Tom Roberts became a Journeyman Automotive technician in 1980 and worked at a Ford dealership, independent shops and owned his own repair shop, gradually evolving into a diagnostic specialist with a local reputation for solving the ones others gave up on.
He founded Autonerdz at the turn of the century out of a spare room. As a national lab scope trainer, Tom traveled from coast to coast presenting “The nerd Series”. During this time, he was contacted by the owner of a company in the UK called Pico Technology. Pico was interested in breaking into the automotive industry with their innovative PC based lab scopes. Once Tom saw the specifications on the unit being considered for this application, he had to have one. It turned out to be a lab scope jockey’s dream. Tom had been a member of The International Automotive Technicians Network (iATN) since before there were any forums and posted the first PicoScope capture ever seen on iATN.
Autonerdz introduced PicoScope to the automotive industry in North America and we remain the ONLY PicoScope automotive specialists on the continent. At first, the idea of a PC in an automotive shop was something to laugh at but not anymore. Having been a field tech for many years, Tom has his fair share of equipment support experiences and he wanted to provide a level of customer support experience with this new product that had not been done before. Customer acceptance to such a new technology made this essential. This all worked better than expected, and Autonerdz helped to raise PicoScope to the top of the heap in automotive lab scopes it is today.
In January of 2004, The Autonerdz Community Forums went online as the first and only PicoScope discussion forums. These forums were another resources added to the growing support and training network. These forums have now grown into the largest and most active PicoScope users group in the world. There are public areas open to all who register free of charge and a Picogroup section for Autonerdz customers. The technical discussions there now cover all types of automotive subject matter in an atmosphere of professionalism and mutual respect.
And things grew. Soon it was necessary to build a new dedicated facility that would house office, stock, and classroom space and of course the play pen area. At this point, Tom had to stop travelling around the country going to trade shows and training seminars. There just wasn’t time for it anymore. There was now a global network of customers needing training and support and PicoScope had completely taken over the business entirely. The new facility was finished in late 2008 and Tom needed some help.
Previously working with an instructor at the local college who had a acquired a PicoScope kit, Tom remembered thinking, “this guy is good. Note to self if you ever need someone…… So Tom located and recruited Brian Haley in February 2009 to come and work for a growing company in a new building with no desk yet (we fixed that later).
We are all interchangeable here, so you can contact any one of us for whatever you might need. We have your back. PicoScope automotive is what we do. It’s all we do.