Neil’s Life So far..
1963 Feb 21st Born St John of God to Ron and Beryl Hancock – Mt Lawley
Hancock family been in West Australia 5 generations– originally from England – Mothers family Peacock – has been here 2 generations longer
One Sister – Carmel, an Occupational Therapist, Mother, Teacher in Special education, Father musician, excellent piano player and lecturer in Cartography. Good Humour is very important to the Hancock family as well.
First word – Record – due to major musical influence of Father – discovered record player very early on.
Christian upbringing – Church of Christ Inglewood
Overseas and interstate travel with family helped broaden my knowledge
Forced sorry encouraged to go to all boys school – Hale
Hale was particularly focused on sports achievement rather than academic – fortunately this has changed in recent years. I was lucky enough to have a tooth punched out by a boarder in my first 3 months at Hale ☹
I discovered the fun of CB radio and spent many may hours talking to local friends and even around the world. This gave me my first real thrill using technology. I constructed antenna and desecrated my parents house with these large wind catching structures. Interestingly the CB radio craze died out as mobile phone technology caught on.
Discovered baseball and squash at Hale – learned drums and piano. Discovered Music was my true love. I have varied tastes from Pop Rock to Symphony.
Not the best student (too busy skateboarding I think)– we were the first year to use calculators in 1980 TEA exams – No computers either
Studied the sciences and art – my abilities seemed to be in the arts – but I seem to always chose the difficult path and I was much more interested in the technical areas.
Rottenest island was a large part of my holiday’s both with my family and with friends – I spend many Easters and Christmas holidays camping and having a riotous time – I am sure there is a book here! Starting at 14 years old, I actually camped at Easter for 10 years in a row and made myself a custom T-Shirt for the honor.
In 1981 I to university to Study Engineering but ended with a computing qualification – something to do with the excessive times I spent at the Pub OR I was totally dedicated to writing software for the new programmable calculators that were all the rage at WAIT university.
This interest in the programmable calculators (which were really pocket computers) I started a business called PORTACOM whilst I was still studying and sold copies of my Engineering Maths software to the WAIT bookshop.
I contact the manufacturers of the programmable calculators – one thing led to another – and I found myself with a dealership and an around Australia tour talking to groups of dedicated pocket computer users.
I then set up the business in family garage
Portacom office then rented at 1299 Hay St, West Perth – basically to get mum off my back – I did not really know what I was going to do but I was sure I would have something to do with music – loved gadgets and computer s though …….
One office one desk one phone – hello mum – yes very humble beginnings.
Burnt pants story – first major business meeting – ironed own pant – and burn them – never ironed again – parents framed the pants.
Portacom really was dedicated to developing ideas for portable computing – the idea of marketing them was not a priority! Turned out I could do it however!
With no business background, just technical, Portacom grew. Numerous trips to computer shows around the world showed me the huge industry I was becoming part of. It did not take long before I realized that mobile computing was going to be huge – one day!
Amazing places I have been – Europe, Taiwan, Japan, America, although never expected Las Vegas to be most familiar due to the huge yearly COMDEX show
Portacom has an R&D focus and it was through this we have developed several unique products – one the pocket computer memory module we still ship around the world, another was that I had the idea to retrofit a touch panel into a Laptop and use it as the mouse device. This was in 1990 when Laptop computers has no internal mouse devices - Once done I had it on display at several international computer shows and gave the rest of the world the idea. – Yes, I did have some patent protection– but as time when by I had to choose between the idea and the survival of Portacom and Portacom won – BUT the touch mouse industry is now a billion-dollar industry.
Portacom has grown over the years and is a well-recognized name in the computer industry with a specialization in portable computing sales, support and service – there is so much I have learned and am grateful for – the management skills, the technical knowledge, the understanding of how the business world really works.
But I am ungrateful for the robberies, bad staff, angry customers, supplier issues, competition and the usual business stress that many of you are well aware of.
Boys’ night – a constant, since university day. My uni friends still meet once a week for a night of pizza, video and arguments – I mean intelligent conversations, their wives think they are crazy but we all love it!!
I have been married and divorced – I learnt a valuable lesson to NEVER mix work and personal lives
I live now in Mt Claremont and find it’s location and quietness conducive to relaxing. I regularly bike ride around the Swan River and find this helps with my fitness and destressing. I also enjoy snow skiing and scuba diving.
