James Byrd:
CLASS OF 1978
John Yeates High SchoolClass of 1978
Suffolk, VA
U.S. Naval AcademyClass of 1982
Annapolis, MD
James's Story
Life
I currently live in New Market, MD with wife of 25+ years, Carole. We have three children. The oldest, Megan is married with three children. My son Abraham is married and works for a computer network company, and my youngest daughter Becky is married to a soldier. I work in the IT industry as Network Engineer. I serve in church as the choir director and a men's leader. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Since graduating from USNA, I've lived in:
--Annapolis, MD
--Pensacola, FL
--Newport, RI
--Virginia Beach, VA
--Okinawa, Japan
--Odenton, MD
--Apple Valley, CA
--Silver Spring, MD (Aspen Hill)
--Olney, MD
--New Market, MD
During my 5 years in the Navy I had ~ 7 military assignments in 5 years from aviation training to serving in a Marine artillery unit. I've had >9 positions with 4 companies (2 companies twice) in the 20 years since I separated from the Navy.
Workplace
As I recall, my first job was mowing lawns for money with a friend in Bremerton, Washington. I remember the two of us, me 11 and him 12, being afraid we had overfilled the gas tank. So, we had siphon the tank. Not having a hose, we decided we could use a cloth to suck up the gas. Of course, me, the younger, was assigned the task of sucking on the cloth to pull the gas out of the cloth. I put the cloth in the tank, sucked and was treated to a mouthful of horrible-tasting, gasoline. It took q...Expand for more
uite a while for me to get the horrible taste out and to relieve the mild, burning sensation in my throat.
Later, I worked a paper route in Suffolk. My most vivid memory of that was being attacked by some other kids while returning home after my route and frantically, futilely trying to defend myself by wildly slinging the light canvas bag blindly around in the air. At some point my glasses came off and were broken. Not the best of memories.
Next, I did odd jobs for my neighbor, Mr. McKenzie across the street. He always had the coolest workshop with all sorts of welding, machining, and electronic equipment.
After graduating from USNA, I served in various places in the Navy for five years. After the navy, I worked as a Mechanical Engineer for 12+ years for Vitro Corporation, later called Tracor, and then Marconi Systems. I tired of working as a mechanical engineer, so, moved into IT in 1999, working as a Database Specialist for a company called GMSI. In 2002, I left GMSI and worked for OAO Technology Solutions until 2004. I worked as the only full-time employeed of a small-business for 5 months this year, then moved to a position as a Systems Engineer with BAE Systems in June of 2004. Next, in June of 2006, I began to work for a small company again as a Network Engineer working on a contract with the federal government. I went to another small company in 2008 and have worked for them since.
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