Being hired as a tech support tech at tctc.com would forever change my life. It was like being shown who was behind the curtain. All of a sudden this world of T1 lines, modem banks, and DNS servers was before me. I couldn’t soak up enough of it. It was here I met some of the best people I have known in my life. Guys like Robg, Robr, John “Land”, and Jimbo. We became a sort of dysfunctional family. We were at the head of the wave as the Internet and personal computing exploded. We were truly among a very small group of people doing technical support for an ever-growing ISP. During that time businesses did not have I.T. departments, there were very few consultants, and very few people had done any of this before. We were being looked to because we were the closest anyone had to experts. This caused us to be on the leading edge of the World Wide Web boom. Our close-knit group became close because no one else knew what we were talking about. All of us looked at what we were doing as more than a job. It was a lifestyle. Like anything in life, things change. The small telephone company was sold to TDS Telecom and I saw the writing on the wall. The culture we had developed was coming to an end.
Shortly after leaving TCTC.com I stated my own dial-up ISP on a shoestring budget. My dad was one of my biggest supporters in this venture. Without him I never would have been able to do it. Sadly I lost my father in 2001. This meant we needed the extra income to survive. I applied for a job at Lafayette School Corporation as a Macintosh Specialist. Here I meant some people such as Eric Thiel. Eric is the Zen Master of the computer world. From Eric I learned the ability to relax when it came to solving technology problems. My term at LSC was similar to the culture at TCTC. We were a small group on the cutting edge of integrating technology into the day to day operations of the teachers. Things others take for granted were new at that time. Using PDAs with wireless cards to take attendance, implementing Gigabit Ethernet, and PC automation were some of the fun things we were doing. It was during this time I learned a lot on how I wanted my professional life to be. I was working for a Boss who had serious issues. He would what I would consider your “typical I.T. stereotype”. He made my life miserable. Part of it was me seeing the wasted potential in myself. It was here I knew the ISP business was my true calling.
At the same time I was at LSC, my ISP business (MTIN.NET), was branching out into being one of the first Wireless Internet Service Providers in the area. We hung our first piece of wireless gear around 2003. I never had enough money to truly expand like I wanted to. During this time I met Amber. Amber was the best thing to ever happen to me. Quickly she became a true partner in everything we were doing. She was spending her weekends helping me keep everything together. Our typical weekend would be me on a grain leg installing or trying to keep equipment up with her at the bottom plugging in stuff. We were both working full-time jobs and trying to make a go of the ISP. Many days I would get home from my 9-5 job and be working on MTIN things until 11 or 12. The next day would be a full repeat of that. MTIN did computer repair as well as the ISP thing. The computer repair business kept the lights on, but also further showed me the ISP side of things is what my true calling was.
When another WISP came into the area it was time for myself and MTIN to morph yet again. That’s where meeting Steve Narducci changed it all….
Continued in Part 3
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