Todd Davis:
CLASS OF 1985
Belleville Township East High SchoolClass of 1985
Belleville, IL
Wolf Branch Elementary SchoolClass of 1981
Swansea, IL
Golden Hills Elementary SchoolClass of 1979
Bellevue, NE
Cardinal Spellman Elementary SchoolClass of 1979
Bellevue, NE
Roosevelt Elementary SchoolClass of 1979
Mesa, AZ
Todd's Story
Life
My Dad was in the Air Force, so we moved a lot. I started school in Mesa, AZ, then moved to Omaha, NE, then to Belleville, IL. I went to college at Southern Illinois in Carbondale and got married in '89 (a year before graduating on the 5-year plan). We moved to Dallas in '90 to look for jobs because we had a free place to live for a few months. I worked several years for a software company called CompuTrac, then moved to Minneapolis (my wife wanted to be closer to her family) to work at West Publishing Company (WestLaw). We both got tired of the frigid weather and moved to Seattle in '97, which also allowed me to get back into the software business. I worked for a while at Traveling Software (Laplink), then worked for a year for a hardware company called Apex. In the summer of 2000, I changed jobs again to work in Redmond for a software consulting firm called Vanteon where I design software systems for other companies. I've got a wonderful wife Kathy (nee Eng), two great daughters, two dogs, and a cat. In '99 we settled down on 20 acres in the mountains east of Seattle, where we're going to build a log house some time in the near future. We spend a lot of time boating in the Sound, hiking in the mountains, and enjoying the moderate weather. I'd love to hear from anyone I used to know, especially Jay or Tim Cookson (from Omaha - what happened to you guys?) and anyone from Wolf Branch.
ACK! the famous multiple computer company crash in 2001-2002 -Lost job on 13th wedding anniversary (so started the year from ----). After 6 months of unemployment, moved to Duluth, Minnesota, and started career over. Am now Director of Software Development for a business integration software company (Points North). Bought 5 acres & built a house. Spend my free time skiing and hiking with my wife & kids. Started a business on the side called 3Ponds to do computer programming & consulting. Writing skills took a serious downturn in the last 5 years :)
School
Worst school memory: failing Advanced Theoretical Probablity twice in college, THEN finding out it wasn't required to graduate. Pain in the grade point average.
Best school memories: 3rd grade at Golden Hills - had a crush on my teacher Miss Davies. Senior year at BTHSE - plays, speech tournaments, some of the best friends that I wish I was still in touch with.
College
People to remember:
Ken - I'll never forget the frozen hamburger in the wall. Neither will my wife :)
Reid - Where are you? Gotta be helping someone somewhere...
Greg - Last I heard you were in Paris (the rea...Expand for more
l one), with your wife and 2 (?) kids. Some day we've got to visit!
Laura - Our Xmas card friendship has really gone down hill! For the love of Pete, my sister lives in Indy; you'd think we'd see each other more often!
Alley - PLEASE tell me you weren't responsible for the coding error that brought down the phone net many years back! :)
Workplace
So the software industry is a fickle beast. One day your in, next day your out. Fortunately, I'm currently 'in', but on the fringes. Most of that's due to my physical location. Duluth, MN is not the best place to find a software job, but despite that, it's a job seeker's market for the low experience .NET programmer.
I started (professionally) in legal accounting software (for law firms), programming Pascal on HP3000 mini-mainframes. Programming games on the Apple II+ on the side.
Moved from that into C++ work on Windows, where I spent time developing reporting software, communications software, and outlining tools. Still had the II+.
Lost the II+ in a move, but stayed in C++ and started working a dream job: explore new technology and build prototypes. Company did not want to go down the new fangled "internet" path (no foresight whatsoever), so changed jobs again.
Started more in project management, but kept skills up in C++ doing communication protocol design for hardware systems. Completed project and found out company was elimintating my department, so started looking again.
Landed an Architect role at a consulting firm (still in C++, but doing less and less actual coding). Designed several first-generation WAP prototypes for a contract with Microsoft. Also led a team building a back-office bank ATM / PIN terminal encryption and communication management server. Survived several layoffs, but in 2002, found myself out of a job for 9 months. Learned (and converted to) C#.NET during that time.
Sidetracked for a while doing business process analysis and management while continuing C# on the side. Finally got back into full-time programming for a couple years doing integration projects for various business software, mostly accounting, payroll and job costing systems.
Moved into full time management (Director of Software Development) in 2005 & finding myself busier than ever. Doing C# projects on the side (wrote a flight simulator usage management and ticketing system for a local museum - most fun project in a looong time).
Want to move back to Seattle someday, but need a "cannot pass up this opportunity" job to make it happen. Miss the mountains and ocean a lot.
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