Optimal Solutions

Optimal Solutions has been operating since 2002, serving medium and large enterprises primarily in the beautiful city of Sydney, Australia. Our primary service is in developing and implementing custom-built software solutions for our clients in a variety of industries, but specialising in manufacturing and business services.

The company is owned and operated by Michael Brettell, whose entire 23-year career has been spent in IT, analysing business processes and developing and installing software. After this extensive experience with both custom software and packaged software, Michael has come to the conclusion that for any company to realise a competitive advantage from its software, that software has to be developed by people who have properly analysed its business practices, and the software has to match the unique culture and practices of the business. This is what Optimal Solutions provides.

Using our experience with business processes and our formal methodology, we quickly gain the required knowledge of your business.

When you hire Optimal Solutions to develop your software, you will get software that:.

o	is built specifically to match your business,
o	you will own,
o	is completed for a fixed price, and delivered on time,
o	is backed by our extensive experience and 60-day warranty

Michael Brettell
Managing Director
Michael is the owner and Managing Director of Optimal Solutions. His 23-year career in Information
Technology started as a trainee programmer in Upper Hutt, NZ and just prior to starting his own business was the Senior Systems Analyst for BHP Coated Steel in the USA. In that role, he had the primary responsibility for all Business System level functions for over 400 users, routinely implementing projects with budgets in excess of US$0.5 million and managing his team of 5-10 programmers. Thanks to the systems that he and his team wrote and implemented, BHP Coated Steel achieved a record 95% on-time delivery.

A particular interest and passion of Michael's is in solving highly complex business problems.

Joy Bender
Analyst Programmer
Joy began her career as an accountant for a software manufacturer, but soon switched to programming while studying for her degree in Computer Information Services at California State Polytechnic University where she graduated with honours in 2000.

She worked for BHP Coated Steel in Southern California as a programmer analyst within Michael’s team. She developed and improved BHP’s order entry systems, invoicing systems, claims reporting system, as well as many others.

Joy began working for Optimal Solutions in 2006, since then, she has had the opportunity to apply her skills to
help a wide variety of businesses developing Windows Client, Microsoft Access™, and Web Applications. She loves finding ways to use technology to improve business processes. Joy's accounting background in addition to her 13 years of IT experience makes her a wonderful asset to our team!

Catherine Birch
Consultant Programmer

After finishing her Masters of Science degree, Catherine worked in a variety of IT roles, including a team leader for AMP, numerous contract programming roles, and a technical writer for Reuters in Paris.

Catherine joined our team in 2008, and has made herself an invaluable member of our team by quickly coming up to speed on some of Microsoft’s latest technical innovations, including Dynamic Data on ASP .NET, and Windows Presentation Foundation.

Donna Gooley
Graphic/Web Designer

Donna has been working in the IT industry since 1980. Her IT career began working for John Lysaght (Australia) as the Office Automation Supervisor, then as an Office Automation Analyst for Wang Computer in both Australia and the UK.

Donna has many years experience in desktop publishing, graphic and web design and has worked for Optimal Solutions for 4 years as a graphic/web designer.