My unbelievable story

Finding my direction

I was like a lot of people when I was younger.  I did not know what I wanted to do or even more important how to go about deciding what I could do.  It was a little different for me because I grew up with physical disabilities.  I was injured when I was a young child (13 months) due to a car running over my body and dragging me down a dirt road.  I guess this proves that even as a child, I wouldn't give up.  The accident should have killed me but it didn't.  I spent much of my life living and growing up in hospitals.  I was raised by doctors, nurses and caregivers.  I guess it is only natural that I would wind up working in healthcare at some point.

My time in high school was uneventful at best.  I had a small group of friends, only one of which I still talk to on a regular basis.  After high school I spent some time traveling and trying to find myself.  

A series of progressively nonproductive jobs eventually brought me to work at a good paying however rather uninspiring job at polyester factory in North Carolina .  I worked there for nearly ten years.  It was on a sunny day in September, 1988 when I was riding my Harley back from the Harley-Davidson dealership in Statesville, NC that my life was changed forever, again.

I was doing the speed limit and enjoying a beautiful fall day when a lady in a beat up old car pulled out of a side road onto the highway.  She didn't see me or my bike.  I was sixteen feet from the intersection when I hit her nearly head on.  My body flew into the air and across the road.  I landed just six inches from the edge of the opposite side of the road.  I saw the semi truck whiz by me just as I hit the ground.  I never lost consciousness.

Changing my direction

In a split second I went from having the world by the horns to having the world come crashing down on top of me.  It was a real eye opener.  I thought growing up with a disability was the worst thing that was ever going to happen to me.  I was wrong!

After I recovered enough to go home I had some hard decisions to make.  What was I going to do to earn a living for the rest of my life, and how was I going to do it?

  I was lucky in the fact that I had pretty good insurance at my factory job.  It allowed me to at least keep my head out of water and not lose my house.  This was great since the lady that hit me did not have any insurance at all.

I started back to school at the local community college.  I didn't know what I wanted to do, or what would even be possible.  I just knew I had to get started on something.  I had a real lucky break with the local NC Vocational Rehabilitation Services office.  There was a  counselor  there that believed in me enough to help me change my life.  

The counselor suggested I try to get into a new program they were starting that could give me a new career in Information Technology.  It was called "CPT" (Computer Programmer Training).   

The program was sponsored by IBM, Local businesses, and Goodwill Industries.  The program was specifically designed for people just like me that had been victims of tragic life changing events and could not go back to the jobs they had before they were injured. 

The counselor told me that if I got accepted into the program and graduated.  I could learn to be a computer programmer.  That sounded impossible to me at the time.  

The counselor thought I should try so I did.  I continued taking classes at my local community college to prepare myself for college.  I had been out of school a long time so I had a lot of catching up to do.   I tested, interviewed, and was accepted into the "CPT" program about eight months later.  I had never seen a personal computer up close and now I was going to Computer Programming Training.  I was a little scared that it might not work out well for me to say the least.

Going to CPT 

CPT was a grueling program with a high dropout/failure rate.  Only about one third of the people that started the program graduated.  The program was only a year long, just twelve months counting the internship.  That sounds easy but trust me, the school was rough.  

We went to class eight hours a day, five days a week.  They gave us so much home work that I spent an average of five hours a night working just on homework.  

There was a test every Friday that was accumulative.  If you did not pass the test with eighty percent or better, you went on academic probation.  Probation meant you had extra assignments to prove you learned what you missed on the test that got you on probation in the first place.  

You had three weeks to pull yourself out of probation or get dropped from the program.  It was brutal.   If you went on probation three times, you were automatically dropped from the program.  I went on probation one time, which was enough for me.  I have never had it so hard to this day.  

I watched a lot of people get dropped from the program.  I was scared to death the entire year.  I graduated in 1991 and was asked to be the class speaker at graduation.  It was one of the proudest moments of my life.

Getting a job, keeping a Job

After graduating from CPT, I was offered a full time job with Gold Bond Building products.  I did my internship there.  It was a great job as an entry level programmer/analyst.  I did not take the job because of the commute.  It took me nearly three hours to get there from where I lived and I could not afford to move at the time.  

I did however get a job with American Express Health Care.  This eventually through a series of buyouts and mergers turned into the  job I have now at McKesson.  I have been with them for about fifteen years  as of January 2008.   

I worked for about three years and left to work in a grocery store IT department.  It was a better commute to work but not a better job.  I only stayed a year. 

After the grocery store I went to work at a hospital IT department as a interface manager.  That was a good job but I decided I like working for a hospital vendor better. 

I went back to work for McKesson-HBOC which is now McKesson.  When I went back they gave me partial credit for some of the three years that I had worked for them previously.  That worked out great for me because after working for just six months, I got three weeks vacation. 

It has always been my thought that I was pretty lucky to have a job.  So I was always willing to work a little harder than most of the people around me.  This tuned out to be a good policy.  I was able to keep my job when many others were laid off.  I plan to keep that same attitude as long as I continue to work no matter what the job.

Going Back to school

In 2002 I decided to go back to school to get a degree.  I went to ITT Technical Institute because they had a local campus that was close enough that I could go to classes and still keep my job.  I had tried to go back to school several times before, but was not successful because I could never manage to attend classes on a regular basis due to my job.  The school was good.  I think you got out of it what you put into it.  I put a lot of work into my education so it worked out great for me.

I graduated with an A.S. in Information Technology in 2002.  I stayed in school for the next two years and graduated with a B.S. in Information Systems Security.  

Working full time and going to school full time was really hard.  I never missed a day of class or a day of work the entire four years.  I was asked to be the student speaker at both of my ITT Tech graduations.  I graduated with highest honors with both degrees.  I was also inducted into the National Technical Honor Society for my grades and leadership.