Hi, my name is Simon Dukes and I’m a Marketing Associate at Empirical. I create websites (design and code) and provide backend technical support.
My story starts in the United Kingdom where I was born in the midlands just outside Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. Almost immediately after my birth, my family moved to Nottingham where my father attended university and earned a PhD in engineering.
After he graduated, we moved south to the edge of Poole, Dorset and my father took up a position as a Boffin for the Royal Navy. (A “boffin” is a person with skills in a highly complicated technical or scientific field.) Poole is a very old town and gives its name to the picturesque Poole Harbour, “the second largest natural harbour in the world”.
My passage through Springdale primary, Broadstone middle, and Henry Harbin secondary (high) schools were a wholly unremarkable lesson in averageness. My strongest subjects were art and technical drawing, so Art College beckoned.
The local Art College had a course in technical illustration which seemed to fit the bill. I spent the next four years learning drawing, perspective, penmanship, painting (both with a brush and airbrush) as well as subject research, graphic design, photography, and art history.
Upon leaving College I worked for a short time at a racing car manufacturer creating and illustrating parts catalogues and promotional material.
It was then I was approached by a friend from college about joining him at a company that sold replacement pattern parts for tractors. It was a great opportunity, so I upped sticks and headed southwest to Exeter in Devon. As part of the graphics support team, we not only illustrated the parts catalogues but also did all the advertising and promotional work. These other duties grew over time to include exhibitions (local, national, and international), photography, video production, packaging design, and even shop layout and fitting.
The Managing Director at the company, although he could be a bit stuffy (you could only call him “Mr. Tanner”!) was very positive about learning. His view was, on giving a project you knew little about was: ‘Well, now is your time to learn, and when you have, report back’. A prime example of this was the purchase and installation of an Apple Macintosh system during the early days of the DTP (desktop publishing) revolution of the mid-eighties.
At this point in my life, outside of work I was the race engineer and mechanic for a friend who raced karts. We were fairly successful: we enjoyed many race wins, a second place, and a couple of top tens in the national sprint race championships as well as a third in the Enduro Championship, a series of six-hour, two-driver events.
But all this came to a screeching halt when in the mid-nineties I was taken ill with a progressive loss of feeling and movement in both legs. It took doctors about six months to finally give me a diagnosis: Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy (CIDP), a rare autoimmune neurological condition that attacks the myelin sheath on the nerves. Several rounds of drug therapy and countless hours of physio were needed to put me back on the road to recovery. As my condition improved, I progressed from a wheelchair to crutches, to sticks as I had to relearn how to walk with no feeling in my lower limbs and while wearing ankle splints.
After nearly five years I was well enough to return to the workplace. This came in the form of a Graphic Technician for digital output and graphic design studio. My work here included the creation of artwork, outputting client files to colour-separated film for print, photo drum scanning, image retouching, and short-run digital printing. It was with this background that a client who owned a language school approached us, asking if we could do one of those ‘new website thingies’ they had heard about. I was volunteered for the project, thus a whole new opportunity to learn new skills opened up. After a first successful website build, many more followed and it became a regular element of the work I was doing.
In 2000 I decided to visit my uncle and his wife in San Diego. Little did I know at the time that it would change the course of my life. On an evening out to a regular night spot my uncle and his wife visited, I was introduced to Rachel, the singer in the performing band. A few hurried dates led to many future trips and our relationship continued to grow despite the distance between us. We got engaged.
During this time on a professional front in the UK, I continued to expand my knowledge, expertise, and skill sets of everything related to websites. I worked on many different projects including e-commerce, dynamic database-driven sites, and flash animation projects for companies in industries such a s health and wellness, fitness, recovery, manufacturing, construction, and education.
And then in early 2004, with passport, visa, and tickets in hand, I made the big move to San Diego and married Rachel.
Shortly after my move across the pond to ‘America’s Finest City’, my new brother-in-law introduced me to Stephen Haines of the Haines Center for Strategic Management, and I took over the running of his many websites.
In addition to Stephen’s sites, I built up my own client base and as well as worked with several other designers creating, managing, and providing tech support for websites. Most of the sites I create and work on are now in the WordPress environment. Sadly, Stephen passed away in 2012, but his systems of thinking and holistic approaches resonated with me, particularly when it comes to fault finding and testing.
Stephen hosted his websites on servers run by another Steve, and I also started creating websites for “hosting Steve’s” clients as well. One particular client, for whom I have created several sites, contacted me in early 2023. He said he had an associate looking for someone to provide website during a time when an employee would be out on maternity leave.
This conversation led to an introduction to Bill Morrow, which then morphed into my current role at Empirical. More than a year later, I continue working with the team and helping clients in both the B2B and B2C worlds build and maintain websites that drive results.
Outside of work I have many interests and hobbies, which include helping Rachel at her gigs, all forms of motorsport, and history/archaeology/genealogy. During the COVID lockdown, I returned to a childhood interest in model trains and the new possibilities that 3D modeling and printing offer to the hobby.
Simon has been an incredible addition to the Empirical team, and is known for his holistic approach to helping clients achieve their goals. From web design, coding, and development, through tackling the most difficult technical challenges, Simon has brought a large amount of value to all companies he touches. Be sure to connect with Simon on LinkedIn!
