I started my career as a computer operator for the Army. Left the Army and went to work as a computer operator and realized I wanted to move into programming.

After 5 years of learning on my own - I was finally able to get a position as a Mumps programmer. For those that don't know, Mumps is an old technology that is actually an OS, application environment (programming) and database engine (without a DBMS). The vendor for the applications I supported wrote their own DBMS product.

After several years as a programmer, the existing DBA retired. A new DBA was hired - but didn't work out and the programmers were offered up as temporary DBA's to cover until they were able to hire someone more permanent.

Turns out, I enjoyed doing this work and took the position full time.

When an opportunity came up to move over to supporting SQL Server - I jumped on it and now support both SQL Server (primary) and Intersystems Cache (Mumps) systems.