I began working in the electricity industry as a Mechanical Engineer in Queensland the early 1990’s – back when the industry was vertically integrated, and tightly regulated.

During these years, I worked in Operations & Maintenance at the Tarong and Stanwell Power Stations, and in the Due Diligence operation surrounding the Gladstone Power Station in preparation for its sale to a consortium of private-sector, multi-national companies.

In 1995, I left Australia on the E.S.Cornwall Memorial Scholarship, a prestigious scholarship awarded by the University of Queensland to young engineering graduates working in the electricity industry to enable them to travel abroad and learn something of interest to the industry.

During my time away, I spent time in Japan (with Hitachi), worked in California with an engineering consultancy, worked in Alberta (with TransAlta) and ended up in the UK (working with GEC Alstom).

I extended my time away from Australia to take up an opportunity which arose with the Electricity Pool of England & Wales (which existed at the time). This was in the early days of the Association of Power Exchanges (APEx), an organisation established to allow Market Operators to discuss about issues commonly encountered in the operations of electricity markets around the world.

I was asked to assist APEx members in this process – and learned a number of things, including:

• That each operator used their own language to describe a market (e.g. what is a “retailer” in Australia was a “Supplier” in England);
• That each market was trying to address some of the more difficult issues in relation to how to operate competitive electricity markets. Indeed, it is useful to reflect on the fact that the top 5 issues in 1997 for market operators are largely the same today:
  1. Ensuring the market provides for new generation capacity;
  2. Methods of transmission pricing;
  3. Encouraging liquidity in financial market;
  4. Ancillary services (i.e. market-based mechanisms for keeping the lights on in real time); and
  5. Engaging the demand side of the market in the process.
  We could add greenhouse emissions as the 6th issue these days.
• That, underneath each market is a number of core fundamentals which don’t change (even though the terminology may) because the physics of electricity supply is the same the world over (even if certain consultants might strive to obscure these details to promote and protect a perceived "competitive advantage").

Through this process, I learned that I had an ability to make complex issues understandable – and I also saw that these complexities were not going to be alleviated any time soon. Hence the idea of our business was seeded at around that time.

My time at the Electricity Pool also coincided with the decision of the Minister of Energy at the time (John Battle) to initiate a review of the Pool – that led to its winding up and the creation of the new NETA market (which itself has also been superseded).

This decision was announced at the Pool’s Annual Conference in 1997, to quite some commotion. Normally conferences in this industry are pretty dour, uneventful occasions, but I will never forget this event!

Many of the criticisms levelled at the Pool were valid criticisms. One of the main criticisms was that the Pool was run as an “old boys club” and that those outside of the immediate market had little idea of the way the market was operating, and no real way to participate.

This experience illustrated clearly to me several things:

• that, if a market was going to be sustainable, then everyone associated with the market (not just the wholesale market participants) would need to have access to and understanding of a core set of market data.
• that, because of the underlying physics at work in the electricity market, all market participants and observers need to keep an eye on what's happening in the market in real time in order that the operation of the market continues to reflect the physical realities.
• that the design of the market needs to be such that demand-side response is supported (but not promoted through distortional mechanisms) as a means of managing times of tight supply/demand balance, and other instances of generator market power.

These understandings have formed the basis of our business, as it has grown over time.

In 1998 I returned to Australia to work in an industry that was very different than the one that I had been working in several years before.

Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM) commenced operations on 13^th December 1998 - and brought with it a greater requirement for information for companies operating in the market (and those on the outside, looking in).

During 1999, I was struck with the crazy notion that I wanted to go into business for myself - well, it seemed like a good idea at the time(!) - and saw that there would be an opportunity for me with the market having just started.

In 2000, I launched this company with 2 other (non-executive) partners with the aim of developing software solutions to help people understand the way Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM) was operating. It was early days in the market, and many people had questions that required answers.

Since 2000, I have been focused on steadily growing our business by spreading the word about the products we have put together, and by expanding the suite of software that we can offer to meet your other needs, as they were identified to you.

Since 2002, we have also been serving a number of clients in Ontario with software we developed for their market as a test case to see whether our way of viewing the market would have global appeal.

Our plans in this respect have been frustrated, to some degree, by the crisis that engulfed the market in Ontario in 2002 and 2003, and the hybrid market (containing a heavy dose of a single buyer) that has been established as a result.

One more lesson for us that a market needs to be widely understood if it is to be effective (and hence sustainable)!

Since that time, our attention has been focused on serving our client base in Australia in a growing number of ways. Given that the number of clients we serve keeps growing each year, we must at least be doing something right!

2007 proved to be an important year for us, in a number of ways:

1. We made a number of significant product releases, that will help us to deliver even greater value to clients across Australia and around the world.
2. We moved office into larger premises to provide us the ability to continue growing our team of software developers, which will help us to serve you even better into the future.
3. Personally, I bought out one of my partners in the business to provide us greater flexibility to address the opportunities and challenges facing our business.
4. We have had a number of employees buy into the business - in order that they can share more in the benefits we're striving to deliver over the coming 10 years:
   • For our customers;
   • For our employees; and
   • Finally, for our shareholders.
5. Additionally, we began working through the process of changing our company name.
   
   • Our current name (global-roam) was coined as an acronym of the 3 founder’s surnames (R O & M), plus our realisation that the insights we could provide would have global appeal.
   • However, it did not occur to us as the time - so much for our wonderful insight! - that the name would be confused by many as a telecoms provider.  As such, we still regularly receive calls from people stranded in all parts of the world with no mobile phone coverage.
   • In 2007 we shortlisted a selection of names (after receiving suggestions from a wide range of clients) and initiated the process of registration of trademarks, domain names etc...
   • Some background to the suggestions received is provided on our website at this address.

We'd like to thank everyone who helped us to progress this far, and look forward to continuing our development, into the future.

We have a long list of projects that we would are planning to implement over time, but would appreciate your suggestions as to what types of software would be of most benefit to you.

We look forward to releasing these new products in the coming weeks, months and years.

If you're a person with the both the capability and the commitment to help us achieve our goals (and hence benefit many more in the electricity market) then we would like to hear from you!