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About William R. Stanek

A bit about me...

I was born in Wisconsin (Go Packers!) quite some time ago. After high school, I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do with my life so I joined the United States Air Force in 1985. I worked as an Intelligence Specialist and mostly with computers, networks and advanced electronics. I've been stationed in Japan, Germany and Hawaii. I did several tours in the Persian Gulf during the first Gulf War and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by the President of the United States. After the Gulf War, I got in my head that it really was about time to get my college degree.

I have a Bachelor's of Computer Science Magna Cum Laude from Hawaii Pacific University where the best thing about the downtown Honolulu campus is that the beach is minutes away, and I also got a Master's of Science in Computer Science With Distinction from Hawaii Pacific University. Magna Cum (Laude and With Distinction are just fancy ways of saying I studied my ass off and did good. Leastways, that's how I remember it ;-).

During my military days I spent a lot of time both in training and training others. At my last station, I trained personnel on Unix, Sun OS/Solaris, AT&T Minis (mainframe), Unix shell, etc. I separated honorably from the U.S.A.F. in 1996 and set up my own consulting firm doing high-end consulting for data centers, server deployments, network architecture/design, and of course, Web design. That was back in the days when the Internet was booming--you know just before everything went bust in a big way.

After that I mostly concentrated on book writing, training course writing, and white paper writing. I also performed on-site training in many areas including Windows Server, Windows Clustering, High Availability, and Data Centers. To keep a fresh perspective, I've worked intermittently for the likes of Intel, Microsoft, and others. Snooze fest? Have I bored you to death yet? Okay, okay, it gets better I promise.

Life & Family

I do most of my work out of my home, and my family really helps to keep me centered and grounded. The days of boarding, surfing and biking are long gone. Once upon a time I used to love going to the beach and mountain biking. An accident in 2000 ended my mountain biking days. I fractured my wrist and arm, and was months in recuperating, which meant no work for someone who spends most of his time writing. Fortunately, I was able to hire a typist, and complete my writing projects. Expensive lesson in what not to do....

I have three children at home: Sapphire, Jasmine, and Will Jr. Here are some pictures. My wife is a stay at home mom. I would love to post a picture but she won't let me.

Sapphire	Jasmine
Will Jr.

Crazy Pets

Growing up in Wisconsin, we had more pets than I knew what to do with. We had a dog, several cats, and many miscellaneous pets from guinea pigs to rats to bats to snakes. Sometimes when our dog had a litter of pups and one of the cats had one at the same time we had a dozen or so pups and kittens running around the house. Now a days, we have way fewer pets, but there all just as special. Right now, we have four parakeets. My sister who lives in Vancouver, Washington has the menagerie: a chinchilla, a ferret, a rat, a bird, and a dog.