I was attracted to technology at an early age. I remember many years ago in the mid 70s, when I was about 4 or 5, my mother yelling at me because I would take my brand new electronic toys apart. Like my Micronauts Hydrocopter and a remote (wired) controlled toy tank, to get them to fuse together.
When I was in 3rd grade (1983), I went to a computer camp. We used the Apple IIe and I learned how to program in basic. I wrote a game about horse races. When you started the program, it would list a bunch of horses with funny names, you chose one, it asked how much you wanted to wager, then it would choose a random number and associate that number with a horse within the array. Then it would tell you congrats if you won and increase your money by whatever you entered to bet with, or vice versa.
The following year, I got a Commodore VIC20. Yes, this came out before the Commodore 64 which had a catchier tune in the commercials. It used to hook onto my TV and I’d write simple basic programs. The programs would disappear every day because there wasn’t a way to save anything. I got a game eventually.
I got really happy when I got the tape unit. I could finally save my programs!
Eventually, I left technology a little behind and focused on being a ninja. Hey, being a ninja was cool in 4th grade. While I was in the Marine Corps, I got back into computer and technology work. As an Aviation Ordnance Tech, there was classes on electronics that you were pushed through and in the fleet, you try to learn the whole aircraft. Luckily for me, during my time, computers because popular and eventually some of us started buying them for our rooms in the barracks. I had two. As when I was younger, I disassembled them and tried to combine the best parts.
My 386SX looked like this, but without the CD-ROM I had a 386SX and a 486DX. The 486 has a VGA card while the 386 had an SVGA card. I had a super 486 with all the RAM from the 386. My copy of Windows 3.1 and Doom ran lightening fast! At work, we went from paper to computer for aircraft parts and maintenance. I got to help out and did a lot of the computer work. I also fixed that Gorilla.bas game that was installed by default with DOS 5. Working on computers was so much fun. I prided myself on my ability to be smarter than others when it came to technology. I was even cocky about what I knew.
After I left the Marine Corps, I wanted to continue my path, I applied everywhere, but since I was only a hobbyist with little actual professional education or experience, landed a part time job doing Data Entry for a small bank called AEA Federal Credit Union, I did data entry and very little computer support. That didn’t last long because I needed benefits and my wife was pregnant. So I got a job with the Arizona Department of Corrections and became a Corrections Officer. Though I had a large work crew, I made time to help people out with their computer problems. The existing Network Specialist was a real loser and though he pretended to know it all, truly didn’t. After my son was born, I was unofficially promoted to Assistant Network Specialist by the Warden and because of what I knew and because I wasn’t a dick about helping people, I was promoted to Network Specialist and relocated (all expenses paid) to Phoenix. I met this older guy, named Herb Culpepper. Really awsome dude. He and I did all sorts of things. He reminded me of Dilbert but way cooler. He knew what he was talking about and pushed me in the right direction. Herb and I ran a number of projects and we even had a few interns. We had a few super large projects, like going back to Yuma and putting in a Network and some servers, and networking all the parole offices in all of Arizona.
At home,I eventually set up my own lab. My lab had Novell Servers and Windows Servers. It had a bunch of computers running Windows 95c, Windows 98, Windows NT, and Windows 2000. Every day after work, all I would do is learn how to do a bit of everything. I had hubs and switches, yet I only had dial up Internet. Woohoo! I thought about getting my education to match what I do, since I obviously love what I do. So I went to DeVry. About a year into school, I was getting tired of working at the Arizona Department of Corrections. I couldn’t promote. So I looked around, found a recruiter online and flew to Dallas Ft. Worth for an interview. Shortly thereafter I was the Regional IT Coordinator for First Horizon Home Loan Corporation.
My new job was pretty cool. I worked out of many different offices and from home. My region had Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and the West area of Texas. It was all mine. I got a nice pay raise too! So nice that I bought a car and a house. I had to travel a lot, so I had to quit school. So bye bye DeVry. The pressure of doing homework while traveling to different sites is hard. Plus I couldn’t always make it back on days I had class. I was a lone ranger and started to really miss working with people. People in IT, not just customers. Customers couldn’t relate and talking with them about solving their problems felt like I was talking over their heads. I often had to just tell them I don’t know why a problem occured, but that I could fix it. I didn’t know how to tell them nicely that it was their fault. Anyway. I took some certification classes. Novell NetWare and Cisco. I wanted to be like my hero, Laura Chappell. Who was dominantly Novell and Packet Level analysis. She made things sound pretty easy.
