Solution salesmen Graham Botterill and Graham Robinson, both over 60, were recently given two of the top sales achievement awards, beating the efforts of their younger colleagues.  Between them they have 80 years of experience in computing and sales.

Graham Botterill achieved the Highest Sales Award for his personal contribution to overall sales.

Graham Botterill summarises his career in IT – “I started working with computers in the late 1960s.  The first machine I programmed filled a room, had 1 kilobyte of memory and was laughingly described as a mini-computer.

From this BASIC (actually machine code) beginning, I zig-zagged my way up to the dizzy heights of project manager with a certain health insurance company.  When they began haemorrhaging staff in 1993, Chris Thompson, the now Managing Director of Avanquest Solutions, was kind enough to facilitate a move into the murky world of sales.  He sold me as an indentured servant to European Printing Systems, which evolved to eventually become part of Avanquest UK.”

Graham’s main hobbies are drama and brewing.  He will be appearing in ‘Blue Remembered Hills’ at the Rhoda McGaw Theatre, Woking, on Wednesday 14th October.

Graham Robinson was given the Special Award for his never failing positive approach to solving customer’s ‘what if’ questions and ongoing queries.

Graham Robinson joined Avanquest’s Corporate Solutions Sales Team at the end of 2005. He has successfully lead and expanded the sales of OnBase document management solutions, securing contracts with Northern Marine Management (part of the Stena group) to automate their accounts processes, and most recently, with marine claim and recovery agents WK Webster.

Previous experience at Capgemini, Documentum, Xerox, Wang and Cimage Enterprise Systems gives Graham a wealth of knowledge to pass onto clients.

“When I need a break from IT I take to the seas” said Graham, “There is nothing more relaxing than the peace and tranquillity as you glide on the breeze.”