Charlton Rose, a short biography

Charlton Rose, a.k.a. "Sharky," is the owner of Sharkysoft, a company that specializes in software development, instructional publications, and internet technology. Although Sharky first appeared on the "internet radar" with the publication of his landmark Netscape Frames tutorial in 1995, he has since authored many other useful tutorials and software products, now delivered under the Sharkysoft banner. Sharkysoft products and services have been enjoyed by tens of thousands.

Sharky was born and raised in southern California. His love of computers began at the age of 9, when his father brought home the family's first computer, a Commodore Pet 2000. After discovering that computers could receive and execute instructions -- and that they generally did exactly what you told them to do, provided first that you speak their language -- Sharky was hooked. He immediately borrowed a book on BASIC and stayed up all night reading it. Within a week, he had developed his first major computer program, an "ASCII art" car racing game.

At the age of 12, Sharky landed his first programming contract. For $20, he designed and implemented a software routine that dumped screen-rendered ray traces to an Epson printer. As Sharky refined his coding skills, he quickly learned that programming was not just a fun hobby, but also a lucrative way to make a living. (Twenty dollars was a lot for a twelve-year-old, especially in those days!)

During his high school years, however, Sharky's interests widened. He took on a few contracts with a small commercial music company, helping to develop jingles, assisting with audio mixing, and transcribing scores for copyright submission. For a time, Sharky thought he might become a professional musician himself.

Academically, however, Sharky's heart was turning towards physics. He had always enjoyed using math to describe and understand the world around him, but since his high school couldn't offer him any more math classes, he found his "fix" through physics instead. During his senior year, his 25,000 volt science fair project got stolen, but he made up for it by placing third in the J.E.T.S. California state-wide physics competition.

After high school, Sharky didn't waste any time. He worked three simultaneous jobs in the summer and then headed out to Brigham Young University for his "higher" education. He began the program as a sophomore and declared his major in Physics.

At the age of 19, it is customary for LDS men to put their secular lives on hold and serve a religious mission. Sharky was no exception, and he was grateful for the opportunity. For two years, he walked the streets of northern Japan, telling all who would listen, in their own tongue, what he believed about Jesus Christ and His role in God's plan. Sharky's efforts transformed many lives, especially his own. Many valuable lessons were learned from that experience.

Two years later, after his mission ended, Sharky discovered that everything he had learned about computers was obsolete. So he purchased a book on C and spent the summer studying it. He had so much fun with it that when he returned to school, he added Computer Science as a second major (on top of Physics) and took as many CS classes as he could.

A couple of years later, in fact, Sharky found that he had completed his Computer Science requirements even before his Physics requirements! Assuming it would be reasonable to finish his Physics degree while transitioning into the Computer Science graduate program, Sharky applied for graduation with only a Computer Science major. It was not until afterwards that he learned of the university policy which prohibits awarding a second major unless it is awarded at exactly the same time as the first major! Since Sharky had spent four years working on both majors, and he was only three classes short in Physics, this was a major disappointment. He was forced to add Physics to his list of minor degrees, which already included Math and Japanese.

Between his bachelor's and master's degrees, Sharky took a little "vacation" in Japan. For six months, he worked as an intern for Seino Un'yu, the Japanese equivalent of the American UPS. Sharky's assignment was to help the company prepare for the "internet age" by teaching its employees everything he knew about the internet. He also developed the company's first web site and translated company brochures from Japanese to English.

Sharky's first job on campus was somewhat of an accident. While playfully hacking away at the school's private digital telephone system, he discovered several security flaws and revealed them to the university's Telecommunications Department. They immediately offered him a job and he accepted. For a time, he enjoyed setting up, configuring, and troubleshooting the campus' all-digital network. Three months later, however, Sharky received a much better offer from a graduate advisor in the Computer Science department, so his time in the phone tunnels was quite short.

Sharky enjoyed his time as a graduate student. At the request of his supervisors, he skipped the Masters program and enrolled directly into the Ph.D. program. His first year as a graduate student was the most strenuous, because he had only one year to prepare for the qualifying exam, a grueling four part, two day test. (Normally, students are not required to take the qualifying exam until they have completed the Masters program.) Sharky winged the tests and barely passed. One of the advisors got angry at him for listening to Led Zeppelin while taking the exam.

As an "official" doctorate student, Sharky assumed the infamous "Tandem Project," a research project that had (allegedly) defeated two graduate students before him. Sharky stuck with it for a couple of years, and just when he was at the point of defeat himself, he experienced a major revelation. He scrapped all his work, started over, and completed the project in just two months.

At one point, when Sharky's frustration with the project was at a particularly profound level, Microsoft appeared out of nowhere and requested an interview. Sharky told them he wasn't looking for work, but that if they still wanted to interview him he would play along. They interviewed him first at BYU, and then they flew him out to Redmond. Despite the fact that he continued to emphasize, all along the way, that he wasn't really looking for work -- and he even confessed to the recruiter, in his first interview, that he was not particularly fond of Microsoft -- they ultimately offered him a job anyway, asking him to put his graduate studies on hold. Unfortunately, existing circumstances did not make it feasible to accept the offer, so he declined -- a decision he later regretted.

Fortunately, other career opportunities continued to present themselves. Sharky's work on Netscape Frames attracted the interest of Inquiry.com, a Silicon Valley startup that specialized in online tutorial content. After licensing Netscape Frames for republication on their own site, they hired Sharky as a consulting technical writer. In the year that followed, Sharky wrote and published over 60 technical articles on JavaScript and HTML.

Just as Sharky was finishing up the Tandem Project, another Silicon Valley startup approached him and made an irresistable offer. Convinced that the stock options might make him a millionaire before the year was up, Sharky immediately enrolled in the Masters program, applied most of his Doctorate work to the Master's requirements list, and spent the next two months making up the difference. In that brief period, Sharky wrote and defended his thesis and left the university with a Masters degree.

For the next year, Sharky leveraged his Java expertise to refine an exciting, cross-platform, IP-based ultrasound transmission system. It seemed that his Silicon Valley career was well underway. A year later, however, an unexpected family crisis necessitated leaving the valley. First reluctantly, then willingly, Sharky put his career on hold and relocated to the peaceful high desert of Reno. He has remained there ever since, developing his own online business and consulting for other companies on the side.

To be continued . . .