I have always been passionate about learning and doing.
I was always curious. I started reading when I was two and have not stopped. I finished my Batchelor’s Degree when I was 20 and completed two masters degrees from Carnegie Mellon University at the age of 22. At that point I started my career at Lawrence Livermore Lab and worked in Biomedical and Electrical Engineering projects. That theme would create a cycle in my career of jobs in government and private industry ranging from Software to project management to cybersecurity.
I became more passionate about the journey than the actual products. When I worked for the government, I helped with the process of using various specs like MIL-STD-2167 and making our processes better. When I worked for a biotechnology company in the late 90’s, I was part of a team that kicked off Health Level 7, a specification for exchanging medical data. When I worked for VMWare, I became passionate about Scrum management and in fact became the manager of the platform we were using company wide to track scrum.
But there’s more.
About 20 years ago, I decided to go back to school for the third time (I had worked on an MBA in the 80’s but stopped when I realized that I was getting more out of actually managing people than the program could offer) and got my JD. I passed both the California and USPTO Patent Bars on my first attempts. I authored patents for small companies and hold 6 patents from my time at VMWare.
There’s still more.
I was going to retire during Covid. I had developed a passion for languages and wanted to spend more time doing that. Then a friend reached out and I joined his company. After a year, he asked me to become the company’s cybersecurity analyst. I completed two certifications including the Cybersecurity Analyst certification when I finally decided it was time to retire.
About that passion for languages.
About 10 years ago, my wife and I embarked on a journey to learn French in France. We spent a month each year based in Paris and studied French history, culture, and of course, the language. I have not only continued that, but I am also teaching myself Spanish. I have been fortunate to connect with many polyglots online and other life-long learners so that I am curious about the learning process.
And I am not done yet.
So I am retired. But for me, that means I am no longer working for someone else. I have explored options and am using blogging as a platform.
A platform? To teach, to learn, to grow to help people find their way over the net. To find useful products, technology, and processes. I am starting with two things right now; endpoint security and mini pcs. But like everything else, I see these as a place to learn from.
And soon I hope to help others along the journey I am on.