Trevin Beattie: Employment and
Education Trevin Beattie: Employment and
Education(Mostly overkill...)
BYU Computer Science Department
I'm currently not looking for another job, since Boingo has made me quite satisfied. However, I'm always open to the possibility of moving to a position that will get me closer to my ultimate dream of writing high-end graphics applications. Preferably located somewhere on the west side of Los Angeles (Burbank, Hollywood, Santa Monica) so that I don't have to leave West Hollywood.
1601 Cloverfield, Suite 570 S
Santa Monica, CA 90494
(310) 586-5180
This started out as a temporary "intern" position, which was originally slated to run 2-3 months. They hired me to help them set up a net Internet data center for deployment in Virginia, and when everything was set and tested in California, they flew me out to the east coast to help install it. I guess they liked my work because they kept me on to help out some more and kept extending my contract, until after five months they decided to hire me full-time. It's a nice company -- mid-size, friendly staff, laid-back atmosphere, and I'm learning a lot about high-end networking equipment that I never knew before. I even get to do a little bit of debugging for the developers and coding for internal applications on Linux. Sweet.
Kirtland Air Force Base
Albequerque, NM
(505) 845-9869
This was actually a contract job I did on behalf of Eyring Corporation for one of their old clients. By "old", I mean outdated -- the lab was still using PDOS software from the mid-80's! They hired me to help port their software from an aging VME board to a (relatively) newer board, including Eyring's most recent PDOS release, and to change the communication line from serial to ethernet. I did the bulk of the work from my home in California, but towards the end made a trip to New Mexico to test and debug the code. That was quite an interesting and fun experience, especially when we got it working enough to see their equipment in action! The Air Force has such neat toys. (Sorry, I can't go into any detail -- it's classified.
807 N Gardner St
Los Angeles, CA 90046
This company, also known as Global Internet Solutions, originally hired me as a System Administrator. However, the majority of my work with them has been providing end-user technical support, and there has also been a liberal sprinkling of secretarial and peon work. Because they paid me less than half of what an average sysadmin would make, and paid me as an independent contractor for tax purposes but controlled me like a subordinate employee at work, I eventually left them.
Not long after that, the IRS did a little investigation into my worker status, and ruled that I was misclassified and should have been paid as a full time employee for tax purposes. (Case #35339)
I received this portentous message in a fortune cookie in September 2001. A month later I was to receive my last paycheck from Eyring, as the company ran out of money. I don't know how much weight I'd give to the accuracy of the prediction though, as it would be another year before my next job. Even then, how much difference is there between a software engineer and a system administrator? Particularly since I was doing some of both at each job.
6918 South 185 West
Midvale, UT 84047
After nearly 5 years, I started programming (professionally) again! Eyring writes operating system software for embedded systems, mostly using Motorola 680x0 assembly language, which I'm already familiar with since my Atari ST computer uses that same CPU. About a year after I started working there, I got involved in developing a completely new operating system for the x86 (PC) architecture. While not my platform of choice (see below), at least we were writing our own OS which used a flat memory model, and most of the code I wrote for it was in C and ported from open source unix, so it was rather enjoyable.
In addition so software development, I gradually took on several other responsibilities due to the small size of the company (which kept shrinking as the years went by). When their old Internet server, housed in a Sun SparcStation, finally died, I oversaw the switch to a Linux-based server, and later on (after some nasty security breaches) instigated a switch to NetBSD servers. Since nobody else at the company was familiar with unix, I became the de facto system administrator and resident unix guru.
After being with the company for three years, for unrelated personal reasons I decided to leave Utah and move to California. My career had to take a back seat to my personal life. But because I had become indispensable to the company, I offered my boss the option of letting me telecommute from my new home. He agreed, and for the next year I worked from my new apartment, transferring my code and performing administrative tasks over the Internet and providing assistance to coworkers over the phone when needed. It worked out very well; I was happy in my new city, I never lost any time commuting--heck, I rarely ever had to drive any more!--I could easily schedule my work for any time of the day on any day of the week and break it up for things like exercise or shopping. Sadly, 2001 was the same year that the .com industry took a nosedive, and a lot of the surrounding computer industry felt a negative economic impact as well. Eyring was not spared, and was running at a net loss for too long.
8285 West 3500 South
Magna, UT 84004
(801) 579-0090
I worked with PB from June 1994 to August 1997 as a 'hardware technical support representative'. All day I sat on the phone and take calls from computer users, trying to get their systems working right or at least figure out what's broken. This job has almost doubled my experience in troubleshooting and configuring computer systems, and working knowledge of several popular computer applications. However, working conditions (such as having to answer the phone non-stop, and trying to talk people through fixing their computer when they didn't even have a clue how to use it) were rather stressful; I'd rather be working on the computers in person instead of vicariously. For that matter, I'd rather be working on computers that are not PC-compatible.
