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My name is Marty Walsh. I was born and raised in New York City,
but please don't hold that against me. I'm a product of the 'sex,
drugs and rock-n-roll' era of the sixties and seventies.
Living through that period in New York City was certainly
interesting, at least the parts I remember.
At 17, I enlisted in the Air Force, to both avoid the draft and to better my
chances of survival by escaping the streets of New York. I had hoped to see the
world while in the Air Force, but they had other plans for me. I got to see San
Antonio Texas, Biloxi Mississippi, and finally Rapid City South Dakota. With a
specialty in ground radio communications, they decided I was best serving them
on Minute Man II missile sites, repairing the equipment at the remote missile
silos.
Honorably discharged, I began working as a laborer,installing car stereos
systems and alarms. Realizing that this was taking me nowhere, I
decided to go to college and make something of myself.
Availing myself of the 'real' G.I. Bill they offered back then,
and working full-time in a lumber yard, I attended the City College
of New York School of Engineering. I was awarded a Bachelor of Science in
Computer Science (cum laude, none-the-less!). On my way to my Masters degree, I
was enlisted by the college to help teach courses in micro-computers, which I
did for a while. I was then offered a position with the main computer center for
the university system, working on the network that connected the 13 CUNY
colleges throughout the city. I stayed with the university computer center until
I was offered a position with a software vendor that sold software to the
universities. Accepting this position, I moved from New York to Northern
Virginia, where the vendor's nearest office was located. Quickly realizing
I didn't care for the area, I moved to Scottsdale Arizona and tele-commuted
for the same software company. (This was long before tele-commuting was the
recognized practice it is today.)
While living in Scottsdale, I was working from home, on call for
over-seas clients on a 24/7 basis. I decided I needed a hobby, so I
purchased a Shopsmith Model 510 combination woodworking tool and
decided to get serious about wood-working, something I had only
dabbled in before. It wasn't long before I realized I had found
something I had a true passion for. After a few years of learning
and honing my skills, I hooked up with a local businessman who
built, sold and maintained large-scale aquariums. I not only built
the custom cabinetry for his clients, I also built all the cabinetry
and counters for his storefront operation. I was soon spending as
much time doing wood-working as I was on my full-time software career.
My tele-commuting career came to an abrupt halt when my company
told me that they were offering me a corporate relocation to (of all
places) Northern Virginia. If I didn't accept their offer, I was
going to be let go. Well, I had put in over ten years with the
company and didn't really want to start over with a new company, so
I took the relocation and moved back to Northern Virginia. In less
than a year, I realized I hated the new position they had offered me
so I quit and went to work for one of their competitors, one of the
largest software companies in the world.
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2001 before I 'retired'.
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My new position required a lot of traveling which prevented me from
setting my woodworking shop back up, at least to the point where I
could take on any serious work. Eventually my traveling decreased
and I met a wonderful woman named Denise, who inspired me to get my
shop going again. With her help, I set up the shop you can see in
the "Work Shop" section of this site. It's so nice to
have a woman who's not only supportive of my passion, but also shares it.
I'm a lucky man indeed!
In April of 2005, I was faced with being 're-invented' by the large
software corporation I was working for. Denise and I were pretty
disgusted with the urban 'sprawl and crawl' that is so pervasive in
the Washington D.C./Northern Virginia area, so I decided to "retire".
We both sold our homes, moved to Southern Georgia, bought a beautiful home on
almost ten acres and got married. With Denise's help, I built my dream shop
that you can see in the "Work Shop" section of this site. Now
I'm working full time purveying my custom wooden creations.
Thanks for visiting. If you've read this far, you should come back
occasionally to see how we're doing.
- Marty n Denise -
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Denise and I at the International Woodworking and Furniture (IWF) trade
show in 2006.
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