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Personal 
I was born in 1948, which makes me a baby boomer. I have four kids all born in the 70s and 80s and, at this moment, four grandchildren, which creates a new and enjoyable dimension in life. I was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1968 and was an infantryman in Vietnam. No hero but I am proud of my Combat Infantry Badge and Purple Heart. Although you’d never know it to look at me, I exercise regularly, ran three full 26.2 mile marathons (3:48 was my best time in 1980) and consider myself in pretty good shape for a fat guy. I also had heart surgery in 1997: Five bypasses, which is the most of anybody I’ve ever met. I’m proud of that too.

Technical

After becoming an FAA certified Airframe & Powerplant mechanic in 1972, when there were no jobs in aviation, I went to work as an engineering technician for a commercial refrigerator manufacturer in Research and Development. In 1973 I was hired by Van Dyk Research Corporation as a factory technician. Van Dyk manufactured 67 copy-per-minute plain paper roll-fed copiers right here in the United States, with American made components, believe it or not. I was a "run-up" technician, which meant that when the copier came off the assembly line, I would spend several days inspecting, adjusting and testing until the machine was ready to deliver. After six months of this, I transferred to New York City and serviced these 1300 lb. beasts. About a year later, I was promoted to Technical Specialist. This meant fixing machines that no-one else could fix and solving customer problems. It was the easiest job I ever had in this business and taught me the things that technicians do wrong. While working for Van Dyk, I went back to school after hours and obtained my B.A. from the State University of New York in 1979. Eventually, I became service manager and then branch manager and was responsible for the New York branch. From 1981 to 1983 I worked for Sharp Electronics Corporation as a Regional Service Specialist. This was another technical specialist type position, with a lot of time spent assisting dealers with organizing and supervising their service departments, technicians and profitability. While at Sharp I attended and graduated from the Sharp Management Institute, which was designed in collaboration with New York University. In addition to dealer problems, I also created and conducted technician training seminars. I discovered that I had a knack for improving on existing service information, and was good at making some difficult work easier to understand.

In 1983, I left Sharp electronics and started my own copier business. My theory was that I could fix anything, and should be able to make a living that way. Several years later, I documented much of the knowledge that was in my head, and created and published INTRAVIA’S SERVICE GUIDE TO COPIERS. I marketed it to the trade, to other technicians like myself. It was well received, and has been followed by dozens of other similar publications devoted to copiers, printers, fax machines, and most of all, to technicians. Having done technician’s training since 1980 or so, I also created training courses for copier, facsimile and laser printers.

Writing

In 1987, I began publishing a monthly newsletter (paid subscription) known as THE TECHNICIAN’S NEWS. I dabbled in graduate school but only for one semester. Instead I took more practical and useful courses in technical writing, journalism, etc. I have since written for a variety of industry magazines and do some occasional freelance reporting for local newspapers and get a few photographs published here and there.

I am still creating the INTRAVIA’S SERVICE GUIDES and I devote a lot of energy to trying to keep technicians prepared, relaxed and happy or at least not too unhappy. A lot of effort is put into troubleshooting techniques and how to avoid mistakes.

Consulting

I have been called upon by law firms, dealers, manufacturers, police departments and the United States Attorney’s office to provide information and research regarding lawsuits, patent issues and other technical matters relating to xerographic equipment and office equipment.

I hope this wasn’t too boring, but I guess you really might like to know what qualifies me to write these things. I prefer to try and get people to not take this business too seriously.

Thanks for your time.

Jim Intravia

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