My career in perspective… It’s been an amazing process and one heck of a journey thus far….For the first 10 years of my career I was a certified welder. I started out welding anything & everything that needed fixing on motorcycles or cars, and eventually landed a job in 1984 working with Kenworth Truck Company building semis. In 1987 I was critically injured in a motorcycle accident. My surgeon advised me that my career as a welder (for my own physical well-being) was over. I became eligible for the dislocated workers program through the WA State Dept. of Vocational Rehabilitation. The agency put me through a battery of aptitude tests in front of a board of state Psychologists, the results of which threw me for a loop. On one side of the spectrum, my tests revealed my levels of logic and deductive reasoning were off the charts, making me a great candidate in learning about computers; on the other spectrum, they said my relative skills would make me a good social worker. My initial response was I knew nothing about computers and I wasn’t interested in being a social worker. There had to be something else!
Some significant mentors in my life subtly yet sternly encouraged me to get over to Lake Washington Technical College and see what their computer program had to offer. I took the leap and signed up for a two-year program in Computer Field Technologies. The first day I sat in the back row scared, yet trying to look cool; second day my instructor suggested I sit front and center. From there I progressed rapidly in the class. Then he amazed me when I had reached six months by recommending I leave the program early to begin employment within the technology field.
Head-hunted right out of my technology class, my first year in IT I started out working for Seattle’s first IBM PC Clone re-seller/ integrator as a help desk field tech; from there I was head-hunted to Microsoft, eventually working towards studying to become a certified Network Engineer where I was troubleshooting, designing, configuring & supporting a huge Lab with networked PC’s, Domain Servers and the need to connect the lab to the World Wide Web via TCP/IP. That’s when Network Architecture & Engineering became my passion. From Microsoft I was head-hunted to work for Paul Allen’s new startup personal asset management company, Vulcan Northwest, where I often worked for him directly on his personal projects and eventually earned the honor of being recognized and named Vulcan’s Chief Network Architect.
Today, considering my journey, I especially value all of my IT career experience and the support of mentors and colleagues along the way who helped make it possible. Today I see IT as a gift that provides purpose each day. My passion within technology and business is driven for the customer and their problems, and to lead others with my practical intelligence into being solution-based which drives Business-IT innovation. And that aptitude test I initially scoffed at… I’ve never been so thankful to be wrong. Each and everyday brings new opportunity. Timing of being in the right place at the right time has a lot to do with my success. Reality today is it’s all about integrity and how can I be of service.
“Without the logic, nobody will believe you. Without the magic, nobody will care”.