Milestones

My road in life has taken me all over.
9th grade loner in the computer lab, taught myself HTML.
10th and 11th grade, got Novell CNA and Cisco CCNA, fell in love with networking, tech internships.
Dropped Electrical Engineering for English (and was a death metal deejay).
Worked at Medicaid, taught to use scroll mouse, ran back to tech sector.
Tested ringtones (not as fun as you'd think) and games (fun).
Tried music marketing (not fun) and project management (fun).
Became a customer service delivery manager (fun) solving crazy problems (really fun).
Joined MSFT in Skype for Business Operations and love every minute of it!
Keep following my journey

Career

Program Manager

I solve challenging operations problems with a combination of technology, people and process.

Career Roadmap

Roadmap
My work combines:
My work combines:
Numbers
Technology
Problem Solving

Day to Day

I meet with people all day to understand the root cause of problems, understand the nature of systems and how all of our processes are working to support our goals. If any of them are out of line, I work with the appropriate areas: engineering, operations, partners, etc. to ensure that we make the changes necessary in order to make our customers thrilled with our products. I also research outside systems to see if we can take anything from them to improve our own operations.

Advice for Getting Started

Here's the first step for high school students

First, learn what makes you tick. If you love solving challenging problems and communicating, this is your thing-- even if you're an introvert (yes, really). Shadow someone- a lot of it won't make sense, but you'll pick up on valuable work lingo. Take up a management role in a school organization and you'll start to learn some of how the role works too.

Recommended Education

My career is related to what I studied. I'd recommend the path I took:

Hurdles

The Noise I Shed

From Society in General:

"You should be an engineer instead."

Challenges I Overcame

Domestic Violence