Background and Occupation

Xm-n54

Private
May 8, 2017
49
16
0
Ride
2008 BMW 335xi
Hey guys! Every single time I read something in this forum I'm always amazed by everyone's skill and knowledge. So many great guys on here with so much knowledge and understanding of cars in general. What is everyone's occupation / background? How did you guys get so knowledgeable? Just a general background in automotive technology, or just a classic enthusiast with the desire to learn?

Currently I'm a junior Project Manager at a Sewer and water construction company. Studied construction management. No schooling in automotive technology. I was just always good with my hands and loved knowing how things worked. This is what drove me to work on my own car. Would love to hear about everyone else.
 
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Mar 14, 2017
418
346
0
Minot, ND
Ride
2010 135i
I used to be a marine fiberglass fabricator for a few years when I was in high school. And I stated welding about then too in the marina and at school. Then I enlisted in the Air Force when I was 19 and I’ve been a “Dental Assistant” for the past 7 years with them. The majority of those 7 years I did dental hygiene and the past two years I’ve been running a sterile instrument processing department. I was the assistant GM of a local bar out here for about a year in my “off time”. And now I’m the owner of my shop and still working in the Air Force running the dental deployment readiness program at my base.
 

Dino81

New Member
Nov 24, 2016
6
3
0
NW Indiana
4th generation enthusiast, which got me intonthe automotive field for 10 years or so...which lead me to my current occupation which is a diesel locomotive machinist.
 
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suspenceful

10 Second Club
Aug 1, 2017
559
591
75
Ride
2015 M3, 2008 135i, 2009 335i
My parents didn't own any tools besides a hammer and some screwdrivers. Not sure why I started tinkering with cars, but I did. When I was 16 I installed a wet shot of nitrous on my Ford Focus, and was hooked ever since.

My day job includes web development, marketing, ecommerce, etc. I learned everything car-related by reading forums and watching YouTube videos. I'd like to think I'm smart, so that helps. I have a close group of friends that are gearheads as well, some of them certified mechanics. Learned a lot from them, and a lot online.
 
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doublespaces

Administrator
Oct 18, 2016
9,303
4,331
0
AZ
Ride
2009 E93 335i
This is less my background and more like a summarized version of my life story.

As for education, I'm a college drop out who learned C++ on my own as a hobby by reading books and copying and implementing a lot of other people's code. I was particularly inspired at a young age by UltraHLE, a Nintendo 64 emulator, as at the time when my family could not afford a console and would never buy one even if we could. I completed a 2 year Cisco course called CCNA while in high school, very educational from a computer networking perspective. Recently(I'm 33) did some math courses for fun, mostly to prove to myself and my 10 year old son I could do it. I got high A's the calc series including a 97% on Calc 3.

I began working phone sales when I was 19, starting out making $9 per hour and quickly progressed through the ranks eventually as much as 300k per year as a top closer(read: expert psychological manipulator) at my peak. At 27 I quit that job because it was up and down like the ocean and I bought a house, 25% of a Sports Bar in old town Scottsdale AZ, opened a computer repair store front in Chandler AZ, and opened a call center in Tempe AZ, more or less all at once. I worked in and learned a lot about the merchant processing and credit card industries, business relationships, business partners and transactions and other nuances of being in that position. Ultimately, in my quest to make it big this turned out to be too many things to juggle at once and combined with some bad luck and losing our liquor license on a technicality, I lost or sold most of that including my marriage. I couldn't keep up with the investments or travel and networking lifestyles that my peers were, some of whom would tell me about their $50k revenue days from behind a computer or an office desk where the vast majority of that money was profit. I learned what incredible stress was and found value in reducing my responsibilities and really started to live by the the idea of making more by doing less. Truly building upon the working harder, not smarter philosophy I preached to my customers for so long.

