Benny's Bio 
| I was most recently employed as a Software Development
Manager at a technology-based firm in Greenville. Prior to the start of my programming
career, I was an Instructor in the Department of Physics and Computer Science at
Presbyterian College where I taught Computer Science, Physics and Astronomy. I have also
started my own computer training business and had written my own training manuals. I later
began offering PC equipment upgrade consultation and networking for businesses in the
Greenwood area where I now live. I bought my first computer in 1983 with the monetary gifts sent to me by my friends/family for my high school gradualtion. It was a Radio Shack Color Computer with 16 kB of memory. I still think it was the best low-end computer available for that era. With it, I learned to program in BASIC during the summer between my senior year in high school and my first year in college. In college, I started out as a programming and math major taking courses in COBOL, FORTRAN and BASIC. Early in my college career, I got bitten by the Physics bug and eventually transferred to an engineering college back in my home town of Memphis, Tn. I've always loved, and been fascinated by, electronics, computers, problem solving and science in general. A physics major was the best way at the time to touch on all of these areas of interest. Starting in the late 80's, I spent six years in the graduate Physics program at Notre Dame. My first three years were spent studying stellar nuclear reaction probabilities with Michael Wiescher, a renowned Nuclear Astrophysicist. After receiving my master's degree and in order to broaden my base in experimental physics, I changed my sub-field from Nuclear Astrophysics to General Nuclear Physics. For three years, I worked with another research group specializing in gamma spectroscopy. Both of these projects were extremely computer intensive and involved a great deal of analysis in general. And my University experience had me working on the Internet at a time when few people outside of the military and academe had any knowledge of it. During this time, I also worked as a Teaching Assistant and a tutor at Notre Dame. More recently, I have concentrated on building my interpersonal skills, which I personally feel is essential for being effective in any career. While at Presbyterian College, I provided leadership among the faculty through the foundation of the PC investment club, of which I served as President. I'm slowly figuring out that getting people to do what you want is far more complex a task than building, programming any machine ;-) After leaving academe, I rapidly progressed through the ranks of Programmer Analyst, Lead Programmer of R&D (Kyrus Corp.) and Software Development Manager (Techknow, Inc.). In the position of Software Development Manager, I defined the criteria for design, implementation, testing and release of all software. I also trained and supervised our in-house programmers and collaborated with paid consultants on the design of our upcoming products. As you can imagine, I am not afraid to learn new skills and take on new challenges and training opportunities. |
