Why I'm toasting an Epic adventure

by Stefan Hull - Evening Argus

"Donald Clark can join my pub quiz side any time.

It's not just that he likes a pint but anyone who can talk knowledgeably about Donnie Osmond, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, Napoleon, Billy Connolly and Keith Waterhouse must be an asset.

Not that I'm too surprised because as chief executive of Brighton-based Epic, the UK's leading e-learning company, he has made a business out of communicating knowledge.

However, when he declares an interest in English architecture and Roman archaeology, I know there's more to him than a balance sheet. He studied philosophy at university and stumbled into computing by accident after encountering them while spending a semester at the Ivy League Dartmouth College in the United States. He bought his first computer when he returned to the UK and wrote programmes for teaching, which he was attracted to because of his love for travelling across the world.

He recalls: "I bummed round the world for a longtime before I ended up in London on a government-sponsored course about courseware design. That's where I met Jim Braithwaite and Clive Shepherd, who were looking for someone with skills in that area so I moved to Brighton and helped found a company, VPS. "We were above the Food for Friends restaurant in a tiny office that stank of cabbage. We never made any money."

He says the company went through various transformations and he found himself an accidental tourist along for the ride. "I didn't have any goals for the first 20 and 30 years but I don't think many people do."

He has always been an obsessive person. "My hobbies are quite nerdish and obsessive, even in my private life. I get interested in something for a couple of years then move on to something else. "I'm into English architecture. Before that I spent a lot of time on Roman archaeology."

He says the whole family is obsessed by basketball and, particularly, the Brighton Bears. "I've got nothing but admiration for Nick Nurse. He's not only a brilliant coach but, if you want to see how to run a business, he's pretty switched on. He's one of Brighton's great unsung heroes."

VPS was eventually bought by London-based company Epic. The merged business was then bought by a public company, which sold it back to Donald, Jim and Clive. They closed the company's London office and moved everything back to Brighton where they were living.

It had some initial success in the computer games business but, after a couple of setbacks, decided to refocus on e-learning. By this time, Donald was chief executive. He describes his first encounters with the Internet as "quite interesting".

"The hype was focused on ecommerce and that really puzzled me because it didn't seem particularly good. Trying to buy something online was a bit of a joke. But everyone became obsessed by e-commerce. Napoleon's nation of shopkeepers became a nation of electronic window dressers, which I thought was completely missing the point."

"For me, using the Internet to acquire knowledge was the most important thing. Education is really important, it's a core thing like eating, drinking and having a place to stay. It's a big deal. It's not like buying a pizza online. "Online learning has become indispensable and this is irreversible."

He says Epic's success has been founded on good, old-fashioned business principles. "We eschewed the dot.com way of doing things. We didn't put a table football machine in the foyer or a bar at the back of the office. The trick is to keep making a profit. It's a simple rule but it's amazing how many people ignore it."

He says the company, which employs about 185 people, isn't going to move from Brighton and its cash reserves mean it can and will acquire to "keep ahead of the game".

He has lost much of his Scottishness and is "quite English really". "I've been banned from two pubs in Brighton and it was completely innocent, I can guarantee it. I've lived in Edinburgh, which is a beautiful city but I couldn't move back there having lived here.

"Brighton has changed dramatically. Years ago it was a pretty shabby seaside town but it has raised its game."'"