Sales environments rely heavily on lead sources, so I took the next step up the food chain and transitioned into lead brokering and generation. Instead of being the guy doing all the hard work, I wanted to be the guy who got paid for helping someone else do the heavy lifting. This lead to a lot of internet marketing experience which is one of the verticals our call center was involved. One of those projects I spent tens of thousands of dollars generating very advance emailing software which I used and sold as a service. Prior to this in 2013, before there was any written regulation, I spend tens of thousands more building a fully fledged cryptocurrency exchange called ColdCryptos and then shut it down when I realized it would require $1 Million to establish the necessary Money Service Business licences to operate in the US alone. I had no experience seeking VC and my funds were beginning to dwindle so I had to focus on a more immediate way to supplement my income. The Financial Crimes Enforcement classified crypto as a 'store of value' and therefore considered 'money' or something to that effect so that messed up my plans. The unique part about that exchange was the ability to specify if your trading balance was in cold storage or not and you could even trade it in that state. This assured that when an exchange was hacked, you'd not have to worry about getting your crypto back since it was locked away in cold storage. With most or all exchanges today, when there is a hack, they don't say whose balance that actually was, because they mix 20% or so of their total balance together in a hot wallet. They have to do this so when people request withdrawals, it won't take days to get the money out of a cold wallet and transferred out. But when your money is stored in this melting pot hot wallet and they get hacked, one day you'll try to withdraw it and they say, "oops, we suffered a security breach, we'll get back to you". For anyone curious and not informed on the subject and risk you impose on yourself by using an exchange like this, research Mt. Gox and Mark Karpeles. As of this writing I still have the entire source code for sale if anyone is interested in it. There were several other advanced features in terms of security that were very creative involving multi-signature techniques, pump and dump protection with buy wall detection, etc. Had any of this worked out, I'd be a lot better off than I am today.

Since all of this I've managed to survive on a residual income from the merchant processing industry, while I build up other things which follow in the footsteps of making more by doing less. This board is one of those things so I appreciate each and every one of you who participate and contribute here!
 

Xm-n54

Private
May 8, 2017
49
16
0
Ride
2008 BMW 335xi
My parents didn't own any tools besides a hammer and some screwdrivers. Not sure why I started tinkering with cars, but I did. When I was 16 I installed a wet shot of nitrous on my Ford Focus, and was hooked ever since.

My day job includes web development, marketing, ecommerce, etc. I learned everything car-related by reading forums and watching YouTube videos. I'd like to think I'm smart, so that helps. I have a close group of friends that are gearheads as well, some of them certified mechanics. Learned a lot from them, and a lot online.
Wow, really surprised from what you came from to how much information you know!
 
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Xm-n54

Private
May 8, 2017
49
16
0
Ride
2008 BMW 335xi
This is less my background and more like a summarized version of my life story.

As for education, I'm a college drop out who learned C++ on my own as a hobby by reading books and copying and implementing a lot of other people's code. I was particularly inspired at a young age by UltraHLE, a Nintendo 64 emulator, as at the time when my family could not afford a console and would never buy one even if we could. I completed a 2 year Cisco course called CCNA while in high school, very educational from a computer networking perspective. Recently(I'm 33) did some math courses for fun, mostly to prove to myself and my 10 year old son I could do it. I got high A's the calc series including a 97% on Calc 3.

I began working phone sales when I was 19, starting out making $9 per hour and quickly progressed through the ranks eventually as much as 300k per year as a top closer(read: expert psychological manipulator) at my peak. At 27 I quit that job because it was up and down like the ocean and I bought a house, 25% of a Sports Bar in old town Scottsdale AZ, opened a computer repair store front in Chandler AZ, and opened a call center in Tempe AZ, more or less all at once. I worked in and learned a lot about the merchant processing and credit card industries, business relationships, business partners and transactions and other nuances of being in that position. Ultimately, in my quest to make it big this turned out to be too many things to juggle at once and combined with some bad luck and losing our liquor license on a technicality, I lost or sold most of that including my marriage. I couldn't keep up with the investments or travel and networking lifestyles that my peers were, some of whom would tell me about their $50k revenue days from behind a computer or an office desk where the vast majority of that money was profit. I learned what incredible stress was and found value in reducing my responsibilities and really started to live by the the idea of making more by doing less. Truly building upon the working harder, not smarter philosophy I preached to my customers for so long.

