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The (extremely) wordy version of my resume... |
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Chuck, I need to pry, what do you
do for a living?
You are so even handed with your
responses.
I know you have to get frustrated
sometims, especially with newbies to the
Omega world like myself, asking the same
qustions that have been posted a thousand
times.
But you really do have a knack
for answering in an unbiased manner a
great majority of the time.
Just curious if this is part of
your daily routine or if you need to pay
special attention due to
circumstances.
I like to say "I wear a lot of
hats", and I always told people that
whatever the title on my card says it
also says "utility infielder" as
well...
Ok, some personal background. I was
born in the very early 1960's and am a
"child of the Space Race". However, I
wasn't particularly a stellar student,
I did well in subjects that interested
me, and cared little about subjects
that didn't. Up until 6 weeks before
graduation from High School, I would
have probably gone into photography but
due to classes and extreme overwork on
my Senior Yearbook, I got to the point
of burnout and couldn't stand the smell
of the chemicals any more. I had just
bought an Apple ][ computer and
decided to get a degree in computer
programming at my local community
college.
My family has been in the heavy
construction business for five
generations (since the Civil War) and
in the business of building golf
courses for the past four generations.
At the time my father's and
grandfather's business was doing well,
so I would take as much of a class load
in the fall and spring as I could
handle while helping out with them and
working full time when School was out
in the winter and summer... I did
everything from Surveying and welding,
to operating maintaining, repariing and
transporting equipment. By the time I
all but had my course work completed
for my degree, we got a big job and I
was needed to work full time year
round. So I fisnished off my last two
courses via a telecourse and I hauled
earth, built greens, tees, a few sand
traps, irrigation and drainage systems
through the bulk of the mid 1980's. In
addition to this, I maintained the
companies's books, payroll records,
help write and produce proposals, and a
lot of other assorted minutae that
comes under the portion of any job
description titled "Other duties as
necessary". Hobby wise I was the
assistant Sysop of one of the top 5
Macintosh BBS systems in the world from
1985 through 1990... This BBS produced
a monthly newsletter that grew from 12
to nearly 100 pages at it's peak with a
substancial portion of the copy written
by myself. This is where I first
started writing outside of coursework.
By 1987 the golf course jobs dried
up, and I started casting about for
work in my field of study. I
interviewed at Odesta (the producers of
Helix and Double Helix relational
database software products) and also at
IMSA,
the Illinois
Mathematics and Science Academy. I
was offered and accepted a position at
IMSA at a time in October of 1987 when
they only had funding through January
of 1988. Fortunately, the state's
legislature was generous enough to
continue funding even though it was
touch and go for several years. I was
the first pure computer hire at the
Academy, and when I walked through the
employee entrance the day after
Columbus Day in 1987 there were a grand
total of 50 computers on campus. By the
start of school the next year (20
August 1988) there were 350, all of
which were my responsiblilty from the
loading dock, setup, installation,
troubleshooting, repair and
maintenance. While I was at IMSA I
edited and wrote much of the department
newsletter, was an advisor to several
student groups, studied for and
obtained a Ham Radio Licence (which
explains the N9NON in the footer's of
my emails). I also trained staff and
incoming students on how to use the
various computer systems and developed
and produced documentation for them as
well as proposals for computer and
network systems expansion... I worked
and grew both the systems at IMSA and
myself for seven stretching years until
the summer of 1994, when the IMSA
'powers that be' decided to outsource
much of my job description. While I
remember fondly my time at IMSA, and
have no ill will towards anyone there I
have few ties there any more as the
vast majority of the people I knew
there have also moved on to greater or
at least other things.
My next employment stop (starting 1
month later) was an Ophthalmic (Eye
Doctor) Instrument firm who had
developed a digital imaging system
based around an early generation Kodad
Digital Camera (which utilized a Nikon
F3 camera body) with custom software
written for the Apple Macintosh
platform. So, I went from having
responsibility for about 600-700
computers and networks of varing
mission critically within a 23 acre
area, to responsibility of installing,
training, and support/maintence for
doctors and photographers of perhaps 50
to 100 systems spread from Munich to
Hawaii, Florida to Saginaw Michigan
remotely via 19,200 bps modem (this was
pre-ISP day's folks) where if a machine
failed a diagnosis could be missed for
a week or two and a person's sight
could be compromised. This firm had
been bought out shortly after I was
hired and soon developed financial
troubles that within a year to 16
months prompted them to contract with a
Japanese firm to co-develop the system.
Once that happened I took on more
duties until the Japanese firm was
offered and accepted terms to purchase
the firm. I had the choice to relocate
to the Japanese firm's HQ on the
eastern seaboard, and since I didn't
really know anyone else out there I
graciously declined the offer and
parted ways in friendly tones. (October
1996)
I contacted a head hunter, sent out
resumés, two months later
(December 1996) I latched on with a
health promotion firm in the area, had
a modest number of machines, but they
were all in house and essentially
mission critical. Reworked their
systems from one big server where a
single point of failure would be a BIG
deal and cause all sorts of issues to a
number of smaller servers with ready
plug and playable backup's by updating
the employee's machines and offloading
various tasks (backup, mail,
fileserver, database server,
scheduling, payroll, print serving,
etc.) on the older employee machines.
Great work place, great people lots of
good times. The only problem is that
the vast majority of the firm's
billable hours was with one firm. And
is frequently the situation with firms
these days, your relationships with
other firms is only firm until one of
the firm's re-organize. So when this
patron firm did a re-org, our firm's
billable hours with them went from more
than enough to cover all the firm's
expenses and grow, to next to
nothing... The lesson here boys and
girls is never be too complacent with
your best/one customer, always look to
add new ones... After it came apparent
that the Y2k fears were largely
unfounded, my firm did a
re-organization to lower it's overhead
and cut more than 50% of the staff,
myself among them, although I did do
part-time consulting work for them
throughout the rest of that year.
Since then, I've done consulting and
various projects of my own and with my
families businesses. But after nearly
15 years of heavy duty high pressure
computer trench work, I haven't been
exceedingly keen on getting myself back
into a daily grind pressure cooker.
Fortunately, I've been able to leverage
my investments and holdings so I don't
have to burn the candle at both ends
and several places at the middle to
make ends meet. The ends meet
adequately enough and everytime I think
I miss the rat race, I just try to
drive somewhere during rush hour
traffic and I innoculate myself from
that yearning.
So, where does this get us... I have
a bit of a background in the field of
Quality Assurance,Troubleshooting,
Customer Support and Customer Relations
all of which in mechanical, electronic,
computing and networking arenas... In
fact you can read a couple of my
earlier (Pre-Watch) OP-Ed's on the
topics of Troubleshooting,
and purchasing
equipment on-line by clicking
on the links.
While in my professional posistions,
I've always considered myself a liason
between the firms I've worked for and
the patron's they served, weither it
was my family's firm and the contractor
for a golf course, the Adminsistration
of IMSA, it's students, their parents
and the school's peers (other schools),
or the other firms and their patron's,
etc. The best relationships are when
both sides strive to improve the status
quo all the time. I'm a firm believer
of Under Promise and Over Deliver.
This might explain why I am less
than impressed with the way certain
companies are handling themselves... It
also explains a little bit why I spend
a little more time on the layout of my
posts than most do. Hope I haven't pryed too much.
Carl
Chronographs, like most
finer things in life, only
improve with time…
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Mar 14, 2004 - 08:04 PM 
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