About Accolade Group

Accolade Group was established in 1994 as a publishing company for Chimney Professional Magazine (CPM), a monthly trade magazine for professional Chimney Sweeps. In 1995, we realized the potential of the Internet for CPM, so we created our first web site at www.chimneys.com. Hence, chimneys.com was one of the first web sites on the Internet that dealt with chimneys. It was the absolute first general web site for chimneys on the Internet.

As we learned more about the Internet and its possibilities, we realized that what we really wanted to do was to create a site all about chimneys that included product manufacturers & distributors, chimney sweeps, homeowers, instruction manuals, and various helpful services related to chimneys. CPM was then blended into chimneys.com and our focus turned to chimneys.com alone.

Today, Accolade Group of Vermont creates and maintains Web sites for the chimney industry and local small businesses in New England and elsewhere.

The people behind Accolade Group

Oliver F. Beauchemin

Oliver F. Beauchemin, aka "ofb", owned and operated a chimney service business in Massachusetts from 1988 to 1997. His familiarity with the chimney trade and running a chimney sweep company is a great asset to chimneys.com and its clients.

Oliver's responsibilities at Accolade Group include Web site strategy, development, Perl CGIs, maintaining our Internet NT Servers, and administration. Oliver's background involves over 15 years of computer programming experience and a BA and MA from Boston College. Oliver is well known for his ability to examine business ideas and boiling them down to effective Internet solutions.

Email: oliver@accoladegroup.net

 

Ron S. Herman

Ron S. Herman was a CSIA Certified Chimney Sweep for four years. He is intimately familiar with the service side of a chimney sweep operation and is a helpful contact to chimney sweeps who are developing web sites at chimneys.com.

Ron's primary responsibility is Web design, coordinating and composing the graphic art and layout for Web sites. In other words, he's the principal graphic designer for Accolade. His responsibilities range from graphic art, animation, and multimedia to HTML coding and Javascript development. Ron also programs in C++.net, C#.net, Visual Studio, VB.net, VisualBasic, and SQL. His background involves designing full color brochures, advertisements, and books, to database administration and sales.

Email: ron@accoladegroup.net

 

Olivier F. Beauchemin

Although not involved in the day-to-day business of Accolade Group, Olivier continues to be an important technical resouce. His expertise in Internet networking technology provides Accolade Group with a signifcant technological edge. Olivier has worked as a Network Engineer at BBN, the original creators of the Internet. Previously, Olivier was a Senior Network Engineer at the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.

 

Scott Gomes

Scott's role at Accolade Group is critical and much behind the scenes. He is our Systems Administrator which means he monitors and maintains the Internet servers. One of his most important roles is maintaining server security.

 

To learn more about Accolade Group, you can visit our Web site at www.accoladegroup.com.