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Education & Training
My formal education consists of a Bachelor of Science and Master
of Science in Electrical Engineering from UMass Lowell. My main
concentration was in microwaves, electromagetics and antenna theory.
My masters thesis, The Generation of a
Controllable Wiggler Field by a Switched Plasma Medium, was
basically a theoretical study of what happens to electromagnetic
waves if the medium in which the wave is traveling is suddenly
switch to a magnetoplasma. The result is that wiggler fields are
created. If you want to learn more take a look at my thesis.
As I was writing my thesis I wanted to generate a number of 2
dimensional graphs using Mathcad and Maple V. The data I generated
was not in a format that worked well with these programs so I had to
write some software that required custom mapping of three
dimensional shapes to a two dimensional shapes. I developed a better
understanding of "perspective" in 3D modeling and found that I was
enjoying the software development far more than the thesis itself.
Around the same time I was completing my thesis (1993) the PC
world was arguing over the merits of Microsoft Windows 3.1 vs IBM's
O/S 2 operating systems. Since I had only been exposed to command
line computing in languages like FORTRAN I was intrigued by Windows
and wanted to know how to develop Windows software. As soon as I
successfully defended my masters thesis I bought several books on
C/C++ and Windows Development. Instantly I was hooked and proceeded
to fill several shelves with programming books. I also supplemented
my reading by attending developer conferences and taking a
variety of courses at UMass Lowell, Boston University, Northeaster
University and Harvard. (I wasn't focused on getting another degree
and just want to experience some of the different college campuses
close by.)
While working as a software developer I grew into more senior
leadership roles to the point where I was writing less and less code
and contributing more as a project lead/architect. I knew I had
crossed the line to management when my boss said to me "You have
been leading these people and I need you to write their performance
reviews because I have no idea what they did last year"
I had always thought that converting to management would be a
drastic change but it was much more gradual and on a fundamental
level very similar to being an engineer. I continued to have impact
on the products and solutions that we developed and I found that my
basic engineering skills for solving problems applied to many
business problems as well. During this transition I had the benefit
of having two tremendous mentors who coached and encouraged me. They
believed in my ability and encouraged me to pursue my MBA and they
were instrumental in helping me get into the Executive MBA program
at Boston University.
Since then I continue to seek ways to learn and improve mostly
thru reading, non-credit seminars and
participation in professional
organizations. One other note is that after completing my MBA I
decided that I wanted to learn to play the piano and learn about
music theory. You can read more about that on my
music page.
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