W ITH FARMING in his blood and a childhood hobby in computing, Richard Isaac has managed to combine both and create two very successful local businesses.

Richard, 41, was born into a farming family located between Kings Nympton and Chulmleigh, and for as long as he can remember he always loved life on the farm.

Despite being quite academic as a young lad, Richard never enjoyed school and always looked forward to the end of the day so he could get back to the farm.

Even before he started school, Richard followed his dad around the fields checking sheep and helping with drenching and fencing. As soon as he reached the age of 13 he started to learn to drive a tractor and continued to study the day to day running of the farm.

When Richard was 15 he got his first computer, a Sinclair ZX81, and started to teach himself programming. Richard wanted to finish his formal education at 16 and work on the farm, but his mum had other ideas. "Mum wanted me to broaden my horizons and get a good education before working full time on the farm, so I went to North Devon College when I left Chulmleigh Secondary School," he said.

Richard completed his A-levels in computer science, chemistry and biology and started a degree in computing at Plymouth Polytechnic. A year into the course Richard was missing life on the farm and took the decision to give up his degree and return home to the farm.

He started working as a farm labourer with his dad and Uncle Roy, with a view to taking up a course in agriculture in the future. The death of Roy, who was his dad's partner on the farm, put paid to his ideas of going to agricultural college. "Uncle Roy's death left dad without a right hand man on the farm and as a result I was thrown in at the deep end to help dad, but I had absolutely no regrets and loved working alongside him," he said.

Richard believes working with his dad on the farm was when his "real education" started, because he had so many new skills to learn. "I took over the responsibility of managing a herd of 60 dairy cows and this was a real learning curve for me," he explained. With the help of vets and other advisors it wasn't long before Richard became adept at running the dairy.

Richard met Elaine, his wife to be in 1990 at a Rotaract Club in South Molton and they married in Saint James' Church, Kings Nympton in May, 1992. Their first child, Shannon, arrived in 1994, followed by Jade and Zachary a few years later.

The BSE (bovine spongiform encephalitis) epidemic in cows started to affect farmers across the UK in the early 90s and in 1998 Richard decided to go out to work to supplement the farm's income. "Whilst working on the farm I started writing livestock management software to help run the beef and dairy herd, which I have improved and still use to this day," said Richard.

"When I was offered a job writing software packages for the financial industry, I decided to give it a go."

Richard was very successful in his work and it was not long before he was promoted to the position of development manager, responsible for the software team. As well as working full-time, Richard continued to work with his dad on the farm.

Although Richard enjoyed his job, he did miss not having the flexibility to work on the farm as well, so in 2006 he decided to give up his job and return to the farm once again and set up Convallis Software with Elaine.

"After conducting some research, Elaine and I decided to set up our own IT consultancy and software development business, specialising in databases and data driven applications," said Richard.

"Convallis Software Limited was formed and the business has gone from strength to strength. Although we had all the expertise we needed in our field as software developers, we did lack skills in marketing and sales but received tremendous support from Janet Herniman at North Devon+, who really helped us focus on a business plan which we could deliver and find suitable training."

As well as handling all sorts of web, software and database projects, Richard has also developed a user-friendly contact management program, ConvallisCRM, which helps companies revolutionise the way they deal with their clients, maximising the worth of every person in their contact book.

Elaine is incredibly proud of her husband. "The CRM program which Richard designed is a really simple to use contact manager and incorporates a SMS/e-mail marketing system which is unique and has the facility to send text messages as well as e-mails from within the system. It is an incredibly easy system to use and gets fantastic results for all types of businesses," she said. Richard and Elaine's hard work was recognised last year when they won the North Devon Business Awards 2008, in the Best Business Start Up category.

Elaine works with Richard as the company's business development manager and is proud to announce that they have just secured a major contract. "We were approached by one of the major Super League rugby league clubs, Hull Kingston Rovers, who have bought our package for their club and this is a massive boost for our business," said Elaine.

Richard now works from home, continues to work with his dad on the farm, and reckons he is a very lucky man. "Not many people get the opportunity to do what they love. My love and passion has always been farming and computing and now I am doing both and feel very blessed indeed," he said.

Anyone interested in learning more about Convallis Software and their products and services can ring Elaine on 01769 598155 or log on to their website www.convallissoftware.co.uk