These days, every designer seems to have a brag page…
… and this is mine. This is where I get to tell you what my qualifications and skills are. What fun!
I’ll start with an introduction – I am M.A. Bell, owner of AlphaMare Web Services. And that’s my current horse, Chips, in the photo with me.
I have been working with and around horses for over 50 years, as a rider, owner and coach in both Hunter/Jumper and Dressage. I hunted with the Lake of Two Mountains Hunt, and also spent several years in the Southern States working with racing Thoroughbreds both on and off the track (I actually touched Secretariat!). I’ve ridden 5-gaited horses and done some Western reining.
About 13 years ago, I first discovered computers, and then the Internet. Since then, I’ve been as hooked on the Web as I am on horses.
I have an eclectic background in formal post-secondary education, starting with two years of C.E.G.E.P. at John Abbott College near Montreal.
I then took a year to go to England as a working student to gain my B.H.S.A.I. (British Horse Society Assistant Instructor) certificate.
All of that was followed a few years later by Visual Arts at Holland College in P.E.I., and later still, by Fine Arts at Queen’s University in Ontario.
As I became more and more intrigued by computers, and more specifically the Web, I enrolled again at John Abbott – the same C.E.G.E.P. I had attended years before – and obtained an AEC in Web Technology. I continue to take courses there to expand my programming skills.
In between my stints of formal education, I have worked as a groom, a “buck boy” on the track, a stable manager, a veterinary assistant, and a riding coach, among other things.
This combination of formal design training, widely varying work experiences, entrepreneurship, and a lifelong involvement with horses and the people who work with them have put me in a unique position to apply the concepts of design and function with up-to-date programming skills and a deep understanding of the equine industry.
This enables me to create well-designed, innovative, visually appealing websites, which are at the same time uniquely targeted, user-friendly, and precisely functional.
I pride myself on the quality of my work and attention to detail in making all the web sites I produce as user friendly and compatible as possible to ensure that they work equally well in all of the main web browsers, and across all devices. The depth of experience I bring to my work ensures that each site I create is thematically appropriate for the target market.
Unlike many large web development companies, the fact that I am entirely responsible for the work I produce ensures that each project is special to me, not just another cookie-cutter job, and so it is given the attention it deserves. With me you will experience an exceptional level of personal service and flexibility. I will work together with you to produce a web site to meet your specific needs. My goal is to provide the best combination of expertise and economy to the equine world on the web.
Think of me like baling twine for your online presence: familiar, sturdy and useful in more ways than you can count.