Michael Click:  

I'm a native-born Texan. My dad was a commercial artist for a large Defense contractor. I may have caught a bit of the ¿bug¿ for contributing to real-world projects from him. I took drafting in high school and attended UTA to study Engineering. I transferred to the school of Architecture because I felt that it was more "creative". At that time, an Architectural degree had just become a 7 year program. I discovered after three years in the program that architects as a whole are the most under-paid professionals. Most architectural graduates work as draftsmen on other architect's offices. I felt that I didn't need to invest 4 more years of tuition and time to work as a draftsman, as I could do that already. I took a job as a draftsman with ITE (now part of Siemens). I worked there for 5 years before taking a job with the consulting engineering firm of Purdy-McGuire. There I worked my way up from draftsman to design draftsman to designer. I took a higher-paying design position with Walter Cash and Partners, which after some length of time went out of business. I worked as a contract designer for about 7 years for a number of companies including Texas Instruments, Frito-Lay, Alcon Laboratories, and Hercules Aerospace. I took a "direct" position with a Boeing Facilities program supporting a defense-related facility located in Australia. I worked in this program for over 12 years until the government contract was lost in a competitive bid with Lockheed. On closure of the program, I took a job with the engineering firm of Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam (LAN). I worked on many projects while there, the primary one being the design of for the rework of Houston's Hobby...Expand for more