AMA #36 heuplek

Hopefully we can get these kicked back off again. Long time reader first time AMA'r and really enjoyed that hokietopher started this, never got the chance to meet him but by all accounts sounds like a great person and I think he'd really appreciate that we carried on this tradition.

The story of me is probably not all that interesting but here we go.

I'm Kevin, a 2015 hokie grad. I came to TKP by way of friends in school, joined after graduating and moving to Nebraska after years of browsing and not commenting.

VT Football Fandom
I come from a pretty Hokie rich background. My mom and aunt both graduated from Tech. I'm the middle of 4 children and we all went to VT none of us were really given any other school options. Even though my Dad isn't an alumn (George Mason by way of flunking NCSt) he's also a massive VT fan. My first game was Clemson at the start of the 1999 run. Fortunately, my parents and family enjoyed that experience and became season ticket holders the next year. From 2000 until my freshman year in 2011 we made the drive from Midlothian to Blacksburg every home weekend of the Fall and tailgated in various lots. Made every home game from 2011-2015 completing pinnacle to the fading of Beamer Virginia Tech football.

College Years
I came into school as a Business IT major, spent freshman year in Pritchard and was honestly not really involved in anything other than watching football and class. Sophomore year is when I really started the college experience and didn't really miss a beat. I joined the club volleyball team, discovered the New River, started working at Campus Cookies, and in general fell in love with the NRV. After a season and a half of volleyball and school I essentially quit both to be a river rat. I honestly have no idea how I graduated I spent every waking moment on the river, I was getting paid for some of that working for Tangent Outfitters mostly running shuttles, kayak trips, tubing trips, and the occasional raft guide. My pay was essentially access to the rafts whenever I pleased which lead to many night floats for big small mouth and musky and then rushing back for my 8am's. I kept my cookie slinging job as well and ended up as the manager there hilariously after missing 1/2 of my first shift because I fell asleep after a noon game. Going into senior year I loved the place too much to go back to Richmond. I picked up a shift in the kitchen at Sharky's and juggled 3 jobs while fishing the rest of the time. Once school picked back up I realized I really only needed a semester of credits to graduate my last semester was essentially a pile of electives just to keep me at full time student status....ultimately leading to more time on the river. Real life came knocking though and I had to get a job. I had pretty much no idea what I was going to or what I wanted to do, I knew it wasn't in DC where most of my peers were landing jobs. I decided to browse the job postings of places I liked to shop and found that Cabela's was hiring early career software engineers and I threw in an application and I guess the rest is history.

Professional Life
Not knowing even where Cablea's was headquartered I went ahead and said yes to the interview and flew out to Denver ...to make the 2.5 hour drive to Sidney Nebraska where my career would eventually begin. Picturesque Nebraska small town with ~6,000 people most of whom were employed by Cabela's. I started working on their .com team writing some software to track and display in store inventory. A few months in I was moved to a new team writing what is known in the industry as a "boundbook" which is essentially ATF compliance software that tracks the exact location, transfer, and sale history of every firearm in Cabela's possession. I continued on the project from writing the first line of code until the eventual sale of the company to Bass Pro (2018). At this point I was the only person left at the company that had any idea how the software worked which worked well in my favor because there was a set government deadline to combine the records of each companies records into a single boundbook. I spent a good portion of 2018 flying on Cabela's corporate jet back and forth from Sidney Nebraska to BPS headquarters in Springfield MO collaborating with their engineers to design a system and business strategy around merging the data. That entire experience was invaluable for my career and life. At 22-23 I was designing enterprise systems, got paid out a retention bonus and severance while still being employed, and was the only non-executive on that plane ride every week giving me some great insight into the ebbs and flows of the corporate world/ladder.

After my retention time was up I knew I needed to get back east, I found a job with FN firearms essentially writing the same software I was writing at Cabela's. They were located in Columbia SC which I did not know was the hottest place on earth and I genuinely hated that city so I spent a good amount of time from the minute I was hired trying to leave.

From there I started my stent in what has now been 7-8 years in the public sector as a contractor. Starting with Dept of State, in Charleston SC, I worked on their financial systems, then went on to the VA working on their benefits system for the better part of 5 years. Government BS is one thing....the VA's level of government BS eventually became too much software that was leagues better than what was in use was constantly getting shelved for contractual reasons and in my opinion veteran care and overall VA quality was suffering because of it nearly everywhere I looked. I did what I could and worked with a company that was very good about addressing a lot of these issues but it eventually took its toll and I wanted out.

I now work out of Beaufort SC remotely for a company doing satellite communication, command, and control. I love it, I've always been amazed by space and the process of launching space vehicles, getting to work with it daily has been awesome and I've learned more in a year here than I feel like at any point in my 11 years in the software industry. Added bonus is that though I do work on government contracts I'm much more removed from dealing with the government. Here's my LinkedIn

Personal Life
As you may have picked up by now I love the outdoors. I fish, hunt, boat, hike, golf, and just in general spend as much time as I can outside. I've been thankful to do that the last 4 years with my wife and 2 dogs (black lab and english mastiff). We spend just about every weekend on the water at the local sandbar. I really don't believe in idle time so when I'm not outside or working I'm a big fan of house projects (my highschool days were spent as a laborer for general contracting and flooring companies) or tinkering with boat engines (if mines working someone in the neighborhoods is broken). A few years back a built a boat from scratch, so that was a fun project. Being in South Carolina I don't get back to Blacksburg as much any more but we've made a strong effort to go to at least a game every year and starting two years ago have made it a tradition to travel for away games and make a vacation out of it (should be Clemson this year) Here's my Instagram

If you've managed to read this one step over BStreet stream of conscious; congratulations you now know why I didn't go into writing or literature. Ask Away and GO HOKIES.

My dogs and I on the Hokie Hy

this ended up way longer than expected.