Dear Lynn,
I have no webpage. I didn't even have internet access at home until this May, as it's kind of tough to want to come home and turn on a computer after you have been working on one all day and sometimes all night. I also confess that I've spent a nice percentage of my life hiding in my little corner of the world. I think that I'll start with Core Laboratories and I know that it appears that I moved around a bit and worked with a few companies, but this really isn't true. You see I have 23 years of seniority with the company I work with right now. All of these companies are related in some way, been bought and sold or are a divisions of each other.
About six months after I started living as a woman I acquired a job as a data evaluator working for a company by the name of Core Laboratories (April 1980). I was also going to college in the evening working on a Mathematics degree at the University of Texas in Dallas. Part of my logic in going to school at this time was that transition is such a hard thing mentally and I wasn't going to have much of a social life, so college seemed like a good place to be. Besides I always knew that I would get a degree and there wasn't much of a career for a woman like me without a degree in those days. This was a difficult year for me and I had many obstacles to overcome.
I had SRS on Thursday September 24 1981 two days after my birthday. Wow, now that's one hell of a birthday present and I'm afraid that I had forgotten this. I acquired SRS in Trinidad Colorado from Dr Stanley Biber and I was 23. SRS was a big thing for me but than one still must earn a living, so I stayed with Core Laboratories and continued working on my degree which had now changed to a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science. In 1987 I finally acquired my bachelor's degree and it was my parents that prompted me to go to the graduation ceremony. Why I think that I was the first in my family's history (that I know of) to graduate from college, not to mention change my sex !
I was promoted through several positions during all of these years until I ended up as a Senior Scientific Programmer. The company liked my work and strangely enough a power struggle erupted over what group I would belong to. In the end it made no difference what I thought and I was moved to the Research and Development group.
The Research and Development group was a completely different world than what I done before as I worked in a team environment writing programs to automate laboratory equipment. Before this I had always been a lone wolf on the projects that I worked on. I loved the job as there was a variety of machines. I suppose that it's a bit appropriate that the only project that I turned down when it was initially proposed to me is the one that I acquired the most accolades for. The project was called Imagelog and essentially it was used to calculate a percentage of oil from color photos of core samples via the UV Fluorescence of oil. It could also be used to produce a log curve from the slope or dip of sand-shale sequences, hence the name Imagelog. There were two of us that worked on the project and on Jan, 12, 1993 we received a United States Patent.
I then acquired some systems skills when I configured an SGI computer and interfaced it to a 24 inch Versatec plotter. This system was to go to Abu Dhabi and I was to install it there. It took two trips and five weeks because they didn't listen to me the first time. Either way I waltzed in and out of Abu Dhabi as an American woman and the project was successful.
A year latter the entire Research and Development group was laid off except for four people. I was one of the remaining four and I went from being a scientist to a systems administrator/ programmer for the corporate accounting group. Quite a change, but it altered my skill set completely. These were not easy days as I worked way to many hours, but I also acquired an Oracle DBA Master certificate during this time. After a few years my boss insulted me before he was to leave town on a trip to Europe and he didn't even realize what he had done. When he walked back into the office two weeks latter I handed him my two weeks notice as I would be working for Western Atlas as a Systems Administrator.
At Western Atlas I was truly a systems person, as I pretty much worked on a variety of computer platforms. After a couple of years during a Monday morning meeting it was announced that a systems person would go to Russia and of course I begged for the opportunity (it was a setup, management was much smarter than I thought). The systems person would take a Sun server, two Sun workstations, two IBM RS6000 workstations and one SGI workstation to Siberia in the winter. Everyone thought I was crazy and I got a lot of "Who did you upset" comments, but my motto has always been I'll try anything once. I spent four weeks in Kogalym and one week in Moscow.
Latter on I was moved to Western Geco another division and I work there right now. I am the Sun Systems Administrator and the Oracle DBA. It's a cool world, I've logged on and fixed systems all over this world, including vessels at sea and had a lovely view while I was doing my work.
In January of 2001 I had a tragic life altering event (leukemia) occur which did not apply to me directly, but most certainly applied to me indirectly and I became a primary caregiver. I've had two years of my life that were hell, one was in 1980 as once again transition is hard and the other was in 2001. I think 2001 effected me more physically, but than I'm older now. Over the last two years (2002-2003) the process of keeping a loved one alive has decreased in intensity and now although still present, life is so much easier.
Cancer has most definitely altered how I view the world and it has caused me to take another look at my life. I am not entirely pleased with how I lived my life and although I can say I have done very little in the way of bad (I am a very good girl), I can also say that I have been selfish and afraid. I am tired of living in deep stealth and this doesn't seem to be the appropriate path for me to walk down anymore. Although I'm not convinced it would be a good idea for work to know about me. I feel that Leslie Townsend has nailed exactly what I feel like in the end of her book and there is no way I could say it better. I feel a need to be with those like me whom are fairly normal. Thus at this time in my life I am open to suggestions.
Love and Light,
Kathryn
sudokat@yahoo.com
