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Former Newberg chimney sweep finds his niche on the Internet
Wednesday,
April 12, 2000
By Amber Stahr
of The Newberg Graphic
The story
of a former chimney sweep turned computer program developer is
not necessarily a rags to riches tale, but an epic of ashes to
dot-com.
Newberg's
John Bertoglio cleaned chimneys in the 1980s. Now he is vice president
of technology at the Portland company PulsePoll.com
Bertoglio's
software programming, coupled with the innovation of the company's
designers, won them the first-place award at the InterSystem's
Cache Innovators Awards, held March 21 in Orlando, Fla.
"I'm sure
the company who gave me this expected it to be in some boardroom,
not a living room in Newberg," Bertoglio said.
He said for
now the award will stay at his home, at least until the company
has a boardroom with a glass case to display awards.
PulsePoll.com
is an offshoot of Pulse Research, one of the largest newspaper
research firms in the country, Bertoglio said.
But the Newberg
resident and four other employees of the parent company decided
to take the idea and launch an online version and in October they
started their own company.
The PulsePoll.com
software allows visitors to create their own poll and post it
on their own Web sites. The product also allows customers to trace
results and viewers participating in the survey can also see up-do-date
numbers after casting their vote.
The company
recently worked a great deal with the presidential primary elections,
and Bertoglio said that its polls successfully predicted the outcome
of the New Hampshire primary.
While there
has been much distrust of Internet polling date, Bertoglio said
that he believes that online polls will become more popular as
other data sources become more fallible.
The dot com
product uses a database software called Cache, produced by InterSystems.
The international software company recently hosted a competition
for businesses using their product and warded the winner a $5,000
prize. Among the competitors were the department of Veterans'
Affairs, Quest Diagnostics and Johns Hopkins University.
PulsePoll.com,
with its five employees, was given the top award and Bertoglio
said his company was much different than the others competing.
"I think their
budget for plastic coffee spoons exceeds my entire operating costs
for the year." he quipped.
But Bertoglio
said that in his competition, company size didn't matter -- the
award was given to the company with the most innovative design.
Competing against large, experienced companies was a priviledge
for Bertoglio, he added.
"It's a very
humbling experience to be in the company of people who are so
much more accomplished," he said.
So the Newberg
man now works among big companies instead of ashes and
soot.
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