I am now 63 and would like to note here that my life would not be possible without the love and support of my parents, Ron and Beryl. Ron is here today and is an accomplished musician, well recognized for his abilities on the piano. He has been in many Jazz bands and can play pretty much anything he sets his mind (and fingers) to. Dad has had a wonderful life and I wanted to thank him here, for his unwavering care, tolerance and understanding as I went through life’s journey. I couldn’t have done it without you! Dad has recently been recognized for his volunteering by both Bethanie and the State Government who recently gave him a lifetime achievement award having volunteered for over 65 years – a tremendous achievement showing his Christian love has had a major impact on many in our community.
Back to Portacom, I had also purchased the Portacom building, cementing Portacom as a long-term West Perth business.
In the lead up to my 40th birthday I went back to Curtin University to get my engineering degree, but in the first term was one of the WA Business News 40 under 40 award winners which lead to an offer to do a Masters in Leadership and Management, also at Curtin. I could only choose one, as I was still working at Portacom full time, so I chose the Masters. I have maintained good friendships with everyone I met in both courses.
I was awarded the masters in 2006 and it helped confirm my business acumen through my growth and learning at Portacom.
I have a close relationship with many in the Greek community and these friendships are deep, lifelong and throughout Australia. I went on several Greek ANCHA conventions including several cruises.
On one fateful day on a cruise ship, I bumped into a Beautiful American lady, Cathleen, who was traveling with her family through the Mediterranean. One thing led to another and Cathleen found a job in Australia as a clinical trial auditor and we were married at the Bell Tower 11 Sept 2011. This was a major change my life and a few short years later our first and only child, Jeannie was born.
Talk about life changing! YES, challenging and incredibly rewarding.
To hear the word ‘Dad’ was amazing along with watching her grow and learn. Jeannie is now 12 and turning into a beautiful, well adjusted, fun-loving, good-humoured girl I am so very proud of.
Around the time of Jeannie’s birth, I had to sadly relinquish my Rotary membership as I just had no spare time balancing work and family life.
I have been playing squash since Hale School and I found my game was only complete after I consumed a Peter’s Twinpole Icy pole from the nearby Deli and around 2009 discovered that Nestle has purchased Peter’s in Perth and discontinued the Twinpole. Devastated, I went to the factory in Balcatta and the angry staff expressed dismay but the molds were destroyed and all they can offer me was some old stock at a cheap price. So, for 6 months I purchased these, game them to my friends, photographed them, snuck them to my wedding and created a Facebook group to lobby the Peters Ice cream company to ‘bring back the Twinpole’
12 short years later, they did. Taking the product national and adding more flavours.
I became nationally famous for this, appearing on the Channel 9 news and even Liam Bartlett of 60 minutes fame, interviewed me twice. There were also enormous billboards as I have shown in previous Rotary talks. Amazing and so much fun! I loved all the notoriety.
Speaking of notoriety, I was actually punched in the head by Howard Satler of 6PR fame, he was drunk and thought I was cracking on to his wife at a 6PR advertisers function (which I wasn’t) he was thrown out of the and it made the news with photos in the Sunday Times – several apologies and dinners were arranged by 6PR management and all was forgiven. I even received a boxing glove in the post from a rival radio station.
In 2018, after the GFC, Dot com bust and financial difficulties, Portacom was still pushing on and growing into a Managed Services IT company.
I was surprisingly contacted by the California Computer Museum in regards to my Laptop Touch mouse development from many years ago, telling me this can’t be true as there was no way a kid from Western Australia was running around Las Vegas in the late 80’s with a touch mouse prototype. Fortunately, I had kept everything, including the press releases and prototypes proving I was the ‘eureka effect’ that caused the adoption of the Touch Mouse in Laptop computers worldwide. The Computer Museum realized it was indeed true and they interviewed me and I am happy to say we have hit the history books! My interview is up on Youtube if anyone wants a look.
In 2023 Portacom had it’s 40th Birthday and we had a company rebranding and ribbon cutting celebration supported by the Mayor of Perth Basil Zempilas. It was a wonderful day and I also invited old and new staff members to a special celebration of this milestone.
60% of businesses fail in the first 3 years. To be here after 40 years gave me an incredible feeling of pride, happiness and nostalgia.
I am an active board member of West Perth Local and have a strong interest in West Perth’s future development having been working here for 40+ years. I am on the technical advisory committee for West Perth’s Stanley College and I am also an active member of the almost 100 year old Winnit volunteer club at Rottnest Island.
My love of music has never left me and I have recently discovered the wonders of AI music creation. Whilst I started my family late, in my 50’s, have tried to kept young at heart reliving my youth through my daughters eyes – and I’m loving it!
They say the future is unwritten and I am looking forward to the rest of my life and want to make a positive contribution to West Perth Rotary.
