MR GOH Ho Wee was 23 when he became a computer programmer at the Public Utilities Board (PUB).

Today, the 67-year-old still shudders at the conditions he had to endure at his new job.

'We had to work in a room that was freezing cold because the computer, which was generating a lot of heat, had to be kept cool,' he said.

The machine was the grandfather of the modern-day personal computer and Mr Goh recalls the monolithic mechanical beast filling an entire room the size of an HDB one-room flat.

His job was to develop the software for computing and printing utility bills. Information was then keyed in as dots and dashes on 'punch cards' that were manually fed into a mainframe computer.

Fast-forward 44 years and the bespectacled Mr Goh is still blazing a trail through the frontiers of the information age, albeit in far cosier conditions.

As director of his own IT consultancy firm GConsulting, he shuttles four days a week between Singapore - where he works from his semi-detached home in Thomson - and Malaysia, where his plush office is in the heart of the country's IT hub, the Multimedia Super Corridor in Cyberjaya, in Selangor.

He manages the IT projects of a multinational oil company, where he once headed its IT operations in Singapore.

Having witnessed the industry's evolution from its infancy, he observes that the skill sets required to make a splash in the IT business have also undergone a quantum leap.

'During my time, we were really struggling with making the computer work, so it was good if you could speak bits and bytes,' he guffaws.

'These days, computer software and tools have become so advanced that you have to be good at managing the business.' Mr Goh, who had no IT qualifications when he started out, constantly upgrades himself by attending courses in project and business management.

He is quick to correct the impression that he foresaw the widespread usage of IT.

'I just wanted to enter a completely new field, as I thought there would be better opportunities to advance my career,' he admits candidly.

Having built up a golden retirement nest egg over the years, Mr Goh, who counts a doctor, a lawyer and an entrepreneur among his three children, is quick to point out that he is not working for money.

'Work to me is a social event. You meet new and interesting, sometimes even annoying, people all the time,' he says with a grin. 'That keeps your mind occupied and intellectually challenged.'

During an 18-month hiatus from work between 2004 and 2005, when he 'did nothing but play golf and go to the supermarket', he noticed that his mental faculties slowed considerably.

'I couldn't write reports, such as feasibility studies, as fast as before.'

Today, he continues to plough away at a pace more befitting of men half his age. Working eight hours a day is routine, he says.

Mr Goh stresses he is no technophile. He uses the Internet only to browse online newspapers and do work-related research.

The trick to working comfortably beyond retirement age, he says, is to develop an eye for business opportunities.

'People may think working when you're old involves getting low-end jobs and stacking things in the supermarket, but being able to spot business opportunities allows you to keep doing what you've been doing, and enjoying it.'

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