Steve Laycock:
CLASS OF 1961
Walter Johnson High SchoolClass of 1961
Bethesda, MD
North Bethesda Junior High SchoolClass of 1959
Bethesda, MD
Steve's Story
Steve is from Dallas, Texas. Steve is divorced. Steve's schools include Walter Johnson High School. Steve later attended University of Maryland, College Park (Math & Physics, Economics, IT programming).
Music Steve likes includes Linda Ronstadt, ELVIS PRESLEY, Gloria Estefan. Books Steve likes include The Purpose Driven Life, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, I Am a Sidewalk. Movies Steve likes include The Right Stuff, Erin Brockovich, Rain Man. TV shows Steve likes include Marriage Boot Camp.
Two of Steve's favorite quotes are: "In the end it is not the years in your life but the life in your years" Unknown and
"I find that most people are as happy as they decide to be." Abraham Lincoln
More about Steve: "When I was seven years old I had Bauber polio (the kind that puts people in iron lungs). My brother had it at the same time and my parents decided not to have us put into iron lungs because it only increased the chance of survival a little bit and once you are in an iron lung you never get out and I don't think I would have wanted to live in an iron lung. God blessed us both and we survived because we fought our way through it.
Then, when I was in third grade my parents and I were called in for a conference and were told that I was
'uneducable" because I could not read well at first grade level. I repeated third grade. At that time they never said dyslexic I think they believed I was stupid. If you tell me that I cannot do something that I've decided I want and can do I will get obsessed with doing it. Surprisingly I graduated at the top of my class in business school majoring in accounting. I have two masters degrees (finance and international business) and I'm about eight hours short of a degree in physics.
My father and grandfather graduated from the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis and it was my dream to go there and become a naval aviator. I was trying to do all of the things I needed to get an appointment to the Academy getting good grades, showing leadership, discipline and was athletic even though I'm slightly built.
The summer after my sophomore year in high school I got a job at the county Airpark sweeping out hangers washing planes etc. While there I found out that I could get a pilots license and apply for it whe...Expand for more
n I was 14 1/2 which I was then. I applied and had to take the flight physical. I failed because I am colorblind. That meant I could not get into the Academy. I was lost for the next two years not knowing what I wanted to do with my life. Both of my grandfathers had been engineer so I decided that would be something I could probably do well as they did in. I was doing well but after my sophomore year I was a dorm monitor for the summer school and decided to take a couple of electives. One was a accounting â I was a natural and decided to switch to business majoring in accounting. I have a 40 in the counseling. Pass the CPA exam on my first try, past the certified management accounting exam on the first try with the highest score in the country. In 1979 I was awarded the Lybrand gold medal from the national Association of accountants for my outstanding contributions to accounting literature. It's the size of an Olympic gold-medal and the equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize for accounting.
I was hired by the largest international public accounting firm out of college. I moved up very rapidly and was told I was being considered for partner and would've been the youngest a partner in the firm. However I wanted to be more then the guy that recounts the beans so I asked the firm to help me find a position. At 29 I became the controller of a fortune 50 company.
I went to a conference of physicists and ran into my old professor. He had started a company when he developed a way to make cheap solar cells. He asked me to come and be his financial officer. After a couple of weeks I told him that he should be marketing to the world not just north in a bit and South America because that's where the largest markets would be. He said we don't have money to market worldwide. Two days later I came back with a plan and asked him for $20,000 travel expenses to start companies around the world.
At that time the companies total sales were around 20 million a year. Into an a half years I had grown international sales to nearly 200,000,000 a year. Then an oil company who had invested in the company bought out the company. It is sold off the seven international companies I had started to other oil companies. About three years later all of them were out of business.".
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