James Nickel has always had a fascination for numbers starting with keeping baseball statistics in the 1960s (he was then and currently is now a San Francisco Giants baseball fan). This interest led him into the field of mathematics and computers and he has programmed computers in a wide variety of contexts:
1. Science: for the United States Navy in Pt. Mugu where, as a mathematical analyst, he designed code to analyze radar flight data of the F-14A Tomcat and the Tomahawk Cruise Missile.
2. Book publishing business: for a major publishing house in Minneapolis where he designed and programmed an order entry/royalty systems.
3. Education: for an Australian Christian school (teaching mathematics, science, and history) in the state of South Australia where he first encountered the personal computer, a 2.33 Mhz processor with a dual 5.5 inch floppy (no hard drive), and a monochrome monitor costing a whopping $5,000 AUD (He wrote the manuscript of his first book using the word processor Multimate).
4. Utility business: as a systems analyst, he enjoyed about 15 years programming, designing, and maintaining software applications (platforms: mainframe, client/server, Web).
5. Education: Dean of the School of Mathematics of a proposed distance learning program.
6. Education: Three years high school math instructor (online).
7. He is currently doing full-time consulting and research work.
Above all, he loves researching and writing (especially in the areas of mathematics and science) and has accumulated a library of over 3,000 books covering these fields and the fields of theology, history, economics, education, and law. Services