Feature -- by Mark Sproxton

Mark McDonald enjoys the constant learning required for Web work.

Turning on the light, barely beyond sleep, the Web technician somehow notices it's 2 a.m. as he tries to focus on the phone beside his bed. There are problems down at the office and he's on call, time to act. In this day and age where people expect the Internet to operate around the clock, he quickly makes his way downtown to solve the problem.

"There's really no time you aren't on call unless you take two weeks off and go somewhere," explains Mark McDonald, vice president of Nucleus Information Service Inc. and chief technical officer. But answering phone calls, regardless of who's on the other end of the line, remains key to a Web technician's job, he said. "The people skills are paramount and being able to be a good listener, especially when you're dealing with phone support." Technical skills, such as being able to help customers put home-made Web sites on the Internet and the ability to keep the system of servers, computers and connections up and running are also key.

"A lot of time you need the certification from an educational institution to get started," McDonald said. "I wouldn't be here today without that certification. In terms of what we look for in our technical department, we don't necessarily put a lot of weight onto the (education), we look at the experience."

McDonald landed on the technical side of the Internet world by good career planning and talking with people about his interests. After initially planning to become a mechanic he found jobs were scarce and things weren't likely to change quickly. He returned to school, taking a computer maintenance program and began work for a company with early-day Internet access.

That allowed him to understand first-hand how it worked, how it was set up and what it had to offer. His wife also happened to be a bulletin board user of the Nucleus Internet system in the days when the Internet was basically limited to discussion groups. She arranged a party for the service's users and the owners of the Nucleus attended. McDonald began talking to them and became intrigued by their plan to begin selling dial-up access to the Internet. The rest is history.

"I was the tech guy from day one," he said. "The network consultant. " The technological changes since then have increased the complexity of the work and McDonald's interest. "The thing I like the most about the tech industry is it's constantly changing," he said. "Sometimes it feels a bit overwhelming. From day-to-day I never know what I'm going to face or have to learn to fix a problem. The funny thing is, that's the thing I dislike about the job. The information overload can become significant at times. Internet technology shifts so often."

Those shifts forced big changes in the job market for peoople wanting to work on the Web. A couple of years ago, dozens of Web-based companies went broke when the stock market -- which is used to generate money to operate businesses -- crashed as people stopped buying stock in Web companies. The industry has also seen many small Web companies being purchased by big cable and telephone companies.

Regardless, Web techs at Nucleus still put in a standard 40-hour work week, although shifts may vary throughout the day, and evening and weekend work will be required. Some of their main duties include answering the phone, producing new content for the Web, server maintenance, ensuring all connections are operating correctly and burning CDs to keep an ongoing archive of client files. Depending on the company and previous experience techs will earn between $25,000 and $55,000 a year, McDonald said.

His advice to those considering this career: "Be ready for lots of change because it changes almost daily. You have to open to learning new things and rely on yourself to be your own educator. It's a constant process to keep yourself up to date."