Art Garcia

While other teens were working on their parallel parking skills, Art Garcia was flying high in the sky with his pilot’s license. He was only 16, flying alone in his free time as a pilot. Looking back now, he laughs because his mother realizes it may not have been the wisest decision on her part. But 30 years later, Art is still flying and loves it just as much as he did as a kid.

Manned with a hammer, Art spent his childhood hacking away at the toys he was gifted in search of the motor. He enjoyed learning how the mechanics of his toys worked. Between his technical curiosities and flying, Art balanced both his passions and eventually went to college in pursuit of his engineering degree. By his sophomore year, Art had saved a decent chunk of change from his summer job. He could either use the money to get an instrumental rating or buy his first computer. Art realized he loved flying too much to make it his profession, so he decided to buy a computer instead, a Radio Shack TRS-80 or Trash 80 as it was called. Art loved being able to make computers do what he wanted. He spent his college years focusing on becoming an engineer. However, due to some personal life choices, Art didn’t end up finishing his degree. This did not stop him from becoming a developer.

Art spent 20+ years as a developer working for a range of companies. He spent a portion of his career working at his own consulting company helping nonprofit customers solve problems. He loved it, but after years of grinding out his own path he got to the point where he was working more than living. His wife counseled him to go back to college to finish his degree, and in 2010 he finished. He is now happily apart of the CSE team. Ironically, one of his favorite projects so far is with a customer who needs help targeting flight path anomalies. He is involved in a project to help extrapolate the anomalies from FAA data feeds, massaging the data and sending it up the pipeline.

Art loves his job because he thinks it’s “cool” to take on his customers’ problems. He takes pride in his determination to solve any customer problem like a puzzle.