Vern Buerg is one of the founders of shareware. He began writing shareware utilities in 1983, before the term shareware was ever coined. A former mainframe systems programmer, Buerg wrote DOS utilities when he began using a PC and missed the file-scanning ability he had had on mainframes. The software became an instant success, and his LIST utility is currently in use on an estimated 10-15 million PC's worldwide. With the advent of Windows and NT, Vern has once again proven his versatility as a programmer, keeping the speed and elegance intact, while making LIST more feature-rich than ever. Vern has been a member of the Shareware Hall of Fame since the first year of the awards.