Personal Profile
BIOGRAPHY
I was born in El Paso, TX where I spent most of my childhood. I began my schooling at Putnam Elementary school on the west side of town and it was there that I met the "one teacher" that affected more than most others. Mrs. Nymann created a wonderful environment where education was teamed with imagination. This learning environment lead to a lifelong love of schooling.
I attended several schools in the El Paso area including East Point elementary, O'Shea Kelleher, and Bassett Middle School. My family settled in central El Paso where I attended Austin High School. At Austin I was involved in both academics and athletics. I participated in Academic Decathlon, Corps D'Elite, UIL Current Events, football, and wrestling. I was elected Senior Class Vice President and graduated in the top 2% of my class of 277.
During my senior year at Austin I received an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. A few weeks after graduation, I reported to West Point for Cadet Basic Training and the infamous Plebe (freshman) year. The academics were the greatest challenge of the Academy and I quickly learned how important the foundations created in high school were to success in higher education. However, my foundations were not as strong as I would have hoped and I struggled to make it through my first year academically. In the beginning of my sophomore year I decided that a military career was not what I wanted and withdrew from the Academy.
I came back to El Paso after leaving West Point and decided I would go to UTEP and become a teacher. Before I ever took a class I received what I now consider some of the worst advice I have ever gotten. A friend's mother, an elementary school teacher, lectured me on my decision to become a teacher. She painted a dreary picture that scared me away from the profession and unfortunately I listened. So I entered UTEP as a computer science major but my heart was never in it. After a year I decided that maybe school wasn't for me and moved to Austin, TX.
In Austin I began working in banking. I began as ATM support and within a year was the bank's ATM coordinator responsible for the entire network. During this time I continued to take a class here and there at the community college, but again I had little passion for the subject which shows in my academic record. I moved on to Tulsa, OK and worked for a mid-sized bank as an analyst in search of money laundering activity within the bank's five state region. The work was interesting but there was something missing. I longed for school. So I enrolled in the community college and decided to study physics with the intention of becoming a high school physics teacher. I was finally back on track. I completed my program on time and with A's and B's.
Shortly after finishing my Associate's I got married and my wife (Hanks high grad) and I moved back to El Paso. I enrolled in UTEP as a physics major and continued my path to becoming a high school teacher. It was during a modern physics course that I began to struggle with the material because of a lack of mathematical prowess. As they say, "physics is too hard for physicists, it takes a mathematician." So I changed my major to mathematics so that I could later revisit the higher level physics courses and fully understand them.
After completing what I consider the computational courses in math: Calculus, Differential Equations, and Matrix Algebra, I finally began to study upper level math and became consumed with inquiry, logic, and proof. It was then that I fell in love with math and feel fortunate that I decided to switch.
It was a long convoluted road that brought me to where I am, but I feel that I have finally listened to my heart and am excited to begin a long teaching career.