Hi! My name is Tom Kapanka. I'm thrilled to have you as a visitor to Allô! St. Barths, and hope you're having fun exploring our site. I built this site with you in mind so that you can have a better experience on St. Barths. We do our best to provide useful and relevant information to you. We want you, the visitor, the local resident, the business owner, to have all of the tools you need to keep in touch, plan a fantastic vacation, or get your business in front of your customers.

My background includes web design, web application development, programming, databases, photography, audio and video production and community building. I have been working in the Open Source community for almost 6 years now. Ever since I was a child, I've been tinkering with computers and writing programs starting with the RadioShack TRS80 and Commodore 64. When I was in grade-school we learned basic on the PET model computer. I get much of my design sensibilities from my mother, a graphic designer and artist. In high school I studied graphic layout and print production using Apple Macintosh computers. As my interest in both design and technology grew, I expanded my education during college to include audio engineering, sound design, video editing and production, and worked at a successful audio production facility in New York City. I also began working with live sound, lighting design, and tour management with bands from Manhattan (the Authority) and Virginia (Everything).

With the advent of the Internet, I knew I had found my niche and started designing and programming websites. I worked at a small ISP providing installation and customer service for dialup customers but was quickly hired to bootstrap the Internet Division of a graphic design shop. Here is where I first started working with the Unix operating system. Soon I was building servers, writing CGI scripts and custom applications for our customers. As the business grew, so did the Internet industry and soon I knew it was time to move to San Francisco. There, I became the Senior Systems Administrator for AspenMedia, a custom web design and application development firm. There we built, designed, and maintained web sites and servers for an impressive array of clients including the famous KFOG radio station. When the Dot Com bubble burst, I found work with a local web hosting provider. It was just about this time that I first attended the Burning Man Project. I started volunteering my time to help them with their web services and eventually turned it into a full time position in their Technical Department as the Engineering Team Lead. There we started working closely with the Open Source Software community to develop custom applications to help Burning Man manage its world wide base of volunteers. From there I improved my programming skills, as well as my management, communication, and community development skills.

Finally, I knew that it was time to apply all of this experience. It was time to start Allô! St. Barths. Again, I hope you find this site fun, useful, and informative. We welcome your feedback and comments and wish you the best wherever you may visit from.

~ Tom Kapanka