R. Craig Collins > Web Page Design > Portfolio > Auto-Biography

Auto-Biography© R. Craig Collins, 1997,2005/6

Auto Biography is not the story of a car...

The basics:

• I am R. Craig Collins, father of two girls. Both tested at the college level in 5th grade, both took the SAT in the 7th grade.
• I am a professional teacher and trainer. Before I began teaching at colleges, I was a scuba instructor, a private aircraft pilot, a restaurant manager, a profession education trainer, and a text book author. I hope each one of these jobs helped shape who I am today. But sometimes, my past causes me trouble; for instance, when I go swimming, I often take my prescription ground mask and snorkel, though I leave my 12 inch dive knife and flippers at home.
• I am a pilot. Aside from loving to pilot, I like to ride. I have flown on 707s, 727s, 737s, 747s, 757s, 767, 777s, Airbus 320s, Airbus 330s, DC 10s, and even a DC 3. But I have also flown in a hot air balloon, a helicopter, a sea plane, and many different single and twin engine aircraft.
• I am a traveler. Aside from living in Los Angeles, Albuquerque, El Paso, Houston, Orlando, and Central Texas, I have been to 38 States and the District of Columbia. During my travels I have visited many places, including New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, Charlotte, Atlanta, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Denver, Phoenix, the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Seattle, and most of the cities in Texas. I have also traveled outside the United States, experiencing Windsor and Toronto Ontario plus Vancouver and Victoria, BC, Canada; London England; Edinburgh Scotland; Brussels Belgium; Cuidad Juarez Mexico; Amsterdam the Netherlands; Munich Germany; Salzburg Austria; Rome Italy; Zurich Switzerland; Paris, France; Prague in the Czech Republic; Dublin, Ireland; Copenhagen, Denmark, and Christmas 2008 is Madrid, Spain.
• I am a cook. While many of you may have trouble getting toast made for your breakfast, I actually worked in a place that could serve 1000 people an hour, and vividly remember making over 100 pies one afternoon.
• I am somewhat successful, at least at being a geek. I have found that students will pay a little more attention to you if, like the Tin Man in the 'Wizard of Oz,' you have some sort of award or two that indicates you may have learned a little something. While finishing up my BBA in Computer Information Systems at the University of Texas El Paso, I was named to Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities, The National Dean's List, Men of Mines, was inducted into Alpha Chi National Honor Society, The Data Processing and Management Association, the Management Honor Society, received a Honors Program Certificate, recognition for Academic Achievement, was awarded my diploma with Honors (Cum Laude) and was selected a Top Ten Senior. Since then, I have been named to Who's Who in America several times, as well as being honored in Who's Who Among America's Teachers and Who's Who in American Education. I was recently invited to speak at a round table meeting at Oxford, in London.
• I am a techie. I used to have a watch that 'talk's to a computer, and reminded me of birthdays and important dates. I have a 1 TB storage device. I have a wireless presentation mouse. I have a midi keyboard. In my lab and office right now, I have a WIndows workstation, a Windows server, a Linux server, a Windows Mobile device, and a tablet computer... plus an old Macintosh, not to mention the laptops at home.
• I am an author. I have published poetry and computer books, and am currently working on several novels.
• I am on a diet. Driving so much makes it hard to get into the gym, but I have come up with a good schedule and am really watching what I eat. My goal is to get to my original weight... 6 lb. 8 oz.
• I am still a student, and probably will always be taking one class or another. Next area of study, history.

Continuing on

• The story...

I was raised by a troop of apes... wait that was someone else... Actually I was born to Robert Claude Collins (Bob or R.C.) and Eunice Howellyn Smith Collins (Lyn) in El Paso, Texas just weeks after the US launched its first satellite, Explorer I… so I am truly a product of the space age, or truly a space cadet, depending on your point of view.

My father was a former parachutist in the Army, learning to fly private aircraft at the time, and worked for a company involved in the then new field of electronic office equipment. My mother was about to graduate with her History degree from Texas Western College. About a year later my brother Glenn joined me, and then about the time Kennedy was elected, my brother Steve joined us.

