The Story.
The earliest versions of Visual Schedule Builder (VSB) date back to 2001. While in college, brothers Alan and Sean Weeks sought to alleviate frustration by automating the class selection process. Early crude versions of the course scheduling system were programmed in C++ and took overnight to perform simple class searches. When the brothers went on to university, student participation and feedback transformed VSB into a fast, intuitive tool.
The brothers finally approached Montreal-based Concordia University in 2010, to sell a software solution backed by 4 years of student testing. Concordia jumped at the idea, implementing in March 2011. VSB was unannounced by Concordia's IT, but users spread the word and usage went from 350 in the first week, to 2600 by the 3rd week. Within four months, 20,000 unique users had experienced VSB almost exclusively from word of mouth.
In June 2012, McGill University in Montreal launched VSB for their student body of 37,000. The program has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from administration and students since its launch, and is now a key part in the registration process for most students.
Alan Weeks.CEO & Founder
Alan founded VSB after graduating from the John Molson School of Business in 2010, with a B.Com in Marketing and Psychology. He received numerous awards for leadership & communication throughout his schooling, including a half-point miss from the National Debating Championships. Alan funded his schooling by starting a local painting company, employing 12 painters and clearing just under 100k the first summer. His entrepreneurship and dedication to customer satisfaction has seen the painting company expand successfully into offering window washing services as well. Alan brings the management, marketing experience and capital over with him to VSB. He is heavily involved in the design and user experience, pushing to create the leading solution for student course scheduling.
Sean Weeks.CIO & Co-Founder
Sean is the Chief Information Officer at VSB, and has extensive experience in nearly every programming language. The brainchild behind VSB, Sean's frustration in college with archaic registration systems was the motivation behind the development of our visual schedule builder software. Throughout university, the program was continually refined until he graduated with distinction from Concordia University (Montreal) with a Bachelor's in Electrical Engineering. Having worked as a Naval Software Systems Engineer at Lockheed Martin programing command & control systems for the Department of National Defense, Sean has adapted some of the most advanced bit-binary code sorting algorithms into the VSB framework. Programming from an early age, Sean created a visual operating system for DOS in his fifth grade. He was the only graduate to qualify for a position at the Canadian Space Agency, and he holds numerous awards, including 2nd at the Canadian Engineering Competition with his USB based wireless ECG monitor.
Ron Gearey.VP Int'l Marketing & Sales
Ron Gearey is a seasoned veteran of international business who has a diversity of business experience in: senior management, sales, marketing, training, strategic planning, finance, customer service and consulting. He is fully bilingual and graduated from McGill University with three degrees. He has been involved in international business development since 1989, having worked in over 20 countries in: North America, Asia and Europe. He lived as an ex-patriot for nearly 4 years in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Manila, Bangkok and Sydney, Australia. He has worked in a number of senior executive and consulting capacities for Fortune 500 companies and has been responsible for many successful business development projects worldwide. Over the last 25 years he was able to make hundreds of key global contacts both in business and in governments. Ron is a motivated, experienced, determined and energetic leader. In 2010 and 2011 he participated in four high level government business missions involving China, India, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, whose goal was to promote Canadian products and services. Ron has four children and lives in a country suburb of Montreal.
