All About Mr. E
He was born in the late 1950s in Smyrna, Georgia, a little town just outside of Atlanta. In 1976, he graduated from Campbell High School. He was a mediocre soccer player for Campbell, but his grades were pretty good. He graduated with honors and was a member of the National Honor Society. His high school typing class used a typewriter, not a computer. Thin (can you imagine?), with thick glasses and long hair, he was kind of geeky. All known photographs of him from that time have been destroyed.
After high school, he enrolled in Oglethorpe University in Atlanta. Oglethorpe gave him a partial scholarship, but his first year was nothing to write home about. Unfortunately, the school sent his grades to his parents anyway. They were not happy. They were definitely not happy when Oglethorpe terminated his scholarship. For various reasons, Mr. E's academic performance improved his second year. After four years at Oglethorpe, Mr. E graduated magna cum laude in 1980, completing the requirements for two majors, Business Administration and Economics.
Although Oglethorpe did not offer a major in computer science, Mr. E took several classes (all they offered) in computer programming. After graduation, he worked for five years as a programmer/systems analyst, eventually managing a team of programmers at American Express.
In 1985, Mr. E moved to Durham, North Carolina, returning to school full-time, at Duke University. For two years, he attended Duke's Fuqua School of Business, earning a Masters degree in Business Administration. For the next decade he worked in the energy and finance industries, financing and developing energy projects and products in Texas, the mid-west, and the southeast. At times a lobbyist, a banker, or entrepreneur, sometimes a commodities trader, portfolio manager, or investment analyst; it required much traveling.
Living in the northeast, and traveling across the mid-west and the southeast, visiting suppliers and customers, chasing the next deal, he eventually grew weary from the constant travel and being away from his young children. In 1998, after considering several alternatives, he took a part-time job teaching at Trident Technical College and a part-time job teaching high school in Charleston County. He really liked working with students and he completed an accelerated teacher certification program. After a year at Trident and Charleston County, he was hired to teach in Berkeley County at Stratford High School, just nine miles from his home. As a teacher of, and an advocate for, more computer science education in public schools, he loves his work.