Sales environments rely heavily on lead sources, so I took the next step up the food chain and transitioned into lead brokering and generation. Instead of being the guy doing all the hard work, I wanted to be the guy who got paid for helping someone else do the heavy lifting. This lead to a lot of internet marketing experience which is one of the verticals our call center was involved. One of those projects I spent tens of thousands of dollars generating very advance emailing software which I used and sold as a service. Prior to this in 2013, before there was any written regulation, I spend tens of thousands more building a fully fledged cryptocurrency exchange called ColdCryptos and then shut it down when I realized it would require $1 Million to establish the necessary Money Service Business licences to operate in the US alone. I had no experience seeking VC and my funds were beginning to dwindle so I had to focus on a more immediate way to supplement my income. The Financial Crimes Enforcement classified crypto as a 'store of value' and therefore considered 'money' or something to that effect so that messed up my plans. The unique part about that exchange was the ability to specify if your trading balance was in cold storage or not and you could even trade it in that state. This assured that when an exchange was hacked, you'd not have to worry about getting your crypto back since it was locked away in cold storage. With most or all exchanges today, when there is a hack, they don't say whose balance that actually was, because they mix 20% or so of their total balance together in a hot wallet. They have to do this so when people request withdrawals, it won't take days to get the money out of a cold wallet and transferred out. But when your money is stored in this melting pot hot wallet and they get hacked, one day you'll try to withdraw it and they say, "oops, we suffered a security breach, we'll get back to you". For anyone curious and not informed on the subject and risk you impose on yourself by using an exchange like this, research Mt. Gox and Mark Karpeles. As of this writing I still have the entire source code for sale if anyone is interested in it. There were several other advanced features in terms of security that were very creative involving multi-signature techniques, pump and dump protection with buy wall detection, etc. Had any of this worked out, I'd be a lot better off than I am today.

Since all of this I've managed to survive on a residual income from the merchant processing industry, while I build up other things which follow in the footsteps of making more by doing less. This board is one of those things so I appreciate each and every one of you who participate and contribute here!
After reading your life story, I can confirm you're Groot. And that's a crazy life story. Sucks you lost out on the crypto venture, the potential there could have been insane but I felt like it would have drawn you away from your motto of making more by doing less. Everything happened for a purpose!
 
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Mar 14, 2017
418
346
0
Minot, ND
Ride
2010 135i
My parents didn't own any tools besides a hammer and some screwdrivers. Not sure why I started tinkering with cars, but I did. When I was 16 I installed a wet shot of nitrous on my Ford Focus, and was hooked ever since.

My day job includes web development, marketing, ecommerce, etc. I learned everything car-related by reading forums and watching YouTube videos. I'd like to think I'm smart, so that helps. I have a close group of friends that are gearheads as well, some of them certified mechanics. Learned a lot from them, and a lot online.
Thats funny. Its pretty much how I got where I am today too. Lot of reading and working without anyone to honestly teach me. None of my immediate family really taught me anything about mechanics and I didn’t begin working on performance cars till I was about 19 and had moved out of my parents house.
 

