People at Olive Tree

Hello! My name is Danielle, and I started working for Olive Tree in April as a book formatter. I have enjoyed learning the ins and outs of the magical process that is making a book appear on a cell phone (or iPad) screen. I love the project-oriented nature of this position and how I get to work on many different projects in any given week – or day, as the case may be.

Like most of the Olive Tree team, I am not originally from this area. I was born and raised in Arizona; specifically, I grew up in Sedona, AZ. If you ever find yourself doubting the existence of God, all you need to do is experience a Sedona sunset. Perhaps that is why thousands of people travel from all over the world to witness the uniquely shaped red rock mountains and the orange, pink and purple painted sky that accompanies the sun as it goes down, providing a truly grand finale to each day.

When choosing which college to attend, I was instantly attracted to Gonzaga University’s educational philosophy, which is “based on the centuries-old Ignatian model of educating the whole person – mind, body and spirit.” It was those exact words that gave me an unwavering desire to trust Gonzaga with some of the most important years of my life, knowing that I was also selecting the community that would help shape me into who I am today. It was not without very significant sacrifices that I was able to call Gonzaga home, but it was undoubtedly where I belonged; my experience proved to be everything I ever thought or hoped it would be. I graduated in 2008 with a Bachelor of Arts in English.

I am very proud and thankful to be working for Olive Tree, a company that truly values people at the root of it all; which is shown through its genuine care and concern in providing a quality product to its customers and fostering the success of its employees. It’s exciting working in a field of constant change and growth, as technology continues to evolve and become more and more integral to everyday life.

Hi everyone! I am the newest of the newbies (at least for a little while) here at Olive Tree. My name is Steven. My duties here at Olive Tree are primarily going to be in book formatting. I’m still learning the ropes, but I am excited about the opportunities here.

My education is in the Biblical Studies field. I have a Master’s of Theology in New Testament Biblical Studies from the University of Edinburgh in good ‘ol Scotland. Though I grew up the Southeast (no I don’t really have a cool accent – sorry to disappoint), I made my way out to Spokane shortly after returning from Scotland. I had been working for a marketing firm doing systems administration before finding Olive Tree’s posting.

One of the biggest “draws” for me was Olive Tree’s work with original languages. I really enjoyed learning Greek in school and even teach a Greek class now. So the opportunity to jump in and help in the original language projects here seem like they will be right up my alley. I look forward to working with this great team to produce quality original language tools.

-Steven

As a new member of the Olive Tree Bible Software team, I wanted to take the opportunity to share with you several of the reasons I love Olive Tree. First, it might be helpful to know a little of my background with Olive Tree. I found Olive Tree’s Bible Reader as a seminary student in the late 90′s. The idea of having a library in my pocket instantly struck me as a shift in category from prior ways of thinking.

Prior to this I had sort of snubbed the idea of using my handheld (at that time a Visor Neo with a monochrome screen) for serious reading. It seemed that the small screen would make reading an impossibility. The slew of book readers I had seen and tried had generally failed to prove their value to me. Then came BibleReader.

I was instantly intrigued with putting God’s Word on my PDA and having access to Scripture on a device that I was already carrying with me everywhere. So, I bought the NLT and intended mainly to use it as a way to find those references no one ever remembers. I also looked forward to using the program for devotional use.

It was not long before I found myself using BibleReader much more than I had expected. As the feature-set developed and things like Auto-scrolling became available, I found my PDA coming out more and more. Then as original language resources became available (and the BHS is now astounding with the Unicode font) my peers were astounded when we could find out proper grammatical information on a text or word with my Palm device.

Several devices later, one of the only programs that has made the journey from my first PDA is BibleReader. I have used it for everything from the public reading of Scripture (large fonts & auto-scroll) to sermon preparation (the original language resources & commentary selection is outstanding & growing) to personal devotion (creating your own Bible reading schedule through the Desktop Assistant or one of the existing ones – including user generated) to reading books that I would never be able to take on the go (Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology). All of this with resources stored locally on my device, I don’t even have to have an internet connection! As long as my batteries work, BibleReader is there for me.

Now I am excited to be a part of the Tech Support & Document Formatting process at Olive Tree. I’m thrilled at our growing community of users who are sharing their support knowledge through our Support Forums. I’ll be looking for you in the forums soon!

With more & more mobile platforms and devices to put Olive Tree’s Bible Reader on, there is plenty of work ahead. And, the future looks great!

Soli Deo Gloria!

Matt Hudson works for Olive Tree Bible Software in Tech Support & Document formatting. He lives in Houston, TX with his wife and four children (with one on the way). He holds an M.Div. from Beeson Divinity School, Birmingham, AL and is actively involved in his local church in Houston.

On Tuesday, us O.T. engineers left for Mount Spokane for an “Engineering Meeting.”  We spent hours (well, at least 2 hours) working our way toward the top of Day-Mount Spokane!  Of course, on the way up we talked about Olive Tree (for at least part of the time ).  Finally, we reached the peak….

Top Picture from left to right:

Stephen Johnson (my bro): Senior software engineer : always making the Bible reader the best it can be
Chris Early: Intern programmer 1 : Doing LOTS of programming with conversion projects!!!
Paul Johnson (me): Intern programmer 2 : Created material for the iPod, and tutorial videos
Tim Rosinbum: Regular expression guru (a.k.a. conversion project master): Converted almost 100 items!
Drew Haninger: owner and CEO : Does everything!

Engineers that couldn’t make it due to different geographic locations:

Kathy Stevens: AMAZING conversion programmer : Oxford material and other great resources
Drayton Benner: Programmer/Hebrew scholar : Did unicode Hebrew HMT and font support

This is only the list of engineers.  There are many others who do LOTS for O.T.!!!