Born a twin in Champaign County, Illinois on January 8, 1952 making me 72 years old in 2024. Not as old as either Biden or Trump but still what I consider to be past prime age for a president or a representative. (It's past time for a generational change in upper government people.) I lived in Champaign, Illinois until I was 6 then my dad wanted more rural living so we moved to Mayview, Illinois surrounded by farm fields in the St. Joseph, Illinois school district but still an easy commute for dad. Pretty normal childhood with school and whatnot including Methodist church member, Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, 4-H, and later the Explorer program of the Boy Scouts of America. Stayed in the Explorer program after high school as an Advisor including working with youth attending regional and national events. Wrestled in high school for 4 years lettering twice. Summer employment included walking beans, detasseling corn, bailing hay, Boy Scout summer camp employee, and trimming hedges.
Started college at the University of Illinois in fall 1970 in engineering but soon switched to business and graduated in January 1975. Went to work full time as a printing press operator in the same offices I'd worked part-time as a student since the summer before starting college. Looked into opening a print shop in Urbana, Illinois in 1978 but discovered a friend from high school had beaten me to it by a few months. Looked at continuing education and found that a combination of Library Science and an MBA in Management Information Systems best suited my interests. Was accepted to both programs then had to rush to get started discovering that the Library Science program started in the Summer session only rather than the expected fall.
Graduated from both in 1982 and '83 and in the fall started full-time employment at the NASA Scientific and Technical Information Facility near Baltimore, Maryland. First major project was to visit 15 or so NASA facilities across the USA to scope out requirements for automating all the libraries of NASA. Before that project was completed my employer (a "beltway bandit" government contractor) lost the bid for contract renewal. I stuck with my employer and went to work on a variety of projects in downtown Washington, DC including GSA, EPA, NIH, Naval Air Systems, Marines, FBI, HUD, and several other acronyms before leaving a NOAA project in 1991 to become an independent contractor. Biggest project I worked on as an independent was the FDIC/RTC effort to deal with the Savings and Loan Crisis.
My wife got a teaching/research position at Michigan State University (MSU) in 1997 so I left Washington, DC but continued as an independent contractor until joining Michigan State University as a full-time web and accessibility system developer in 2006. I retired from MSU in 2022.