John has over 40 years of experience with project management software. After managing a computer department dedicated to project scheduling in the Oil and Gas industry for 5 years, John joined Welcom as European Technical Director in 1986, based out of their London, England location. At Welcom, John was responsible for product management of the Open Plan Schedule and Risk Analysis tool before assuming the position of VP Development, based in Houston, in 2003. After the acquisition of Welcom by Deltek in 2006, John ultimately assumed the role of Director of Products and Strategy for Schedule And Risk which included product management for the Deltek Acumen and Open Plan products.

John joined Tony Welsh at Barbecana in 2014, and became CEO in 2019.

John’s interests include Land Rovers (his wife limits him to no more than three at any one time!), technology, gadgets, and scotch.  He keeps fit by walking his Vizsla dog along the Buffalo Bayou in Houston.

Tony grew up in South East London and held degrees in physics from Oxford University and in operations research from the London School of Economics. His career began at Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) under the direction of John Lawrence, a leading light in operations research (O.R.) and editor of the British O.R. Society journal. His work focused on sales forecasting, media scheduling, and measuring the affects of advertising.

In the mid-’70s, Tony moved to a small O.R. consultancy where he worked on a variety of scheduling problems, primarily related to public transport. He also helped advise the Committee of London Clearing Banks (representing the big five U.K. banks at the time) on how to minimize the cost of transporting coins around the country.

Since 1980, Tony was involved exclusively with project management software, for most of that time at the company he co-founded, Welcom, and then since 2006 at Barbecana. During that time he has been personally responsible for, among other things, the development of no less than four schedule risk analysis systems.

Tony is fondly remembered by all those who knew him.  With Steve Cook, he helped create an inclusive and exciting work environment at Welcom.  Tony himself was responsible for the original core code of Open Plan and Cobra and was intimately involved with Welcom development until the Deltek acquisition in 2006.  In 2011 he started work on Full Monte Schedule Risk Analysis.  This has become a defacto standard for Microsoft Project risk analysis in aerospace/defense companies and agencies and also pharmaceutical/medical device companies.  Tony was always interested in helping schedulers produce the highest quality schedules and this led to the Barbecana Schedule Inspector.

Tony had a very English sense of humor which led to some early questionable marketing materials for Full Monte and Schedule Inspector.  Of course the product name, Full Monte, is also somewhat tongue-in-cheek, with an unrelated movie with different spelling (Full Monty) often raising questions.  In England, to go ‘Full Monty’ usually means “the whole thing; everything that is wanted or needed”. The term is usually attributed to a tailor, Sir Montague Burton, where the Full Monty was a three piece suit. Another potential explanation is Field Marshall Montgomery (aka Monty) who would allegedly wear all his medals and insist on a full English Breakfast every day.  We at Barbecana interpret it to mean ‘to be the best we can be’.

Tony’s interests included wine collecting (and imbibing), racing and rallying classic cars and supporting two charities, WaterAid and Camfed.

One of Tony’s favorite sayings was “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice but in practice there is.” Yogi Berra.

Tony passed away in London in February 2020.  He is missed but never forgotten.