Viking Coders originated in 2001 as a cooperative venture between several Merchant developers. In August 2010, Viking Coders was acquired and joined the eMediaSales family of companies: eMediaSales, Copernicus and Viking Coders.

The Current Team:

James Harrell, Jeremy Pritchett, Zach Quintana and Ben Chaudhary.

You'll probably best know our new team of Viking coders as the original owners of Copernicus. James Harrell founded Copernicus around the same time as Viking was born - though James sold Copernicus to Miva in 2005 and joined Miva as director of software development. After leaving Miva in 2007 when Miva was sold to the current owners, James founded eMediaSales and later purchased Copernicus back from Miva, as well as Viking Coders.

The Original Players:

Michael "Brock" Brock, a physicist by education, programmer/developer by circumstance. With the birth of Miva Merchant, he found a new hobby writing modules for his wife's toy store. After 8 years as a patent examiner with the US Patent and Trademark Office, the comfort of a nice cushy job in the bureaucracy wore off and the hobby became a career choice as a full-time developer with Starbase-21. After 19 months with Starbase, the latter months as Head of Development, he was released into the world, ready to become a useful member of society. Enjoys aquariums, soccer, family, dogs, zoos, fireflies, new hobbies, the atmosphere, and lots of other stuff, too numerous to mention.

(Michael also swears that he makes an appearance on a Discovery channel show about lightning—any footage of the long haired, pre-civilization Brock, will earn the admiration of the rest of the VikingCoders crew. We're also investigating the possiblity that Brock is descended from the legendary Brok, maker of Thor's hammer.)

Adam became a Viking Coder in lieu of a career as a professional golfer. He says he couldn't bear to wear the golf pants. Adam found himself addicted to markup and scripting languages in college, and, after a stint teaching philosophy at BCCC, decided to shift gears and accept an e-commerce development position in 1999. He's been working with Miva Script since then, and has worked on projects with many prominent Miva Partners such as PHOSPHOR Media, Design Extend, and Wump Services. Adam would love to take credit for coming up with the domain name, but, in truth, it was a friend who suggested the idea after a (few?) beer(s?) at a pub in Lawrence, KS. Outside of coding and mulligans, Adam enjoys music, movies, gadgets, ponds, frisbee golf, college basketball (he tends to disappear in March), good drink, and good conversation.

Bret hails from New Zealand, where his ancestors relocated after leaving the Scottish Highlands. (FYI: Sutherland comes from the Norse sudrland, "southern land", due to the district's location south of Caithness, the only Norse-occupied area of the mainland.) He is a victim of the "curse"—probably unrelated to any genealogical factors, but it's hard to say for sure. Since the age of ten, wherever he went he was required to fix, set up or explain computers or software. Subsequent courses in Desktop Publishing and then Information Systems at the University of Auckland didn't do much to alleviate the curse. After several years in India and other places in S.E. Asia, primarily spent teaching English and Computers (again!) and studying, Bret arrived in the U.S. and went into business as a web developer, primarily focusing on sites using Miva Merchant and other database-driven solutions. In April 2000, he began working for Starbase-21, eventually heading up their technical support department. Bret is a father of two, but with being a soccer coach and being married to a Montessori preschool teacher, there are lots more kids in his life...And then there's the goatish variety too. His current menagerie includes Nigerian dwarf goats, turtles, fish, Rupee the cat, and Petie the mini-Aussie.