Well, as you’ve proabably already noticed, my name is Josiah. I’ve had the opportunity to work in some pretty cool places with great people. If you want to know more about that, feel free to check me out on LinkedIn.
As far as me as a person, though? I guess the largest influencer to me as a person is the fact that I’m a Christian. I get that that doesn’t mean much to most people, but still, it’s a significant part of who I am, and why I do what I do.
Well, that’s a good question. It honestly depends on who you ask. If you ask most people, they’ll say that I’m a computer guy, but I’ve done a bunch of other things as well. When serving with Reciprocal Ministries International in Les Cayes, Haiti, the label on my "office door" was "IT Services." Yeah, that’s a pretty broad definition. Basically, whenever anybody needed something done computer related, my phone was the one that rang. The day-to-day tasks could be anywhere from installing networking equipment atop a tower to quite literally "debugging" printers to doing technical trainings on a particular software or tool. IT wasn’t the only thing I did in Haiti though. Unofficially, I was the alternate maintenance man. So, I did anything from plumbing to concrete work to general repairs. I also had the opportunity to teach Science for some of the students in the school there. Man, there isn’t anything quite like teaching how the world works (and testing it, in some instances) and seeing it ’click’ for the students!
While in Haiti (and before that... and continuing from that...) people often reach out to me to provide technical support, or even just basic training on how to use computers (or just about anything with a circuit board, for that matter.) I’ve had people contact me from as far as 3 hours away (not counting international ones) just to ask a quick question.
Well, obviously I like programming. I guess that comes from the fact that I like being creative and taking an idea from concept to actual product. That’s probably the reason I was so involved in FRC Team 4050. It gave me an opportunity to push the boundaries of my knowledge, and work with people who had different skillsets and interests than I to accomplish some pretty incredible things.
In addition to programming and making things, I also like to play with the guitar (notice that I said "play with" and not play). It’s always fun to make some noise :) Teaching is kinda another hobby I guess. As I noted near the bottom of the "so what do you do" section, I enjoy teaching people things as well. The topics vary a bunch, but obviously Science and tech are included.
If you want to see some of the stuff I’ve done as far as programming, feel free to check out some of my projects.