Marvin Keene:
CLASS OF 1982
Covington High SchoolClass of 1982
Covington, LA
Marvin's Story
I bounced a round a bit in college--starting out as a chemical engineering major and eventually finding my calling as a teacher. I also figured that I could write the great American novel while teaching (that never happened). I flirted with getting a pHD, but wanted to get on with my life and got out with a Masters Degree in history.
So naturally, I joined the army. I had never really traveled much and the work seemed interesting. They sent me to California to learn Korean and I worked as a Korean language voice interceptor in the military intelligence branch. I served in California, Korea, Georgia, Texas, Missouri, Massachusetts, and Colorado and visited Japan as well in my 4 year hitch, so I certainly got the traveling in. I flirted with the idea of being a career soldier and had been selected to be officer in MI. However, I opted out and went to work as a math teacher in Dallas.
I met my wife through Great Expectations in Dallas and we married in 1995 when I was 31. She is from a prominent family in the Philippines (her great-grandfather was named the father of Filipino banking) and she had moved to the U.S. as a teenager. Soon, we moved to Plano, TX where I went to work for Allen Schools as an Algebra and History teacher. I loved it. However, I took a hard look at the money I was making versus my peers and decided to try something else. I worked very hard during my vacations and eventua...Expand for more
lly became a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer mostly through self study. I changed careers just as the tech boom was petering out and became a network admin for a bank.
My wife got offered a better job here in the Birmingham area and we moved here in 2001. I got a job with a small start-up as their IT guy.
My wife and I had enormous difficulty having children. In short, we spent over a hundred thousand dollars over the years and buried three stillborn kids. Finally, we were successful in 2006 when we worked with a surrogate. Things worked out so well, that we worked with her again to have our second (and final) child in January of 2009. We now have two healthy and happy children.
Professionally, I finally hit my stride. I became a lot more than a network admin when I began working closely with our product (we sell software to banks). Our company got acquired by a much bigger company and I gained more and more skills. I managed a group, picked up an Oracle database certification (even briefly working as a DBA for our company) and also gained moderate expertise in SAN technology and storage management. My current title is Systems Architect. I design the systems that our product runs on in various environments and get a lot of the more interesting problems to solve when they come up. Things are good and it pays a heck of a lot better than teaching.
Our family lives in Hoover, Alabama.
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