PUTC

Corporal
Oct 14, 2017
206
68
0
Ride
08 335xi
Cool backgrounds and just shows it’s not where you come from that defines you. I was raised by a single mom, no tools really also, no testosterone around but fell in love with motorcycles. Was tearing them down to the frame at 15 or so and painting them. Then I got an 89 MR2 supercharged when I was 17. I’ve always been huge into cars but never really got into self tuning and stuff till last couple years. I’ve been a career car salesman for about 10 years, did F&I for a while. Moved to South Carolina and got out of car sales. Very dirty and dishonest business down here. Reality is there are a lot of bad ones out there but there are a lot of good ones too. Not here. Every where I went it felt like I was selling my soul to make a buck which is bs. Went into consumer lending and became a branch manager for a while. Again it was more predatory lending than anything else. So now I am a Unit Director for a Bojangles franchise heee at the beach. Never thought I would be in fast food really. Used to wearing suits and ties. But I can sleep better at night, a little more stress monetarily but all in all it’s ok. Me and my wife split up a couple years ago for 3 months and I bought my 335xi at that time. Been reading, studying, and watching every video I can ever since. I sold a 455ci big block I was building for an engagement ring and wanted a car I could mod again. So happy I did. Wife hates my car of course and with salary change it’s why I haven’t been able to get an intercooler for the life of me. Every time I save enough to do something, I end up spending it on maintenance, lol!! I have always been good with tools and mechanical things. I really want to code, tune, so some carbon fiber, and fabrication. No place at the beach here that really does anything like that. So I’ll keep trying till I get my car nice and fast for advertising and than hopefully have some knowledge and some customers to work with.
 

Xm-n54

Private
May 8, 2017
49
16
0
Ride
2008 BMW 335xi
Cool backgrounds and just shows it’s not where you come from that defines you. I was raised by a single mom, no tools really also, no testosterone around but fell in love with motorcycles. Was tearing them down to the frame at 15 or so and painting them. Then I got an 89 MR2 supercharged when I was 17. I’ve always been huge into cars but never really got into self tuning and stuff till last couple years. I’ve been a career car salesman for about 10 years, did F&I for a while. Moved to South Carolina and got out of car sales. Very dirty and dishonest business down here. Reality is there are a lot of bad ones out there but there are a lot of good ones too. Not here. Every where I went it felt like I was selling my soul to make a buck which is bs. Went into consumer lending and became a branch manager for a while. Again it was more predatory lending than anything else. So now I am a Unit Director for a Bojangles franchise heee at the beach. Never thought I would be in fast food really. Used to wearing suits and ties. But I can sleep better at night, a little more stress monetarily but all in all it’s ok. Me and my wife split up a couple years ago for 3 months and I bought my 335xi at that time. Been reading, studying, and watching every video I can ever since. I sold a 455ci big block I was building for an engagement ring and wanted a car I could mod again. So happy I did. Wife hates my car of course and with salary change it’s why I haven’t been able to get an intercooler for the life of me. Every time I save enough to do something, I end up spending it on maintenance, lol!! I have always been good with tools and mechanical things. I really want to code, tune, so some carbon fiber, and fabrication. No place at the beach here that really does anything like that. So I’ll keep trying till I get my car nice and fast for advertising and than hopefully have some knowledge and some customers to work with.
The struggle is real! But I'm surprised that out of the people commenting on this forum really have no schooling in some auto field. So much knowledge from self learning on a computer. That's pretty cool.
 

NoQuarter

Major
Nov 24, 2017
1,662
1,066
0
Indiana, USA
Ride
Z4 35is, 535xi, X5 35i
My Dad had me riding motorcycles when I was 5 or 6. A 125CC that I couldn't even touch the ground on and he had to catch me when it was time to stop. That turned into fixing motorcycle carburetors, magnetos, pistons, etc by the time I was 12.

Educated as an Electrical Engineer, did some time as a Field Artillery Captain and now spend my days doing computer related consulting. For fun, doing home improvement projects and BMW maintenance, upgrades and retrofits. I have three of them leaking on my driveway this season and 2 of those are xi models :(
 
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PUTC

Corporal
Oct 14, 2017
206
68
0
Ride
08 335xi
Yeah I got a few drips on my driveway too. My friend in FL had a dirt bike about that age also. Was always jealous. I got my motorcycles at about 15-16 though
 

Euro venom

Specialist
Nov 5, 2016
95
94
0
Tualatin, or
I've been into cars my whole life. Was raised by my two older brothers and built air cooled VW's growing up. When I finished High school I went to UTI in Cali. came back home and worked at an Independent shop servicing Euro cars. Stopped working on cars for about 5yrs. Then got back into being a Service Adviser for the past 5 Yrs on and off. Also lube Tech in between service writing at an Indi Euro shop. cars cars cars, All day long! YAY!
 
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