Want to view full sized photos?

I moved to California, in my mid-twenties bright-eyed and bushy tailed as they say, at the advice of a friend from Baltimore, who had moved here just one year before. I began to work for Radio Shack, as a manager trainee and later became a store manager. This was in the early-mid eighties when PC’s were starting to take off. So I transferred into their business products division and began to work as a computer marketing representative at one of their computer business centers. I succeed in moving up to becoming manager, of the Tandy Computer Business Center in Tarzana, and only one of two African America store managers in Southern California. Tandy computers however, never could compete with the more popular IBM PC and the computer stores were eventually merged into the retail Radio Shack stores you see today. That began my career in technology. I acquired a gift for teaching computer technology, and was hired to open and manage a very high end computer technology training center in West Los Angeles after leaving the Tandy Corporation. That was absolutely fun, and I realized that my calling in a sense was the classroom, a vocation I returned to later in my career. I later took a position with a company called Pollack, Wickum, and Steinberg, wholesale distributors of commercial washers and dryers and builders of commercial Laundromat’s. They had no computer integrated computer system to speak of and I was hired to champion in a major system-wide automated accounting system upgrade and implementation. It was in this position that I learned more about computer technology than I had ever learned before. Under the leadership and direction of my mentor, Frank Lee, consultant and developer of our accounting system, I gain knowledge of every aspect of computer technology integration, project planning and implementation possible. As Director of Information Technology I was responsible for overseeing the integration of five offices in four cities computer networks, accounting and sales systems, user training, and software customization. It was an enormous project that took four years and a lot of sweat and tears, but it did come to past and I must say I’m very proud of the accomplishments. I moved on to become Director of Management Information Systems for the California Credit Union League in Pomona, directing similar technology project engagements, supervising a department of network specialist, programmers and technical support personnel. In 1999-2000 I left there to go into university teaching, technology consulting (Y2K in particular), and furthering my education at the doctorate level. I enrolled in Claremont Graduate School of Public Policy PhD program, focusing in on the science of technology education. Professionally I taught strategic information systems planning at: UC Irvine and UC Riversides professional development programs and computer information systems at Cal Poly and Univ. of La Verne’s business schools.

<< collapse