PC MD Cures What Ails Your Computer

Tom Weiland was intrigued by computers as a teenager. His interest grew into his own business in Darien – .

At , Weiland took the few computer classes that were available to high school students in the mid-1970s. He created programs on punch cards and tapes. He also took programming classes at night at the College of DuPage.

“Then I had a midlife crisis at the age of 17,” he said. “Both my brothers worked for IBM. I wondered, ‘Am I doing this because I want to do this? Or am I doing this because they’re doing this?’ So I joined the Navy and became a diesel mechanic.”

After four years in the Navy, Weiland studied business and accounting in college. He also bought a house. One of his housemates worked for a new payphone company. Weiland helped him with the PC that was used to program the payphones.

Friends began asking Weiland for computer help. And he gained a few regular clients.

But personal computers were not yet part of everyday life for most families, and Weiland needed work. Amoco Pipeline needed a PC-literate accountant. Weiland was hired.

In his first seven months, Weiland’s automation work at Amoco whittled his own job down to half-time. He then worked with the engineers. Amoco recognized his talents and reassigned him to computer support. For ten years, he supported the pipeline locations – 630 PCs in 23 states.

While still at Amoco, Weiland started PC MD on the side. When Amoco decreased headcount, his workload increased. In 1994, the time was right. “I decided to turn my part-time job full-time,” he said.

PC MD specializes in homes and small businesses. Local clients include Art Donner, CPA, in Willowbrook; Kevin Monaghan, insurance broker, in Darien; and Cog Hill. Weiland covers an area from Berwyn to Naperville, and Homer Glen to Elmhurst. Referrals have taken him as far as Lansing and Barrington Hills.

“We have a lot of repeat clients,” he said. “I have about 1800 clients on my list. Of those, 800 are repeat business.” A wall in his shop is covered with tags from computers he’s fixed that other places could not.

Clients may first get to know Weiland through his community involvement with the , American Legion and Knights of Columbus. They may see him at computer clubs at the Indian Prairie Library and Hinsdale Community Center.

But they come back because of his customer service.

“We make house calls,” he said. “People drop things off and bring things in. We try to be as flexible as we can. We’ll come out and unplug them, bring it in and work on it. (Then we’ll) bring it back, set it back up, show them that it’s working. Make sure the printer’s printing. Make sure the sound has sound.”

Weiland charges $85 per hour for his services, with a half-hour minimum, then in 15-minute increments. He always mirrors the hard drive to avoid losing data. And he never charges for more than three hours in the shop.

“With virus removal, those scans can take two hours (or) two days to run,” he said. “If we have it here in the shop, we only charge for the face-time with your computer. So even though the scan takes six hours to run, we may have only taken an hour, hour and a half working on it.”

Weiland charges an additional travel fee of $15 for pick-up within 15 miles. For Chicago, the travel fee is $20 plus parking.

PC MD Enterprises has grown along with technology. Weiland’s truck now says “Technology Services” rather than “Computer Services”.

“We’re still (in) computers, but now we’re looking at things like security cameras,” he said. “So when you go on vacation, you can log into your own website and see what’s going on when you’re not there.”

Weiland works on anything that has computer technology, including laptops, tablets, smart phones, TVs and electronics.  He’s replaced circuit boards in the baggage-area TVs at O’Hare Airport.

He also does data recovery when a hard drive, external drive or thumb drive crashes. “We had clients where their son had passed away; he’d been in the military,” he said. “All their correspondence, all their pictures, everything was on the hard drive. (By recovering the information) they got their son back.”

Virus removal is a big part of Weiland’s work. He takes time to help his clients understand security programs, firewalls and other aspects of technology.

“I try not to talk geek,” he said. “I’d like to make (the clients) more educated so that they can solve more of their own problems.”

Weiland also helps clients with computer purchases. “We’re not looking at the margin we’re going to make,” he said. “What do you need to do with the computer? Are you going to be doing a lot of typing? Games? Picture editing (or) video? We try to fit the computer to them.”

Weiland is still intrigued by computers. “I’m a puzzle solver,” he said. “Solving computer problems is my puzzle.”

For more information or to schedule service, contact Tom Weiland at 630-789-3971 or support@pcmd.com, or go to www.pcmd.com .