About Me
I was born in Bay City, Michigan. It is a town of about 35,000 near the Saginaw Bay in Lake Huron. Bay City is not a very well known town, but, believe it or not, is Madonna's birthplace. As I child, I spent a lot of time avoiding the Saginaw River, which was heavily polluted by the combined efforts of Dow Chemical, General Motors, local farmers, and underdesigned sewage treatment facilities. The Saginaw River did a very effective job at polluting the entire Saginaw Bay. But, a little further away, the beaches in Lake Huron were beautiful. I was always excited about trips to the beach at Caseville.
My family did not have a lot of money when I was a child, so I spent a lot of time enjoying the simple things in life - running around, playing outside, playing videogames, playing boardgames, watching TV, listening to music, reading, writing books, playing computer games on my cousin's computer, and designing my own computer games.
I attended St. John's parochial school through the 4th grade, until my mother decided that Catholicism was not her thing, and that we should be non-denominated Christians instead. I think the lack of money was also a factor. In any case, I started public schools in the 5th grade by attending Washington Intermediate School, then moved on to Bay City Central High School from 1989-1993. During this time, I discovered that because I was short, skinny, shy, and passive, I was a great target for fellow classmates to tease me in a desperate attempt to raise their own self esteem. But, in sophomore year of high school, I joined the wrestling team, won a few medals (some simply because the opposing teams didn't have wrestlers in the 103 pound weight class, but that's beside the point), and all of a sudden, the teasing stopped.
In my senior year of high school, I started working part-time at Dow Chemical. What a great start to my resume! My employment at Dow continued as I attended Delta College from 1993-1995 in pre-engineering. During my three-year stint at Dow, I had the opportunity to use numerous high-tech analytical equipment in the Analytical Sciences building, including GC-Mass Spec, HPLC, FT-IR, and others.
In 1995, I finally moved away from home to attend Michigan Technological University to pursue a Bachelor's Degree in Chemical Engineering. I absolutely loved some things about Michigan Tech (the beautiful hiking and waterfalls and Lake Superior shoreline, the good friends that I met), and I hated some other things (the cold weather 9 months out of the year, cloudy skies from November until May, and the male to female ratio of 3:1).
I also had internships during the summers of 1996 and 1997. In 1996, I researched improved adsorbents for water filters at Amway Corporation in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In 1997, I researched improved absorbent cores for diapers at Kimberly-Clark Corporation in Appleton, Wisconsin. They were good experiences; it was interesting work, they looked great on the resume, I experienced life in new places, and met some fun people.
I graduated from Michigan Tech in May 1998 and moved to Appleton to work full-time at Kimberly-Clark. I worked at three different departments within Kimberly-Clark. First, I started in diaper research for global diapers and had some cool travel opportunities - I visited Manila, Philippines, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Montreal, Quebec. What enlightening experiences! Next, I moved to the fundamental absorbency research department where I developed improved superabsorbents for the absorbent cores of diapers, feminine pads, and incontinence pads. This work was more up my alley - more creative research, less bureacracy, and fewer meetings. But this started to get old, and my career stagnated, so I felt it was time to move on. My final experience at Kimberly-Clark took place in the Feminine and Adult Care research group. This experience was completely different than that of the department that I came from. There were lots of people on each project, lots of bureaucracy, lots of meetings, and it needed to be done yesterday. It was a good experience for me, but not how I envisioned spending the rest of my life....
In the meantime, I had been doing a lot of self identity assessment and I realized that I hold a strong set of ideals around artistic things, personal health, interactions with people, and global environmental sustainability. I realized that my job at Kimberly-Clark didn't encompass these ideals. So, I did some soul searching, and decided to completely change my career and focus on global environmental sustainability by studying climate change. I resigned from Kimberly-Clark after 7 years of employment, in July of 2005. During my time there, I gained a lot of people skills, technical skills, and not to mention approximately $400,000 of which part is in a bank account providing me breathing room for my graduate student salary.
I moved to Boulder, Colorado in August of 2005 to pursue a PhD in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder. My first year in graduate school was extremely challenging, as I had six difficult core classes to take, and hadn't had some key pre-requisites such as physics and calculus in over a decade. But alas, I persevered and now I am focusing on research, which is easier, and more interesting for me and my creative brain. My research involves using the computer models CAM and CARMA to simulate the effects of sulfate aerosols on climate.
I really enjoy learning about weather and climate, which is good, because there is a lot to learn! I also have a passion towards understanding the environment, politics, diet, and psychological and physical health. In my free time, I take advantage of one of the reasons why I moved to Boulder - the great outdoors! I go hiking, biking, camping, backpacking, snowshoeing, downhill skiing, and cross-country skiing every chance I get. I also enjoy frisbee, exercise, cooking, hanging out at local brewpubs, restaurants, or friends' places, listening to music, and playing games.
I don't know what the future holds for me, but I feel like I'm on the right path - or perhaps more accurately, a right path.
Namaste,
Jason
This page updated on July 4, 2007