Craig Conrad:
CLASS OF 1974
Owego Free AcademyClass of 1974
Owego, NY
SUNY at BinghamtonClass of 1978
Binghamton, NY
Liverpool High SchoolClass of 1974
Liverpool, NY
Owego Apalachin Middle SchoolClass of 1971
Owego, NY
Apalachin Elementary SchoolClass of 1968
Apalachin, NY
Craig's Story
Life
HABITAT:
IBM moved us from Endicott, NY to North Carolina when the Charlotte facility first opened in 1978. We raised our family in the nice nearby town of Harrisburg, NC. After retiring in 2005, we bought a lakefront cottage on nearby Badin Lake, intending to to fix it up to rent it out some. Then Covid hit and we ended up doing our "isolation time" there which let us see that we loved it so much there that we made it our fulltime home.
SPOUSE:
I met Janet when I was a college Jr, majoring in math/CompSci, while she was the secretary of the math dept. We married the week after I formally graduated in 1978, and are both very happy. It was a blessing that she wanted to stay home to raise the children (and spoil me!). She finished Culinary School in 2003.
CHILDREN:
Stephen (b.1981), Lisa (b.1984), Daniel (b.1988), David (b.1990), Emily (b.1995), Michael (still born in 1997). Ten grandchildren so far, with an 11th on the way.
HOBBIES:
Bible study, kayaking, computers, firearms, genealogy, board/card games, lake life
SPIRITUAL LIFE:
We attend a Baptist Church, and all our children attended Christian school. I am an ordained deacon, currently serving as Deacon Chairman. I taught Bible classes (college age & adult), led Men's groups, served on various committees, preached a couple times, and officiated my grandfather's funeral. God has been patient with me in spite of my failures. He is good!
HIGH SCHOOL
Owego Free Academy through the end of my Jr. year in 1973;
Liverpool High School for my Sr. year, graduating 1974
COLLEGE:
SUNY Binghamton (Binghamton University) (BS Math/CompSci, 1978)
George Washington University (Masters in Project Management, 2004)
WORK
I began at IBM Endicott (NY) in May 1977 -- a year before I officially completed college, but I had sufficient credits to graduate, so I finished school part-time while working my first year at IBM. They moved us to Charlotte, NC in 1978 when the site there was announced (we were one of the fi...Expand for more
rst five families to move there as I was tasked to establish the computing center before the others arrived). In my first four years at IBM, I published a Technical Report, solely conceived and created (apart from my job duties) a program, "VM/370 to OS/VS1 Command Facility" [VMOCF], that IBM later sold as a product, spoke to large technical groups (IBM, SHARE and GUIDE) in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and New York City, and initiated and led the effort (technical and administrative) to bring a "Work at Home" program to IBM Charlotte.
Served more than 38 years with IBM in positions of: Systems Programmer; Computer Center Manager; Banking Software Product Test Manager; Banking Microcode and Application Product Development Manager; Network Services Business Development Manager; Project Manager (PMI certified & many Agile Scrum certifications) consulting with major worldwide clients (banks, insurance companies, IRS, etc.) on data migrations in support of Mergers and Acquisitions and major system upgrades. These multi-million dollar projects typically ran from 5 to 12 months, in which I managed a team of as few as 4 or as many as over 100 people. I finally retired in 2015, with occasional consulting beyond that.
My job afforded many travel opportunities (sometimes more that I wanted), and I've had the privilege of visiting around North America (including Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, Mexico); Caribbean (Puerto Rico, USVI); Europe (England, Scotland, Wales, Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Monaco, Vatican City); Asia (China, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan); Australia (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane); Middle East (Israel, including the Gaza Strip and the West Bank); Africa (South Africa).
About the most rewarding thing I did in my job was to create software tools and processes to improve the productivity, quality and scope of our offerings. While some of these are market-worthy on their own, keeping them in-house maintained our competitive advantage.
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