3408 East Bengal Boulevard
Salt Lake City, UT 84121
(801) 943-7218
Yes, I actually flipped burgers from April 1993 to June 1994 -- a little over a year. And I loved it! Mark Ward's restaurant was a great place to work; less than a mile from where I lived, great atmosphere, friendly employees, and I felt more needed there than anywhere else I've worked. The only reason I left was because I couldn't be financially independent on minimum wage.
Worldwide Model and Talent Management
Willow Creek Plaza, Suite D4
8160 South Highland Drive
Salt Lake City, UT 84093
(801) 942-8485
For a while I tried show business. I was an extra in various movies and television shows filmed in Utah, such as:
I also modelled for Wella at the Annual Utah Hair Show in 1993. I enjoyed working in films, despite the long hours, but unfortunately jobs were few and far between. In fact, jobs were extremely rare after I started working part-time for Arctic Circle.
#5 East Kensington Ave
Salt Lake City, UT 84115
(801) 486-4000
I only had one job through this agency; they actually contacted me through SOS. I took registrations and did data entry at the Utah Industrial Show '92.
64 East 6400 South
Murray, UT 84107
(801) 263-3883
I actually worked for SOS twice: once before college, and again after college. Mostly I did data entry and clerical jobs (Martin Door Manufacturing, Matrixx Marketing, Alta Health Strategies Inc.), but I also did some physical labor (Pyrodyne America). The temporary work I did was tedious and repetitive, and although MDM has a bit of variety, I wouldn't want to do any data entry again.
3269 South Main Street, Suite 270
Salt Lake City, UT 84115
(801) 467-2310
Just a few months out of college I ran across this job, and I thought it would be great to program the Sega Genesis since I knew 68000 assembly language well, or even the Super Nintendo which uses a variation of the 6502 which I also know. However, when I got started they put me on a PC-clone and had me start maintaining somebody else's MS-DOS based code. Well, I didn't know anything about x86 assembly language or PC architecture, so after a short while I was canned. Please don't make me deal with segmented memory, special-purpose registers, or port I/O ever again!
3350 TMCB
Provo, UT 84604
(801) 378-3027
This was my best-loved job of them all. The instructor of one of my computer courses, Tim Frodsham, asked his students for a lab assistant for both that class and the prerequisite course (dealing with electronic components and building computers) because there weren't enough graduates to staff the lab full-time. So I volunteered, and spent several hours a day in efforts to teach my fellow students. I developed a reputation for not giving any answers, only asking questions that would steer their thinking in the right direction. I also made a few friends in the other class. I think I would have chosen a career in teaching if I weren't already close to graduating with a different degree.
250 East 200 South
Orem, UT 84058
(801) 226-6066
I was drafted for this job, helping some of my college classmates finish a software project that was nearly overdue. Only took a month of spare time.
Provo, UT 84604
Graduated in 1991 with a Bachelor of Science degree. My grade point average was 3.7 (3.9 counting only computer classes.) Relevant classes included operating systems design, database systems, interactive systems, computer hardware design, data structures, file structures, UNIX, computer architecture, software design, compilers, microcomputer design, and computer graphics.
I enjoyed my stay at BYU, and would like to have stayed longer, but I couldn't afford it. Anyway, I thought that a B.S. degree would be enough to get me a good job in the 'real world.' Boy, was I wrong! I learned a lot about how to write good programs for a variety of applications, but they didn't teach me a single thing about the specifics of architectures and platforms, and it seems like you can't get a job with a company unless you already know their specific platform! Take note, current students: experience is worth more to employers than knowledge. So get a part-time job in your field if you can find one while you go to school the other part of the time. Oh, well.... It was fun, anyway.
Rexburg, ID 83440
Graduated in 1987 with an Associate degree. My grade point average was 3.7. Relevant classes included Pascal, FORTRAN, VAX assembly language, C, Ada, APL, and Lisp programming languages; linear (matrix) algebra; computer implementations of mathematical analyses; and 2nd semester calculus.
Ricks is a great school for making the transition from high school to college, because it was only 3-4 times larger than Brighton High. My favorite CS teacher (the late Gordon Hoagland) and I got to know each other very well.
2220 East Bengal Boulevard
Salt Lake, UT 84121
Graduated in 1986 with a grade point average of 3.5 (I really didn't care about getting good grades during my freshman year.) High school was the best time of my life, especially during my Junior year, and I knew it. It was during this time that I participated in statewide and national academic competitions, whipped myself into better shape, and hung out with some of the best friends I've ever had. I missed the 5-year class reunion (who was supposed to be in charge of invitations?!), and now I'm looking forward to the 10-year reunion more than ever!
7530 South 2700 East
Salt Lake, UT 84121
There are only a few things I even remember about junior high: gym (although - or because - I hated it), and the library. It was in the library that I was first introduced to computers. They didn't have computer classes back then, so I taught myself, and I found out that I could learn much more by exploring the possibilities than I could if somebody were telling me what to do.
2415 East 7600 South
Salt Lake, UT 84121
I was there.
