Merrill is a Consultant for Sima Solutions working mostly with the IBM WebSphere group of products including WebSphere Application Server and WebSphere Process Server, as well as writing applications for these platforms.
He is one of those people who got into software development back in the '80s without any formal training for it. He does, however, have a Bachelor's degree in Music Education from Brigham Young University and a Master's degree in Choral Conducting from the University of Utah. He started out his carreer as a music teacher for 13 year-old students. He soon concluded that there must be an easier way to make a living! Once he discovered how much fun it was to make computers do things you want them to (kind of like having a slave!) he was hooked, and got an entry-level job writing RPG code for an IBM System 34. Okay.. if you're under 40, you have no idea what that is, but deal with it.
Since then he has made up for lost time by getting Sun Java Certified. He also has a number of IBM certifications, and is therefore completely certifiable.
Having a background in teaching has helped, because he has taught courses in Java and Java EE technologies for IBM and others. He has also developed course materials in these areas.
He lives in Southern California and when he's not sitting in front of the computer, he can be found bicycling the streets and beach paths of Huntington Beach. He has also been known to spend a few hours at the piano and singing with choral groups.
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