Week 1 Video - This Is My Story

Week 1 - Video Script

My name is Edwin Schuessler and this is my story.

I am currently an Application Specialist in the Technology Department for Spring ISD.  When I was little I never dreamed I’d be working with computers or in the technology field.  I always dreamed about being a truck driver.  I loved the big trucks. As a ten year old, I loved building and painting models cars, airplanes, and my favorite, eighteen wheelers. When we traveled on vacation, I can remember being on the road and every time we came up on an eighteen wheeler I would always count the tires to make sure there were eighteen of them.  One year my dad bought a CB radio for the car. It was super cool. Not only could I count the tires on the big trucks, but I was able to talk to the truckers as well. Looking back it is very interesting how I am not a truck driver today especially since I still love the big trucks the same as I did thirty-three years ago.

After graduating high school in 1987 I became a full time employee in the textbook department for Humble ISD. I had a really super cool boss and awesome job. When I got offered a position in the Technical Services department as a route technician, It was an extremely tough decision. After stressing over it for several days, I finally decided to accept the position. I was fixing audio visual equipment at nine different campuses. All of my model building days, as a ten year old started to pay off. It wasn’t until a year later, I started repairing Apple IIe and IBM Model computers and that’s when I knew, computer technician was the career for me.

While working as a computer technician I was going to College at night. I was working towards a two year associates degree in Business management.  Soon I became discouraged with college. I began to realize it was going to take me 6 years to get a two year associate degree going at night. Around the same time the district started replacing old mini-mainframe computer labs with networked IBM clone computers. They even hired Steve a Computer Network Technician. He talked about getting your CNE, Certified Netware Engineer certification and how having that certification you can land any network job out there.  The district would not pay for my classes, but they did allow me to take off to attend the courses. Two classes and $3000 dollars later, that training changed my life and my career.   

In 1991 I stopped taking college courses at night and in `93 I finished all the classes to become a Certified Netware Engineer. During the technology boom before Y2K, I bounce around from company to company. In 2001 I landed in Spring ISD. It wasn’t till Spring ISD that the highlight of my career started to flourish. The district was very technology rich and focused on providing the highest quality of technology to the students and to be immersed in that on a daily basis was the place for me to be.