I took my first computer course in college as a math major back in the 80s and hated it. What did binary numbers or code have to do with anything? It all seemed like a random and tedious way to do very simple tasks, with the only career options offering office space in small, windowless closets. 

When I got the opportunity to fill in for a sick colleague (as the only other person at the engineering company who knew anything about coding), I found the challenge of writing good code to be way more interesting as we ran simulations of ice breaking ship hulls in icy conditions and the experience encouraged me to switch my major to computer science. I started working at the university while I took classes in the computer lab as a consultant for the students and faculty and as an assistant to a statistics professor who was detecting patterns of cheating in horse race betting.

I moved many times but always found a computing-related job. Over the years, I taught at community colleges, universities, and private school, and helped school systems to develop lessons; I worked as a system administrator for accounting and engineering firms, as well as installing and supporting networks and coding. Even though the systems were much simpler back then, it seemed like there weren’t many people who were comfortable with computers; but then as now, if you enjoyed being part of something that is growing and changing rapidly, computing was a fascinating place to be.

In the early 2000’s I moved to Maryland and started teaching in our public school system. The textbooks were as dull as my first computer science class in college, so I searched for more interesting resources and found CS4HS projects at Hood College and Carnegie Mellon and started connecting with other Computer Science teachers and the early CSTA members. Marie DesJardines and Jan Plane at UMBC and UMD were doing significant outreach to broaden participation in CS, and I joined their projects around the same time that I had the opportunity to be part of the teams to develop the CS Framework for K-12, the CSTA national standards, the ISTE computational thinking standards, and later the AI4K12 resources. This work included so many dedicated, inspiring, and wonderful people, and after we all banded together in Maryland and the legislation was passed to create the Maryland Center for Computing Education, I had my dream job as the director of the center, where I could work bringing computer science statewide. Maryland has a lot going for it with a diverse and fairly affluent population, strong school systems and higher education programs, and legislators and a governor who saw value in funding computer science education. It’s been an all-consuming project for the last 5 years that I’m ready to hand over to the very capable hands of our new director, Quiana Bannerman, who can build on this work and continue to support our PK-12 and higher ed program leaders in this space with a focus on equity and access to quality computing education for all.