My History
I was born in Richmond, VA on a Sunday morning. The
place was Johnston-Willis Hospital, which I understand has been replaced
with a newer, larger facility. I don't have much information on my
We were supposed to move back to Rochester, NY where my dad was born. However, a WWII army buddy of my dad's talked him into moving to northern Virginia in 1958. He did and this is where I would spend the majority of my life. I grew up in the Buckingham section of Arlington, VA. It was a middle class area at the time. My parents worked very hard and provided the essentials for growing up. My sister was born in the late 1950's. We both attended St. Thomas More Elementary School in Arlington. Though the nuns were tough, the education was very good. I started working at 12 years old, delivering newspapers for the old Evening Star and then the Washington Post. Heck I even worked for both of them for a summer so I could save money for my first car. The high schools that I attended were O'Connell in 9th grade and Washington-Lee in 10th, 11th and 12th. I played some sports like freshman football in 9th and Cross Country in 10th grades. My grades were average. I worked part time while in high school at the Hecht Company in Parkington, which is now and again called Ballston.
I met Martha, my first wife, while in my senior year. We dated, fell
In the late 1970's things were going well. We were living in the country, I was doing well financially and we had our first son John. Then, sales started to level off at my store due to CB sales leveling off, a recession and computers not selling as well in the country as they were in the city. My regional manager came up and told me that I was getting stale and needed to transfer to another store. That meant either moving back to the city or commuting. I didn't want to do either so I quit and went to work for a local competitor in the electronics business in the early 1980's. This competitor sold name brand hi-fi equipment. At first, things were going well as I was working on a commission basis. However, after about 6 months, the owner told me that I was making too much and that he would have to put me on salary. There went the good money. About that time, my second son Andrew was born, so since I needed the insurance I had to take his offer.
I soon found myself making less money and working more hours.
I knew that this was not good for the marriage so I set out to look
for other work. I finally got my associates degree in business, but
Right after Andrew was born, I got a job with Circuit City. This was again in the early 1980's. The pay was good but I was commuting from Front Royal, VA to Baileys Crossroads, then Springfield, VA. This was wearing me down! We decided to move back to the city when I got a management position. We moved to Manassas, VA in the mid 1980's when I got promoted to management. The next 4 years would be a great strain on me. I was working long hours. It was tough "making my numbers"and my income was not what I thought it would be. Some of it was my fault, but I had other factors working against me like bad locations for my stores and recessions. I was demoted twice, but battled my way back up to the store manager position. You had to be super aggressive to survive with this company. I did it up to a point, then I decided that I didn't want to do it anymore. In the late 1980's I got a job in outside sales with RCA. This was probably the most fun job that I had up to this point. I was selling commercial TV's, VCR's and satellite dishes/programming to hotels, hospitals and schools. I was making decent money and had my nights and weekends free to spend with my family. Things were going well. Then, RCA Commercial Products was sold from GE to Thomson Consumer Electronics of France. I was laid off on December 23, 2 days before Christmas. I still don't have fond feelings toward General Electric because of this. Things started happening at this point that were pretty rough. I worked for an independent TV distributor for a short time, but made literally no money. I went back into retail and again worked for Radio Shack since I had no where else to go. I was quite down at that time.
My marriage was also being effected by these events. My 1st wife and I never had
I felt that I had to change various aspects of my life in order to get control back. I tried my own business repping electronic products, which failed. I also worked 4 or 5 part time jobs just to make ends meet. Two things helped change my life. One was that my income was so low that I qualified for student loans. So I went back to school to get my bachelor's degree. The other was that I looked in the paper one day to see which job postings were the most numerous. This is where I would look for employment. Three categories stuck out: nursing, engineering and computers. I don't like the sight of blood so nursing was out. I wasn't great at math so engineering was out. That left computers. While in school I went on dozens of interviews. This was the early 90's, when jobs were scarce. You had to be 21 and have 50 years experience in order to get a job. So I kept interviewing. One day I answered an ad for AOL. I went to the job fair and various departments there were represented. I went down the line and asked how much computer experience each one of them required. One year, two years, five years, all more than I had. A BS was also needed. Then I got to the customer service table, where only 6 months were required and an AS. Hey, that fit my qualifications. I interviewed, but didn't think that they'd call me.
The new millenium brought alot of changes to my life. My father died in early 2000 after steadily declining health. I was sad that he was gone but happy that his suffering was over. My oldest son John joined the Navy. I was very happy for him because I felt that this would give him some direction and structure in his life. I left AOL and took some time off. After a nice break and some false starts, I jumped back into the computer field and worked as a web developer for SatoTravel. This was a challenging and interesting job. Unfortionately, Sato was bought out by Navigant International in 2001. This, together with the tragedy of 9/11, made for a steadily declining work environment. With layoffs, disappearing benefits, salary reductions and freezes and the "assimilation" of SatoTravel's IT infrastructure into Navigant, it was not a fun place to work.
In 2003, my brother-in-law, Richard, was killed in a car accident. We were
never all that close. But I felt for my sister, niece and nephew and all that
they had and will have to endure as a result of this. Also, it brought
home the fact that our time on earth is limited, precious and in the hands
of our Creator. So make the most of it.
I left Navigant/SatoTravel in 2004 and started doing the contractor thing.
My Mom passed away in 2005. Again I was sad that she was gone, but happy that her suffering was over, that I tried to make her last year as pleasant as possible and spent some time with her. My wife Nancy was very helpful in getting discount medicines, retirement and assisted living information as well as taking an interest in my Mom. For that I am grateful. My hobbies right now include hiking, backpacking, computer stuff, traveling and my newest quest: motorcycle riding. So that is about where I am today. Life has dealt me both good and bad hands, but the game has been interesting, to say the least. |
