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Soon after graduating in physics in 1972, John found himself working for Cutler-Hammer NZ designing microprocessor supervisory, control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems for South Australian Railways and Sydney County Council.
This experience in the early adoption of a new disruptive digital technology inspired John’s “possibility” mind-set and set him on a trajectory of innovation.
He started his own electronics and software design consultancy and was commissioned to design many industrial and commercial systems. Among these was a microprocessor weighing and production control system for wire manufacturing, a spot welding machine digital controller, a messaging system for large electromagnetic and LED outdoor advertising displays, a numerical machine controller for the manufacture of printed circuit boards, a digital codec for wireless data transmission and radio paging and a vehicle speed detection system.
With this experience behind him, John saw the possibility of developing commercial software with scalable global potential and took the opportunity to work for an enterprising South African company to develop a complete financial and point of sale system for furniture and clothing retailers, known as Furnpac and Ragpac.
Returning to New Zealand in 1987, John co-founded Pacific Business Systems (now Excellent Software and Services) and developed a successful big ticket retail point of sale system known as Retail-Plus and a hire purchase ledger financial control system.
In 1997, John and his family who had all become confirmed café junkies were inspired to find a way to make life easier for waiters. The dream was to create a ground-breaking and innovative new hospitality point of sale system, encompassing wireless hand held technology for taking orders from tables. Wi-Fi was not available for portable devices at the time, so the solution required the design of a plug-in digital wireless transceiver circuit board for the Palm Pilot PDA and a corresponding wireless base station transceiver.
The solution John designed utilised a UHF FM narrow frequency band, with a range of 300 metres. Extremely low power consumption was a design objective with four days battery life being achieved through the use of CMOS technology. In order to keep hardware production costs down, collision avoidance, radio noise filtering, and error checking and correction were designed into the transceiver software drivers rather than the hardware.
The success and reliability of this mobile solution, known as WizBang Waiter at the time, was the genesis of WizBang Technologies.
Today, John leads WizBang Technologies, with the single-minded purpose of driving innovation and growing global distribution channels.
In his time off, you’ll find John sampling local hospitality with family and friends, keeping fit pounding the streets or swimming at the local beach where he currently lives in Millwater, Auckland. He also somehow finds time to fuel his fascination for science and technology, especially cosmology which seems to resonate with his curiosity about the nature of things. John is also passionate and concerned about environmental issues, food quality, food supply and organics, and thinks the extraordinary movie “Food, Inc” should be mandatory viewing for all!
This experience in the early adoption of a new disruptive digital technology inspired John’s “possibility” mind-set and set him on a trajectory of innovation.
He started his own electronics and software design consultancy and was commissioned to design many industrial and commercial systems. Among these was a microprocessor weighing and production control system for wire manufacturing, a spot welding machine digital controller, a messaging system for large electromagnetic and LED outdoor advertising displays, a numerical machine controller for the manufacture of printed circuit boards, a digital codec for wireless data transmission and radio paging and a vehicle speed detection system.
With this experience behind him, John saw the possibility of developing commercial software with scalable global potential and took the opportunity to work for an enterprising South African company to develop a complete financial and point of sale system for furniture and clothing retailers, known as Furnpac and Ragpac.
Returning to New Zealand in 1987, John co-founded Pacific Business Systems (now Excellent Software and Services) and developed a successful big ticket retail point of sale system known as Retail-Plus and a hire purchase ledger financial control system.
In 1997, John and his family who had all become confirmed café junkies were inspired to find a way to make life easier for waiters. The dream was to create a ground-breaking and innovative new hospitality point of sale system, encompassing wireless hand held technology for taking orders from tables. Wi-Fi was not available for portable devices at the time, so the solution required the design of a plug-in digital wireless transceiver circuit board for the Palm Pilot PDA and a corresponding wireless base station transceiver.
The solution John designed utilised a UHF FM narrow frequency band, with a range of 300 metres. Extremely low power consumption was a design objective with four days battery life being achieved through the use of CMOS technology. In order to keep hardware production costs down, collision avoidance, radio noise filtering, and error checking and correction were designed into the transceiver software drivers rather than the hardware.
The success and reliability of this mobile solution, known as WizBang Waiter at the time, was the genesis of WizBang Technologies.
Today, John leads WizBang Technologies, with the single-minded purpose of driving innovation and growing global distribution channels.
In his time off, you’ll find John sampling local hospitality with family and friends, keeping fit pounding the streets or swimming at the local beach where he currently lives in Millwater, Auckland. He also somehow finds time to fuel his fascination for science and technology, especially cosmology which seems to resonate with his curiosity about the nature of things. John is also passionate and concerned about environmental issues, food quality, food supply and organics, and thinks the extraordinary movie “Food, Inc” should be mandatory viewing for all!
Jamie HansenGeneral ManagerJamie is passionate about technology and is committed to seeing WizBang continually provide world-class tech to the hospitality sector. He completed a Bachelor of Commerce at Auckland University in 1998 and has worked predominantly in technology, finance and food service industries over the last 20 years. His specialties includes leadership, strategic planning, sales and marketing and finance. |
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He has worked in different roles over the years within Wizbang and most recently came on board at the beginning of 2018 as a company director to aid John in leading the family business. He oversees various areas of the business and is passionate about developing those around him to deliver sustained long-term performance outcomes in this fast-changing world.
He enjoys being on and in the water, as he’s a keen surfer and paddleboarder. Every January you’ll find him camping near a beach with his wife and three young kids.
