My Story

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Heather Holmes | AI 4 Business

I was eighteen when I first stepped into the Gulf Canada offices in Calgary, Alberta.
The computer room was immense and cold—just as all computer rooms were in those days. Raised flooring hid miles of wiring, and chilled air kept the machines alive. Inside this glass-walled room, mainframes ran tirelessly. Reel-to-reel tapes turned slowly, card readers consumed stacks of punched cards, and the steady hum of the machines was a constant reminder that something powerful was at work.

We treated those mainframes with reverence, almost as if they were sacred. Booting a system was not as simple as pressing a button. It was a process—precise, deliberate, and respected. Massive printers ran around the clock, producing reams of reports for every department. Then terminals appeared on our desks, monochrome screens glowing green against black. It felt like magic, though we didn’t yet call them PCs. And when the internet quietly arrived—heralded not by fanfare but by the scratch and hiss of a dial-up modem—we began connecting, to each other and to something much larger.

Years later, I walked the beige halls of Foothills Hospital in Calgary. This time, my role was to guide physicians from paper-based patient charts to electronic medical records. Their hands—accustomed to writing in looping script—now hovered uncertainly above keyboards. Many resisted. “We are doctors, not computer technicians,” they told me. But change, as I had already learned, rarely announces itself. It enters quietly, and then it becomes the only way forward.

My path next led me to ISBM—later acquired by IBM—where mainframes had evolved again. They now served multiple companies from vast computing centers. It was the next logical step: shared resources, greater speed, broader reach. And again, the internet crept in, much faster this time and without spectacle, accelerating everything.

Later still, I stood on the noisy floor of the Alberta Stock Exchange. Traders shouted, gestured, and filled the room with energy. But soon, systems replaced hand signals. Transactions moved from the chaos of the pit to networks powered by code, data, and precision. Once again, technology reshaped the landscape—and left the old ways behind.

That has been the constant throughout my career: watching technology transform industries, workflows, and lives. Each phase arrives quietly, then quickly becomes indispensable.

Today, I carry that perspective into my work with AI 4 Business. Artificial Intelligence is not a distant concept—it is here, now, making decisions in microseconds and enabling businesses to grow even while their owners sleep. Automation is no longer optional; it is the foundation of progress.

I’ve seen what happens when people cling to outdated methods, and I’ve seen what’s possible when they embrace what’s next. That is why I built AI 4 Business: to help leaders move forward with clarity and confidence in a world that refuses to wait.