned business at the time. When his father transferred to Illinois, his mother and sister followed shortly after.

David worked in a small factory in Franklin Park making and packing ceiling grid, and plastic shutters and roof vents for most of his adult life, aside from a short stint in a small print shop during a layoff from the factory, even though he holds a certificate in H.V.A.C. from Triton College in River Grove, Illinois. He worked only one summer in H.V.A.C. and decided that it was not a career for him. David decided to pursue a career in computers. He left the factory in January of 1979.

After several false starts - misguided career choices and companies that folded up out from "under" him, he began his new career in earnest working on a Digital PDP 11/70 system running RSTS/E V7.2. This in-house application soon moved to a pair of VAX 11/750 computers sharing RA81 disks and a TA78 through an HSC50 in a configuration typical of the kind that became the model upon which Digital built the VAXcluster paradigm.

David has been working on VMS systems ever since, except for a short interlude with a small, no-name UN*X box from 1986 through 1987. Peripherally, he also has worked with DOS and Windows systems, SNA/Gateways, Codex/Motorola 6250 T1 Channel banks, Digital and Xyplex terminal servers and bridge routers (including the DEWBR and DEWB1 using the Cisco firmware). He has written scripts for Reflection software from WRQ for clients using direct dial-in and dial-back security, and for remotely configuring Codex/Motorola 6250 T1 Channel banks, Cisco-type bridge-routers, dial-back security modems and Digital HSJ controllers.

David is extremely fluent in DCL programming. He has given presentations on DCL programming at recent DECUS Symposia. His DCL procedures continue to provide a previous employer with unattended 24x7 operation by running backups - including splitting and rejoining host-based shadow-sets and HSJ-based mirror sets - using a robotic tape library and Oasis and TapeControl software from MTI, as well as utilizing some unsupported freeware from Digital that makes 24x7 operation possible using StorageWorks arrays and dual-redundant HSJ pairs. Certain provisions for recovering data from expired tapes needed to be made in order to make MTI TapeControl more "friendly" to the Health Care environment.

Other Activities and Interests...

David has been active in the Music Ministry since July of 1969. After two years of piano lessons earlier, he began teaching himself guitar in the fall of 1968 (as a way of pursuing a romantic interest). During the following years he taught himself bass, alto recorder, studied tuba briefly and also briefly studied five-string banjo independently. He played rhythm guitar (and some leads) for "The Crystal Vision Band" from summer of 1978 until they disbanded at the end of 1982. Until 2001, he played bass at Sacred Heart Church in Melrose Park, IL where he was also active in the Cantor program. He and his wife, Lori, were active in the church choir. His current stable of instruments includes an Autoharp, two (2) twelve string acoustic guitars, a six string acoustic, a six string electric and a four string electric bass.

David did a brief stint in educational television at Triton College in River Grove, IL under the tutelage of Mr. Stan Orzel. David's technical proclivities proved quite useful in the studio. As a student of television production, David produced, co-directed and performed in "Chasing The Platinum Rainbow", a work inspired by the book "The Platinum Rainbow" by Bob Monaco and Jim Riordon. David worked camera for the locally produced "On The Bench" sports-talk show. David is a skilled cameraman and skilled editor using both control-track and SMPTE (Time Code) editing suites. David also worked weekends and some evenings doing playback for Triton College Cable Television.

David's computer skills were helpful in transcribing a friend's unpublished musical work. A long time musical associate, Susan Kaszynski, penned some music that had been used for years at both St. John Vianney parish in Northlake, IL and at Sacred Heart. When Fr. Kozak's eysight made it difficult to read Sue's manuscript of "The Exultet", he transcribed the entire work (14 pages) into the Encore notation program - one note at a time, using only a mouse (he has no midi instruments). Ms. Kaszynski was music director of Sacred Heart at the time, and subsequently worked in that capacity for St. Giles parish in Oak Park, IL.

On September 12, 1998, David married his post-high school sweetheart, Lori Vece after the two of them had gone their separate ways for 24 years. Lori's daughter Jamie Ann attends the University of Illinois at Champaign. David and Lori bought a home in Elmhurst, IL on which they closed shortly before the wedding.

Wedding pictures and other memorabilia can viewed from the Picture Gallery.

David is an advocate of an Affordable OpenVMS, and is actively trying to raise interest in a small office / home office licensing program for OpenVMS that would put OpenVMS license pricing on an equal footing with its competition. He maintains a positive outlook that the management of Compaq will take a more realistic view of OpenVMS marketing, and at last open up the low-end of the market to this powerful, nearly bullet-proof operating system.

David is also actively maintaining a pursuit of both Linux and FreeBSD as he develops his designs and marketing strategies for rack-mounted servers with either operating system pre-installed. Both Linux and FreeBSD are freely available operating systems. They are also both "open source" as full source code is freely available via the Internet.

David hopes to one day market entirely "non-Microsoft" desktop and server systems also.

Other Dreams and Aspirations...

David is considering entering the Diaconate as a means of pursuing a desire to make a contribution and a difference in the lives of those who may need it. This would be a commitment of approximately five years of learning and a lifetime service.

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