Personal Autobiography of Steve Padgett

Back in 2001, I married Carrie, who I love very much. We have a sheltie, a cockatiel, and a baby on the way.

I've spent most of my life around computers, and so it's probably no surprise that I've got one of those 'about me' pages. This is my sixth reincarnation of my web site, each time it rises from the ashes looking completely and utterly different than last time.

In terms of computers, I've been using Linux since the kernel was at version 0.99, UNIX since about 1991, and my first PC (well, my family's first 'real' PC) was a Kaypro 2 back in the early 1980s.

My first programming language was Pascal, which I learned on the Kaypro in the mid 1980s. Now, over 20 years later, I've picked up quite a few more languages on my toolbelt. My favorites -- at this time -- are Perl and PHP. It's amazingly easy to whip out CGI scripts that do practically anything.

But let's step back in time to the early years. I grew up in the Southeastern United States. After settling in Montgomery, Alabama. I attended high school at Sidney Lanier Academic Motivational Program (LAMP). In 1996, I graduated high school and moved to Atlanta, Georgia to attend the Georgia Institute of Technology.

I successfully made it through the rigorous classes of Georgia Tech and graduated in 2002 with a degree in Computer Science. I've worked at Internet Service Providers (ISPs) since about 1995, mostly in the system administration vein. I was lucky enough to co-op with Cisco up in Research Triangle Park, where I learned that I could never know everything about networking (not that I didn't try...). Over the years, I've designed and implemented web applications in my spare time.

Oh, did I mention I've got my amature radio licence? KD4YMW. It seems to be a dying art, in this age of this new-fangled electric current equipment. But it was fun to get, even if I hardly ever use it anymore.

I currently work for BellSouth as the manager of an Internet provisioning department. We do a lot with Cisco networking, which is one of the reasons I went for and obtained the Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert (CCIE) certification in 2003. The CCIE certification is widely regarded as the most prestigious IT certification in the industry.

I also completed a master's degree in business administration (MBA) at Georgia State University while working full-time at BellSouth. U.S. News ranked GSU as the best part-time MBA program in the South, and the 7th best program in the nation. (You can find more information about that here.)