About me

Personal

I have had a very eventful life and have the glory of visiting and living in many different places. I was born in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania and found myself moving to Florida at an age that I do not remember. After spending a few years of my life there we moved back to Pennsylvania. While living there we moved around to a couple different cities. Once I turned 16 I moved back down to Florida and stayed there until I was about 19. I then ended up in Michigan by a few odd twists of fate and stayed there for 5 1/2 years. I went to Florida after that to get my Game Programming degree at Full Sail and finished 3rd highest in my class. I had a lot of really cool people in my class and school and had a lot of good times with all them. I am currently back in Michigan, (how do I always end up in the states I don't want to live in?) worked for Lanphear Tool Works and Engineering for a short while, and am now a Controls Engineer at Forrest Company.

I also play the drums and enjoy music to its fullest. I am not much of a TV watcher, unless of course I am playing a video game! I spend a lot of time in front of a computer programming and doing other various tasks for my job. There are many other hobbies and activities that I enjoy: reading, spending time with family and friends, electronics, and biking are just a few things. I always try to be open and accept new things.

Work related

Ok, that was just a little short and sweet thing about myself above and now I will move on to the things that I spent the other half of my time doing! :)

Starting out back in the day I started were most everyone starts off at: fast food! Oh yes, the joyous days of putting burgers into the flame broiler and assembling those Whoppers as fast as I could. I was pretty fast at it too. If I recall correctly, I was down to building a Whopper in 21 seconds! Only that manager was faster than I. Talk about being coordinated! haha :) Then I graduated to Winn Dixie and eventually to a security guard working third shift at a private company looking over millions of dollars worth of equipment.

After working that job for a while I decided that type of job was not that enjoyable and I moved onto working for a company called Data Storage Service. They store private information for various clients and deliver it to their doorstep on request. This was a great job. I started out working in the warehouse pulling file and getting the orders ready for the clients and eventually worked up to being one of the drivers. I was responsible for keeping a private, professional, and enjoyable atmosphere for the clients I was assigned to. This was a great job and a great company and miss all of the great people I worked with.

From there I moved up to Michigan. It is here that I finally started carving my electromechanical background. After spending a little time settling down and getting use to the area I stated going to a technical school and getting my Certificates of Completion in Computer Repair and Electromechanical.

While going to school I was holding two jobs: one as a independent electronics technician repairing TV's, VCR's, radios, and many other types of AC and DC electronics at a place called Ed's Electronics. This also was a lot of fun. I did electrocute myself a quite a few times though, but I must say there is no better way to wake you up quicker than putting your elbow onto a live 120VAC circuit! :) The owner, a good friend, and I got along great and he taught me many things, building off of what I was taught and my natural ability to pick the technology up quickly. I continued working there for two years learning much along the way including what it was like to be self employed and all the extra paperwork (and taxes) that go along with that. :)

About the same time that I started the repair job I was called into another place to use my electronic and programming skills to help a growing startup company called Lanphear Tool Works and Engineering to develop and build a independent electronics department. Upon arriving at his house I was given the tour of this company that was located in the basement of the house. The quality of work, enthusiasm of the owner and employees, and the pure thrill of engineering won me over. (Ok... the promise of good pay didn't hurt either!) So I moved on into one of the rooms in the basement and started building up a systematic and organized electrical department.

I was 1 of the 3-man team that formed the employees of the company. I engineered, built, programmed, and tested electrical panels for automated assembly machines. I also installed and tweaked all of the other electronic sensors on the machine. Everyone at the company was very dedicated and put many, many long hours in working from hand to mouth to build the company to a very reputable and prestigious company. The quality of the work we put out was superb and could not be matched by anyone else in our area. This allowed us to move out of the basement and move into a 20,000 square foot facility and start to produce much larger projects, bringing our total business to a about a million dollars a year, more than quadrupling the size of the company. I had many good times there and will never forget them and all of the valuable lessons I learned about business, teamwork, and dedication. I will also never forget everyone who I worked with who all started out as co-workers and ended up as great friends.

During all of this madness of working two jobs I even picked up a third job of delivering pizza! During three of the years that I lived in Michigan I was putting in 70+ hours a week working between all of my jobs. This was quite draining but allowed me to prove to myself that I could work hard and do what ever I wished to do. I also made a little bank that allowed me to have to move to a nicer place and eventually have money to move to Florida to go to school.

Then I ended up back at Lanphear Tool Works as a manager of the electrical department. I had the same job duties, but then I was able to split them among some of my own crew under me. Ahhhh... the joys of being a manager of a multi-person team! This quite the learning experience. Not quite the game programming job that I had wished for, but it is still something that I am very good at.

I then moved on to a Company called Forrest Company where I decided to start it all over again! They built automated assembly machines also and always jobed out the controls work. So, I have came in and built up the controls and electrical division. I was able to bring a lot to the table with having done this before, which was nice for both parties since it allowed for a easier transition. Currently (08) I am a department of 1 - ha! But that will change as the business picks up, which it has quite steadily.

Well, this is it for my job history as of now, which I hope will be changing soon! Those loans for school have added up quick! If there is any specific question that I can answer for you that you might have been looking for, then just leave me a message!