My Career:

I suppose that my career can be divided into 5 phases:

• The Farm. I was the oldest child on a dairy farm in Northern Wisconsin. If you don't understand that statement, consider this: I was driving a farm tractor at age 7 and a pickup with a manual unsynchronized transmission at 10. I had my first motor vehicle accident at about 12, which was also about the age when I first hurt my back. I learned to help a heifer give birth, and then to butcher the bull calf a month later. I learned to work and about life and death and my place in nature. I learned about Family but I didn't learn much about other people.
• The Army. I was drafted after an unsuccessful attempt at college. In basic training I learned to do pushups while being kicked by a drill sergeants. I learned to fear black officers and white sergeants but not black sergeants or white officers. In Vietnam I learned that I had more in common with the Vietnamese people than I did with my fellow soldiers. I also learned how to love a woman, and because we had little privacy, how few men care that there is a person in that body. I learned a lot about people, and a lot about what kind of person I wanted to be.
• Burroughs/Unisys. After an Associates Degree in Electronics, I repaired mainframe computers for 10 years. I learned that I could fix anything. And that the worst job in the world is a 1st level manager in a Fortune 500 company that is in trouble and shrinking. I got to live in Minneapolis, Marion Iowa and San Antonio Texas. I was very good at my job well paid for it when my family was young.
• Ketterman's Inc. I correctly predicted that Unisys was going to gradually fail. Although there may have been better personal options, I chose to take a big gamble. It worked for a while, I turned the Northeast District from a 1-man-show (me) into a 10-person operation which was the only profitable remote office that Ketterman's Inc (Dallas TX) had. I learned that as a manager I should have read The Prince first; that it is much safer to be feared than loved (in today's meaning, loved=respected).
• ASE and EPD. The companies got smaller and so did my success ratio and timeframes. The best that can be said was I made the transition from hardware repair to software programmer/analyst.
• Link Systems. A great job until 2000 when Link Systems was sold to a company that went bankrupt.
• The Hartford. Another great job until The Hartford became outsourcing obsessed and essentially an Indian Corporation whose primary function is to take money from American policy-holders and send it to India.
• PCS and CIT. Another transition, to working for myself. I only answer to my customers. Finally!

I have a resume but it is only for reference, I am not looking for a job: