I didn’t grow up thinking I was poor. We weren’t – we were the same as most of our neighbors.
My mom worked two jobs, sometimes three. We always had food on the table, and somehow she made sure I never felt like I was going without. Looking back, I have no idea how she managed it.
But I knew we were different based on the neighborhoods I walked to get to school.
Our home had wheels hidden beneath the skirting. During the coldest Wisconsin winters, frost would form on the inside of the walls. As a kid, I didn’t question it. It was just life.
What I didn’t know then was how much one opportunity could change everything.
In elementary school, our district invested heavily in technology. I remember our Information Media Center—the IMC—and one person in particular: Mrs. Buffano. She fought tirelessly to raise money, advocate for funding, and make sure students had access to computers.
At the time, I thought every school was like ours. Computers, Apple IIs with green phosphor Apple monitors and Apple IIe with Sony color Trinitron monitors.
Years later, I spent time in a rural school district in Tennessee and realized how fortunate I’d been. There were virtually no computers for students. What the school did have was a pristine football stadium.
That experience stuck with me.
Not because one school cared more than the other, but because it reminded me that opportunity isn’t distributed equally. Sometimes it depends on geography, local priorities, or simply whether someone is willing to fight for it.
For me, those computers became more than machines.
They became possibility.
Growing up, I worked blue-collar jobs. College never felt inevitable—it felt like something I might eventually be able to reach. When my wife and I married, we decided to put each other through college. Job opportunities weren’t great without a degree, so we sacrificed our early adulthood and the first decade of our marriage to raising our daughter and getting educated. We worked opposite shifts and made the most of the time we had together to keep our family moving forward.
Every chance I had to sit in front of a computer, I was hooked. I loved figuring out how things worked. I loved solving problems. Technology didn’t care where I lived, how much money my family had, or what my last name was.
It only cared whether I was willing to learn.
That curiosity became a career.
Over the years, technology has taken me places I never imagined. I’ve worked alongside brilliant engineers, salespeople, executives, entrepreneurs, and customers from around the world. I’ve collaborated with people from different cultures, religions, races, political beliefs, and lifestyles.
The more people I met, the more I realized how much we have in common.
Technology didn’t erase our differences, but it gave us a common language. We solved problems together. We built things together. We learned from one another.
That’s one of the reasons I’m still optimistic about technology.
Not because every new gadget or AI model will magically solve society’s problems. They won’t.
But because access to technology can be one of the greatest equalizers we’ve ever created.
A kid growing up in a trailer can learn to write software. Someone in a rural town can build a business with customers around the world. A student whose school can’t afford the latest equipment can still find free courses online, contribute to open-source projects, or teach themselves skills that previous generations could only learn in expensive classrooms.
Technology doesn’t guarantee success.
It never has.
But it dramatically lowers the barriers to opportunity.
When people ask why I’m still passionate about working in tech after all these years, this is why.
I don’t just see servers, networks, cloud platforms, or AI.
I see doors opening.
I see lives changing.
I see the same opportunity someone gave a kid who grew up in a trailer with frost on the walls and a mother who sacrificed everything to make sure he had a chance.
I’m incredibly grateful that someone believed computers belonged in schools.
Because one of those computers changed my life.