Y2K came and left and as far as I could tell, nothing crazy happened. No explosions, inmates released out of prison, nuclear missiles launched… It was all good. I had a quiet night.
After I got my CCNA, I got a job at Alltel where I worked with a bunch of techies. I was their Senior Network Analyst and helped get them Windows NT 4.0 to integrate with Novell NetWare. I got a long good with our senior guys at Corporate because of my Novell background. I also got along good with the Cisco guy because I was a CCNA. I got to maintain some of the routers and all the switches. My boss pretty much gave me free reign of projects I was on and I learned a lot of Microsoft stuff from my peer Frank. Frank and I did a lot of major project planning. We even moved our call center 20 miles and had minimal disruption in service and support. I still maintain contact with the old team. They are fun to talk with and hang out with. Frank and I had an upgrade planned for September 11, 2001. So I slept in that day. I got up about 7am and checked my email. I read something about “Due to today’s horrific events, the meeting is cancelled” and was wondering.. What’s so horrific? After a blur of memory, I remember watching tv just a couple of minutes before the second plane slammed into the second tower. I was very sad after everything was done.
I did go back to school, I enrolled in the University of Phoenix, Bachelor’s of Science in Information Technology. Fun stuff. I truly felt that I just had to be there since I don’t feel that I learned much. I had too much background in IT to learn much.
An opening came up at the Arizona Department of Health. Some of my jobs in the military gave me some fun experiences. Like a Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Decontamintation course. Imagine doing everything you do on a regular basis, but in a gas mask and full chemical suit? Having that experience along with my project management and technical abilities landed me a job as a Technical Project Manager for Bioterrorism. I saw needless amounts of spending on stupid things and very slow movement forward in any project. State Government work is truly slow. The concept of a covered employee is ridiculous. I met many who couldn’t do their own jobs and required much education and re-education to get things done. Along with all that education, they’d get a consultant to come in an implement a project for them. Wow, seriously? Yes. After seeing millions spent on 2 stupid web servers, it wasn’t until after I yelled “bullshit” loud enough in the right area, things had to be put on hold and I was moved and some people were let go. People with many years of tenure.
I got to create my own position and I chose Network Security Manager. I implemented a great many technologies. Vericept, Secure Email, Pix firewalls, etc. I implemented HIPAA and worked closely with the HIPAA team. I influenced all the sister State agencies on technologies we were implementing.
I got a contract with RMIN, they were gung-ho Novell and I came in to redo everything. All new servers in a cluster with failover and new XP images. It was pretty sweet! The people there were awesome too! I still maintain contact with them. Except for this one guy. Wow, every place has that one person…
I really got into information security, nobody wants to pay for me taking the tests though. Neither do I! The CISSP is now common place just to have a security job. Changing backup tapes in a secure location? Need a CISSP! Reset a users password? Need a CISSP! It’s freakin redonkulous.
I got a position with Scottsdale Insurance Company as a Senior Information Security Analyst. I did a lot of technical work and project leading. Great company! Awesome people! I worked with NetWare, Windows, SQL, Server, Linux, Sun, and a bunch of other technologies. I really got into metadata, such as LDAP queries and getting Active Directory talking to eDirectory and Tivoli Account Manager. Too bad I fell in love with my co-worker. I had to get a job elsewhere because I love her more! Its wasn’t all that bad though.
My desk at SIC
I found a good job where I was king! Director of Information Technology and Security for Corbins Electric. Quaint company, not that small. Had it good. Unfortunately though, the economy went from bad to worse and a big reduction in force chopped a lot of staff, giving Information Technology less people to support. I did everything Information Technology and Security related. I moved their corporate headquarters from one location to another, and had things set up in such a way that I could remotely open any door in the building.
While unemployed, I started my own company. Arizona IT Management LLC and I provide all sorts of Information Technology Management services to customers. Under that company, I have Information Armor and Arizona Web Management. I learned a lot about web programming, design, website maintenance, Google, WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, OAuth, and APIs from different social networking services. I still needed a job though, as my company wasn’t bringing in much.
I got hired at Capitol Bancorp as one of their Information Security Specialists, where I do a lot of monitoring, risk evaluations, and lately, user certifications. My team and boss are pretty cool.