From El Paso we moved to Houston, where we stayed for about 8 years before a short stint in Greenville, South Carolina; and then a return to El Paso when my parents split up. About the only things that stand out in my mind about Houston:
practically living in the hospital,
seeing JFK's funeral on a black and white TV,
square dancing class (honest) at Westwood Elementary school,
and our cat Boots.

Since we weren't in South Carolina long, the only thing that stands out about the place was our pet duck (Messy; not recommended...) and my first game of spin the bottle. (Messy, but highly recommended...)

Upon moving back to El Paso, I picked up the saxophone and went dateless until I was a junior in high school. I'm not sure if the sax had anything to do with that, or the fact that I was to shy to talk to anyone but myself. My reputation for being harmless actually came in handy once during my freshman year when on a band trip to march at a San Diego Charger's halftime show. There were too many guys to fit on the 'boys' buses, and one of the 'girls buses' had a seat to spare. I made a lot of good friends, but as I mentioned earlier, I went dateless until my junior year. How many people can blow a chance like that?

I did have one special friend who I would have dated if she hadn't dropped out to get married and start a family... oh well. Later, I wound up dating a really nice girl for a year or two, but there were a lot of differences in our outlook on life, and we split up. She also started a family soon after, so I was starting to get a complex. Right after that, I started seeing someone new, who then moved off to go to college, and then, you guessed it, got married and started a family.

I did well in school in spite of my social life (or perhaps because of the lack thereof), but was caught in the dreaded 'poor-but still make to much to get financial aid' thing. So with the too frequent help of my mother I started my college career at El Paso Community College before transferring to the University of Texas El Paso, all the time working full time and educating part time. My first real job was managing a Baskin Robins, then on to working at the airport (learned to fly) and a scuba shop (certified instructor) before going on to a produce warehouse. There I wound up more or less in charge of routing, running computers, and other fun things, working 60 hours a week on the graveyard shift (typical of that industry). I loved to travel when I could wrangle a little time off, and on one of my road trips to Colorado I wound up giving a ride to a girl who was living in El Paso, but who was from Colorado.

She really wanted to get out of her house, and I really wanted to see what being married was like, so we got hitched. I still worked graveyard and was going to still going to school part time when I was offered a job with a large national restaurant firm in management. I moved to Albuquerque, then to Los Angeles with the company, but my time with Patty was short. She died of Cancer not too long after that.

I would up back in El Paso, of all places, when I decided I really wanted to get out of restaurant management and back to school. My favorite part of managing was training, so I decided my fate was in teaching, and decided to do what it took to teach at the college level. Hell, I had spent so much time in college it was only natural!

I went back to the produce house because of the flexibility, and shifted from my management major to Computer Information Systems. My life was finally getting on track. I met a wonderful teacher named Susann, and finally it was me getting married and starting a family. Gracie joined us first, then came Diane.

When I graduated from UTEP, I had already co-written 5 college text books on computing, and was president of every major honor society (okay only three). I was named one of the top ten seniors in a school with 17,000 students, graduated with honors and honors program certification, and I received UTEP's highest award, Men of Mines.

The day classes ended, I left my produce job, and we all moved to Central Texas to allow me to pursue my graduate degrees (there are none in my field at UTEP). I started at Texas State Technical College teaching computer literacy, operating systems, applications, the Internet, before being promoted to assistant department chair. From there I took over as program chair for the digital media department, and added writing, graphics, and animation to my vita.

When I received my Masters degree in Computer Education and Cognitive Systems, the time was ripe to move on from TSTC, and I found a great job with CORD (the Center for Occupational Research and Design) writing curricula material and running the website for their joint effort with NAF (National Academy Foundation) called AOIT (Academy of Information Technology) as I began my PhD in Educational Computing, and began teaching part time at Cedar Valley College and the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. After completing the curriculum project at CORD, I went to work for my high school English teacher, who was now the president of CEI, Creative Education Institute to work in tech support, testing software, and developing a distance support framework.

But I missed full time teaching, so when an opening at Temple College opened up, there I was.

Well, that's where I am today. Stay turned to see how it turns out from here!

More coming soon