About Me...
Gnothi Seauton - “Know thyself”
A Brief History of Time
BC - Before College:
Art and science play a huge role in our society. Art resembles the soul, while science resembles the body, of modern knowledge. My interests in soul began when I was around eight years old. I started drawing cars and buildings, and later started to trace Marvel and DC comic book scenes at the age of twelve. This may be the point of origin concerning the meticulous level of detail I tend to forge into my work.
Between being raised in a fairly rural area, and the summers I spent growing up on Beaver Island, I had plenty of free time to develop hobbies.
I began building small (model) boats around the age of eight with leftover scrap wood from my father's construction projects.
In middle school, I was tearing apart small electric motors and retrofitting them to power my boats and other contraptions, while simultaneously experimenting with electronics. In high school, I elected several drafting classes, and thus my engineering career began.
During this time, I took up, and expanded on, many more interests and hobbies, including:
- Snowboarding
- Paintball
- Track
- Audio Production
- Electric Guitar
- Web-Design
- Strategy Games
But as it seemed, my passions were best pursued at that time in web-design.
I had struck up several self-founded websites beginning with highly experimental flash sites, and later forging forward with paintball websites, a StarCraft fan site, and later working with GammaSoft, a revolutionary web CMS developed out of Whales.
My most (unforeseen) brush with success amalgamated during A Brief History of Time where I collaboration with the owner of scfreak.com. The entrepreneur of that site later developed a site you may be familiar with if you are learned in web-design: HostGator.com. In fact my first true business (OctaneGifts.com) was one of the first 20 web-sites to be hosted there. Funny enough, I've still got the founder on my AIM friends list!
“The entrepreneur of that site later developed a site you may be familiar with if you are learned in web-design: HostGator.com”
OctaneGifts ultimately proved to be a failure of my own in-experience, and I somewhat reluctantly opted to pursue a college career. As it seemed at the time, this was the best chance of success I could achieve... To this day, I still wonder, what if...
“To this day, I still wonder, what if...”
Keep in mind that at this time the only web-design school available to me was Full Sail University, as web-design was (as it tauntingly still remains) a revolutionary field with no set rules, and therefore (vastly) no standardized educational system.
The old Robert Frost poem of The Road Not Taken rings a solemn toll...
DC - During College:
My college career was by no means a straight path. I starting out at WMU with Electrical Engineering, decided against it after a semester, and ended up taking some community college core education courses the following semester. I took a career choices course that led me to believe I would best be employed there as a graphics design student. After speaking with the department advisor, I was again distraught, as it would take me 6 years total by this time to complete a major in the field!
I spent quite a bit of time reflecting on the joy that my high school drafting courses had given me, and decided to head back into the engineering field, this time in a program that made sense to me. This was a defining moment in my life.
I grew up a lot during this time, vastly due to my exposure to Beaver Island. My parents had owned several seasonal businesses up there as a child and young adult. My father was a teacher during the spring, winter, and fall, while the summer time was ruled by The Island sunshine.
“My father was a teacher during the spring, winter, and fall, while the summer time was ruled by The Island sunshine”
I decided that ice cream scooping and dish washing weren't for me, and applied to The Beaver Island Boat Company at 18, where my best friend was currently employed.
I started painting boats (where my artistic background was amply put to use) and working as a luggage boy, eventually making my way onto the boats as a deck hand. Later, I found myself there as a senior deck hand and a dock supervisor. I cannot amply attribute the amount of self-growth that enveloped my life during this point of time... I'm still growing there, spending my vacation time working the docks.
I continued (although at a far slower a pace) my web-design path, creating an events tracking calendar used to help myself with scheduling. This is still under development, although much evolved, as a time allocating program which I hope to make public someday soon...
Years passed, and my engineering education culminated with my senior design project... which led me into the world of pumps and hydraulics.
Working with Parker Aerospace, myself and three other team members developed a Modular Hydraulic Test Bench, to be used in Western's Fluid Mechanics Course. It was a true build from scratch project. We fabricated the bench based off sketches and with the help of our advisors, and created a beautiful test bench to aid the future students of WMU explore the boundaries of fluid mechanics. To this day, it is still a large segment of the program's lab.
AF - After College:
I went straight from college to the only industry that made sense to me: The Marine Industry.
My first job was spent as a marine drafter for FourWinns, a prominent boat developer based out of Cadillac, MI. I still remember the snowy day I went for my interview.
I worked on putting to production more than eight vessels using Pro-Engineer, an advanced 3D parametric software, while I was on board for over one and a half years. I spent much of my time exploring the worlds of fiberglass / lay-up, painting, boating, and mold making as I produced 150 page assembly manuals. Much of the work was based on prototyping going on right next to my desk. Later during my time there, I successfully moved the system to design before production, and took on the role of Interim Marine Designer.
My next career intentionally focuses much more on the technicalities of design, as opposed to the aesthetics...
At Clyde Union Pumps, SPX, I've worked my way through several layoffs to hire on and become a Project Engineer, a Standardization Technical Lead, and one of the three ATEX / CE experts within our department. It has been a long road, ripe with learning opportunities to say the least.
In the meantime, I've taken an affluent interest in astrophysics, startup culture, and have re-kindled an old love... web-design.
I've continued my life long learning endeavor, taking several courses a semester since I returned to Kalamazoo. I aspire to someday own my own business, and eventually retire to the island I love.