arren

• I was born and raised in Hamilton, New York (where??). Both my parents worked at the major local employer -- Colgate University. Hopefully my father rubbed off on me -- he was an English professor (go ahead, check my grammar!).
• Having been brought up in a top-notch college environment, I headed off to another top-notch institution for my college education -- Duke University where I double majored in Electrical and Biomedical Engineering.
• Not wanting to enter The Real World too quickly, I went to work for the Department of Defense in Maryland. While I was there, I began experiencing homework/term project withdrawals, so I went back to school in the evenings at Johns Hopkins where I obtained my Masters in Computer Science.
• While at Duke, I had met and become enamored with a fellow BME (although she was an underclassman). Ultimately, we decided that life together was much more pleasurable than life apart, so we were married in the Summer of 1982.
• With five years of government service and a newly minted MS under my belt, I decided it was time to head out in to The Real World. I worked for a number of companies in Maryland (ESL, ARINC Research, AGS Genasys, and Unisys) for the next 11 years before Janet and I decided to return to our collegiate roots.
• On a very spur of the moment decision, we both accepted jobs in North Carolina and moved down in the Fall of 1996. I took a job with Unified Network Services (sorry, but their Web site is no longer functioning) developing network management solutions. While there, I did more than my share of travelling, so I decided to move on while my family still recognized me.
• I started working for RPM Consulting the middle of November '98. Well, in late 1999, we "rebranded" and became eBNetworks. Around the same time, we were purchased by Computer Horizons. Times became hard in our region, and I was caught in the second of three layoff rounds in the Carolinas and was let go in April 2001.
• The market for network management consultants with a range of ancillary skills (although not at an 'expert' level) ... well ... err ... sucked. I finally landed a position in the Professional Services organization of SMARTS, a software company headquartered in White Plains, NY in August 2001. With SMARTS, I worked at a customer in Research Triangle Park (yeah, no travel!) at the beginning and then began a long-term relationship with a customer in Texas (nothing like commuting to Texas two weeks out of three!) :-P Fate caught up with me again in January 2002, and I was laid off again (one of many over the preceeding months).
• The job market hadn't improved any since my last search. After many, many, many resumes, e-mails, phone calls, and personal entreaties, I landed a job with the University of North Carolina Center for Public Television (UNC-TV) in August 2002. I am working in the Engineering division, caring for the new applications running in our Technical Operations Center that will handle our move from standard analog television to high definition digital television. It's a mix of system administration (Unix and Windows) and applications support (the fun begins when the vendors and integration contractors leave!) that promises to be fun and challenging.

In an effort to be more marketable should the need ever arise again, I am in the process of persuing vendor-specific certifications. Any suggestions for resources would be greatly appreciated. At this point in time, I am studying for my CCNA certification following it with an Oracle and Sun Solaris certifications. At this point in time, I am currently an HP OpenView Certified Consultant.

On a non-business note, I was diagnosed as being diabetic in January 2000. I am now trying to adjust my lifestyle to match my new body chemistry. At this moment in time, I am trying to regulate myself with diet, exercise, and one of the wonders of modern chemistry -- glucophage.

On a lighter note, I am a firm supporter of the BOINC project that takes advantage of unused computing power to perform much-needed scientific tasks.

Last updated: 18 July 2007