Fun fact: Jamie travelled with his wife through 15 countries in 3 continents in 2004. He has travelled through the Amazon jungle in Bolivia, obtained a dive license in Egypt and enjoyed a wildlife safari in Kenya.
He enjoys being on and in the water, as he’s a keen surfer and paddleboarder. Every January you’ll find him camping near a beach with his wife and three young kids.
Fun fact: Jamie travelled with his wife through 15 countries in 3 continents in 2004. He has travelled through the Amazon jungle in Bolivia, obtained a dive license in Egypt and enjoyed a wildlife safari in Kenya.
Anna HansenBusiness ManagerAnna obtained a Bachelor of Science (double major in Psychology and Human Nutrition) from Massey University and also holds a Marketing Diploma from Auckland University of Technology. She has worked in different roles over the years from Office Management to Marketing Coordinator to Advertising Manager to Nutritionist. She is currently working in a Business Advisory and Accounts role. Her varied experience makes her an asset to the business. Fun facts: When Anna’s not at work you’ll find her spending time with her three kids, relaxing or walking a local beach or enjoying coffee with friends. |
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Tina LiOffice CoordinatorTina grew up in China and has had experience working in both Beijing and Auckland. Tina achieved her Postgraduate Diploma in New Zealand and her bachelor’s degree in China. She provides valuable support to the Financial and Operations Manager. Her business skills and accounting knowledge are a real asset to the team. When Tina’s not at work she enjoys travel, as she loves experiencing different cultures and cuisines. One of her dreams is to travel every inch of the planet. Fun fact: She has recently taken up photography to capture her travel moments |
Prabin KarkiTechnical Support EngineerPrabin is originally from Nepal, the home of Mount Everest. He came to New Zealand in 2012 to pursue his studies and completed a Diploma in Information Technology with excellence. Prior to joining WizBang, Prabin worked in the hospitality industry for 5 years as a Chef including time as a Sous Chef at renowned Mt Eden restaurant The Garden Shed. After his time at Circus Circus, Prabin was tasked with setting up and managing the kitchens at Garden Shed and Wu & You when they initially opened. |
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Prabin was also frequently called upon to trouble shoot IT issues across the various restaurants he worked in and so he became very familiar with our onetap software. When looking around for another addition to our tech team, Prabin came highly recommended as a great troubleshooter and all-round good guy. His background in hospitality and IT, combined with his sincere empathy for the client makes him a great Technical Support Engineer.
In his spare time you will find him fishing, cooking, playing football and tasting the local craft beers and different cuisines around the city.
In his spare time you will find him fishing, cooking, playing football and tasting the local craft beers and different cuisines around the city.
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Conrad FordTechnical Support EngineerConrad brings over 15 years of experience in the IT support industry. His first foray into IT was when he was employed in the fuel retail industry, building and configuring computer and point of sale systems for the big four oil companies in New Zealand. He soon progressed on to helpdesk support and then jumped at the chance to round out his skills when he moved on to helpdesk management. These skills put him in good stead when he was offered a role with one of NZ’s largest banks, managing the internal helpdesk during a period of catastrophe mitigation change being implemented within the bank. Conrad joined the support team at NZ POS Systems in 2011 and plays a key role in supporting onetap users within the hospitality industry throughout New Zealand. |
Amanda MilhamSenior Software DeveloperAmanda is a born and breed Kiwi, although she has had a recent stint in Melbourne. In 1998 she completed a Bachelor of Commerce (First Class Honours) with stage 4 papers in Information Systems and has been thriving in the software development space ever since. Amanda co-founded Wizbang with her dad, John Hansen in 1997, where she designed and solely developed WizBang’s original hospitality POS system (excluding the mobile hand-held software), from scratch. The robust database and client server application design has stood the test of time and is still the foundation of WizBang’s POS system today. She had another stint at WizBang in 2007-2008 as an analyst programmer and came on board again full time in 2018 as our lead software developer. |
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Over the last twenty years Amanda has proven herself as a highly accomplished software developer. She has worked in software development for various companies including Smart Health (Australia), Global Health (Australia), Soft Tech (NZ), Exonet (NZ) and Sovereign Assurance (NZ).
At the weekends you will find Amanda spending time with her two young kids, reading who-dun-its, mountain-biking and eating gooood food.
Fun fact: Amanda’s favourite place to visit is North Head in Devonport.
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Richard CrowleSenior Software DeveloperRichard is originally from England, growing up in the Norfolk Broads where he spent a lot of his childhood in and on the water doing sailing, kayaking and swimming. He holds a Master of Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, in northern England. He gained valuable experience in both the retail and hospitality industries during his time studying. |
Richard found himself in New Zealand after some extensive travel, during which time he continued to work in hospitality. It was during his time as a general manager in a busy Auckland Bar/Restaurant that he was introduced to WizBang. Given his IT skills, he was assigned the role of maintaining and managing WizBang’s onetap POS system, along with the task of implementing onetap's stock control and loyalty/marketing modules for the Bar/Restaurant.
After 18 months of using WizBang's software as an end user, he jumped at a chance to work for WizBang. He started off in our technical team and in 2010 he moved over to the development side of our business where he worked on a range of products: ROSS, Stock, Reports, integrations and the main onetap program. The combination of his electronics degree, practical experience in hospitality industry and technical support roles, gives Richard the ability to understand problems and solve them from both the end user/customer side as well as the technical/development side. To this day, he remains focused on producing a reliable, stable and high quality product.
Fun facts: When he isn’t glued to a computer screen, Richard enjoys getting outdoors walking, travelling and exploring, with the occasional trip overseas. He enjoys following sports, including his English football team “Norwich City”.
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