I started this Co-op, with the help of Augment skills not just to make food, as cooking is a passion of mine, but to educate and train young people to be able to create a better future for themselves. We focused on the hospitality industry, a it is a wide spectrum and has lots of different avenues to choose from. Augment skills offered us financial assistance during our first months of business. Augment received some huge government contracts with which they in turn invested in ours, and many other start up co-ops, who all worked together as a skills development engine. Unfortunately, before we became financially self-sufficient, Augment skills Made some bad investment decisions and declared for bankruptcy. We continued for as long as what we could and then I had to close the doors of the skills development side of the business. We did not charge the students, we gave them full bursaries as well as R2500 pocket money every month to cover their transport costs and living expenses. All these expenses, as well as the salaries of 4 other employees came from the revenue generated by catering for functions and events. Since February 2013 I have been working and running the business on my own and am making a sustainable income at the moment.

When I left Nashua Mobile to home school one of my children who was diagnosed with learning disabilities I started OfficeIT. Here I focused on two products, Fax-to-email and VOIP phones. During this period I built up a client base of about 12 000 clients. I acquired a partner in the business as the workload became to much for me alone. I remained in charge of the Fax-to-email side of the business and he took over the VOIP and other internet services side. Unfortunately, this partner managed to steal the whole business from me.

Here I was responsible for maintaining existing clients and obtaining new clients. I was only allowed to focus n companies with 100 or more employees. I was responsible for strategic planning for each of my clients telecommunications networks, implementation, cost reduction and future upgrade-ability. I nurtured deteriorating accounts back to health and invested a lot of time on new accounts. I worked on clients like IBM, Amalgamated Beverages SA etc. Unfortunately, I had to resign to see to personal problems at home. (family comes first.)

I started of with Hymax as an LCR sales representative and was soon (within the first 6 months) promoted to Full product sales, where I introduced all of the Hymax products to clients on Director level, both locally and nationally. I presented to clients like the South African Post Office. The solution I was negotiating with them would have saved them R33mil per month, but sadly, company retrenchments happened before we closed the deal. After a year as full product representative I was promoted to Key Accounts Manager where my focus was only on larger accounts and became a bit more product specific. I started specializing in the Hymax Software solutions. About a month before the retrenchments came I was offered a promotion to National Dealer Manager.

I worked as the Cellular sales Manager in the Tzaneen Woolworths. Here I was in charge of all the operations, sales and staff. I was responsible for the team making their targets, duty rosters, stock taking and ordering etc.

I worked as an electrician for the local town council. I did general electrical maintenance on the town's grid as well as new installations.

After leaving school, I started an Electrical apprenticeship with De Beers Diamond Mines in Namaqualand. After I qualified as an artisan, I continued to work for De Beers on a conr\tract basis that was renewed every six months, seeing to the fact that De Beers was cutting down on staff and retrenching employees at the time. I worked as an electrician, building High Voltage power lines in various locations.