In 1861, a young man named Henry arrived in this country in the port of Baltimore. He was immediately drafted into the United States Army and fought for four years in the bloodiest war this country has ever known, just to gain his citizenship. He won his citizenship, married and proceeded to live the American Dream. Since he didn’t speak English very well, most of the employment that he found was of the type that didn’t require it. He never earned much money, but he and his young wife had a large loving brood of ten children. They lived in the small rowhomes of Greenmount Avenue. Upon his death, he was laid to rest in the military section of Loudon Park. When you stand and look at the small stone that marks his final resting place and look up, you can see the window of the room, at St. Agnes hospital, where his great, great, great, great grandson was born.
That man was my great, great grandfather. He started a long family tradition of living and working in Baltimore. My parents were hardworking folks that had five children themselves, of which I am the youngest. After serving in the Army during World War II, my father worked as a machinist at Black and Decker. My mother supplemented the family income working as a waitress at the old Double T diner in Rosedale. After my father passed away in 1972, my mother struggled to raise the youngest three of us. To help out the family, I started working at the age of 14 in 1978 as a janitor’s assistant at Middlesex Elementary school. I have been working full time ever since. I worked nights at a local fast food restaurant chain, White Coffeepot Jr. After my graduation, since college was financially impossible, I joined the United States Air Force where I served as a Korean Translator.
I have worked numerous jobs in a variety of fields. At times, I have had to hold two and sometimes three to support my family. By 2000, I had finally worked my way up to a management position at CompUSA until I lost my job due to company realignments. During my unemployment, I worked any odd job that I could find while I attended UMBC to earn my computer certifications.
Today, the training that I received at UMBC, coupled with simple hard work at my previous employment, led me to the current position that I hold as a computer systems integration project manager for a local software company. In my position as a project manager, I am responsible to delivering complex IT projects that involve multiple software vendors, hospitals, doctor’s offices, and reference labs across international boundaries. I find the work involves not only all of the IT knowledge that I have gained over the last twenty years, but also the life skills that have been ingrained by my parents. Those being: Hard work, honesty and respect for those around you.
