In 1977 I had gone to college for data processing at Delaware Technical and Community College. At the time we were learning COBOL, Assembler and Fortran programming on punch cards. I only completed one year before deciding to work full-time.

After that I was working my way up in the food service industry learning to cook and operate a kitchen. I did become a head chef but after two years got burnt out from the very long hours and stress. After a setback of losing my position I took a few months off to contemplate what I would do with my future.

I decided to go back to school for food service management. During the first semester I was taking a BASIC programming course. The professor stopped by while I was practicing and told me that I seemed to be talented. Twenty minutes later a switch went off in my head and I realized I wanted to study computer programming. I dropped my food service courses and transferred to programming. Many said I was crazy but I knew that was what I wanted.

An interesting story, the first software position I had was very close to the restaurant that I lost my chef position. I ran into the owner of that restaurant who asked me where I was working expecting me to tell him that I was working for another local restaurant nearby. I told him I was working as a software developer for a local company right nearby. His mouth dropped in surprise.