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 The information on the main page is a pretty good summary but I can provide some more background here, especially for people I have known in "past lives" who might find this site and want to get in touch.
I've lived in New Jersey all my life (basically). I'm a 1980 graduate of Mainland Regional High School, attended the University of Arkansas for two years and then finished my degree in Business at West Chester University. I eventually went back to school and got my M.B.A. from Drexel University. In the 17 years before walking away and pursing my dream job of teaching as a second career, I worked for a lot of different companies:
- Prudential (group insurance / employee benefits sales)
- Alexander & Alexander Consulting Group (employee benefits consulting)
- Quaker Chemical Corporation (HR/Benefits Manager)
- Oracle (ERP Project Manager/Senior Business Analyst, HR/Payroll Applications)
- Copelco Capital (HR Information Technology Project Manager)
- Diginexus (Project Manager/HR Generalist) <- watched "the dot-com bubble" burst
- Kenexa (ERP Project Manager/Senior Business Analyst, Oracle HR/Payroll Applications)
Leaving the corporate world was the best decision I ever made. If children are as important to you as making a difference in the world is, there is no better place on earth for you than the classroom. The best part of my day, every day, is the 250 minutes I get to spend with my students. They are incredibly appreciative, naturally inquisitive, unbelievably focused and just plain fun to be around. They bring out the best in me. My only regret is that I can't teach 8 hours a day, five days a week, 52 weeks a year. 50 minutes for each student once a week in my lab is not enough, for them or for me.
 I'm married to Mary, whom I met at Prudential back in 1981 while I was home from college the summer of my freshman year. We have two daughters, Jamie and Holly. Family pics are here. We moved back to Northfield in 1997 (I lived here from 1976-1980). It's a great town with great families and community spirit. It's close to NYC and Philly and of course the beach. We love it here and being able to walk to work is a real plus. I do miss driving, though...
 Technology has always been a big part of my life, not sure why, I've just always enjoyed it, but not as a tool for recreation, more as a tool to get things done. We have seven computers in our home including four desktops, two PC laptops and a MacBook Pro. My home LAN is wireless and includes two printers, a terabyte of local, network and offline hard disk storage, and Comcast internet. I don't play games often but when I do my oldest daughter Jamie is by my side making sure I don't miss anything. We love playing Need for Speed, Half Life 2, Far Cry, Doom III, Prey, Bioshock and Crysis. My main PC is nearly two years old but still rocks hard.
I've been thinking a lot lately about going back to school for my Ph.D. or possibly getting board certified as a teacher but haven't made up my mind yet as to which of those makes the most sense. Right now I'm just trying to stay sane between my K-4 teaching job, teaching online at Walden, conducting my research on Second Life, and fixing a few home computers here and there for extra money.
More later, gotta go...
-kj-
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