Leaving a print at Microsoft

Looking back, I think it was inevitable that my career would be in tech. After graduating from the University of Washington, I volunteered on a seaweed research project where a scientist used a dual-floppy laptop for data entry.

That laptop sparked my fascination with computers; they just made sense to me. I can remember that my first real hands-on experience came with an early Compaq ‘Luggable’ portable PC and, from then on, I was hooked on all things tech.

Later on, I had gained experience of installing and training staff on point-of-sale systems for stadiums and theatres, ahead of moving to a computer rental company in the early ’90s.

There, I gained both PC and Mac experience, as well as practical knowledge of setting up and networking classrooms, as well as constantly troubleshooting the inevitable hardware and software issues. That was a great proving ground.

The route to Microsoft

As with…