Myspace Layouts at Pimp-My-Profile.com / Proud to be american
I was born in New Orleans but raised in the heart of Cajun country in Louisiana right along the Bayou Teche in New Iberia. I spent my teenage years in the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania. I played almost all sports competively at least one year but my main sports were ice hockey and wrestling, which I did throughout Jr. and Sr. High.I joined the Army in 1992. Married my first wife, Michelle, after dating for three weeks. ETS'd in 1998, spending a year at Ft. Bliss, three with the Rangers at Ft. Benning and two at Defense Language Institute learning Chinese. Some of the most unforgettable days in my life!!! Lots of unforgettable memories but mainly because my son, Zacary, was born during this time. During this time I was also going to school so I stayed in California working as a civilian for the Army while I finished my last semester and got a degree in Foreign Language.
I ended up going back to Louisiana after the Army but not before my cousin, Josh, and I went on a four month road trip around America.
After military service and returning to Louisiana I could have taken my degree and gone directly into an office job in the oil industry but opted for a little time (again, but this time not literally) in the trenches, cleaning and inspecting drillpipe and getting some hands on experience offshore as a roustabout and roughneck on Global Marine's rig called the High Island IV.
Then I moved into the office as a data entry clerk for Hanover Compression. Right around this same time, they were branching off into a new division called Hanover Energy Services Apache Service Center (has broken away from Hanover to form Blue Stream Services) whose purpose was to provide an extremely detailed maintenance program for all of the rotating equipment (compressors, generators, etc.) on Apache Oils production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. I was extremely extremely ambitious during these years and as we grew, I started working more with British Petroleum.
By the time they signed a contract for a maintenance program similar to Apache's, I was chosen to be project manager. So now its 2002, Im 28 years old... Making a lot of money, company truck, had a great boss, could get anything I wanted from my vendors, had a great reputation in the industry... Professionally, I couldnt have been much more successful but in my private life was empty. Hairs started to turn gray... Basically, I was having an early midlife crisis or something.
So, in 2002 I spent an unforgettable summer in southern New Jersey. Some of my best friends from high school and I met a house full of Russians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians and Poles living there for the summer while working at Wa-Wa. I became very close with all of them and we all lost many stereotypes about each others countries. It was just one of those summers that you dont forget. We all did lots of growing. The kind of experience everyone should have.
Now the summers over. I'd been interested in history as long as I could remember and one of the things they really got me interested in was their history. Initially, I started with Russian history but very very quickly became much more interested in Polish history. Within a few months of becoming completely immersed in anything and everything Polish, I find out about teaching English. Oh yeah, another pretty important part of my life is the fact that when I was a 17 year old junior in high school, I got the opportunity to teach sixth graders for a week while in a school club called Youth Education Association. This was another unforgettable and incredible experience for me. But, admittedly, dreams of money and adventure sidetracked any aspirations of teaching as a career.
So, after over a decade of a nice professional life but not being where I wanted to be as far as my private life was concerned, I felt like I was getting a second chance to do something I had told myself I wanted to do earlier.
It actually took about 10 months to get to Poland after making the decision but basically, I dropped everything and started over. I definitely live by the motto, "If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin." And Im very happy to say that I havent been disappointed with teaching, with Poland or with life.
I started a consulting firm called Lingporada Consulting in which I'm contracted to teach in a private language school called Empik, a few companies and a college here in Warsaw. With this, I also do proofreading, preparing people for interviews in English, helping businesses with correspondence in English and other things like that.
I was married to my absolutely amazing Polish wife Kasia in Dec 2005 (but we're having a church wedding in Aug 2006). She got her Master's in Polish Philology a few years ago but works in the U.S. Embassy.
I have another important project going on at the moment: trying to expand my step dads business (www.curb-tec.com) into Europe. It started with three partners in May 2005 but we lost one a year ago in Sep 2007, although 2008 was a fantastic year for us when we are finally starting to change the mindset and making inroads with new technology in Eastern European markets.
All in all, the only thing that could make my life more perfect now was if I could see Zacary everyday. That's a killer sometimes but I definitely have a life you couldn't complain about. And earlier in the year, I found out that Zacary will be moving to Wiesbaden, Germany sometime early next year because his mother got a job there. It's still a different country but anything on this side of the ocean is like a miracle for me.
Well, that's pretty much it about me... if you want to know more, you can always email me at: [email protected] or my see photos at: hutchinsons13.shutterfly.com