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Today's Featured Biography
Robert Greenwood
I was born a sixth generation Mormon in 1949 in SLC Utah. My father worked as a personnel manager for Columbia Geneva Steel, which was purchased after the war by United States Steel Corporation. As my father moved up the corporate ladder accepting transfers from one branch office to another, our family moved to California in 1952, to Pittsburgh Pennsylvania in 1954, Arizona 1956, back to California in 1957, and finally back to Pittsburgh in 1964. I had attended nine different public schools before graduating in 1967 from North Allegheny High.
Upon graduating from NAHS, I enrolled in a course at Art Institute of Pittsburgh to study commercial art. After one year there, I decided to follow the Mormon custom of serving on a mission for the LDS church in Arizona and New Mexico, proselytizing among Native American people of the Navajo, Jicarilla Apache, Hopi, and other tribes of the Southwest. When I returned, I took up the violin which I had studied throughout my childhood, and was accepted at Duquesne University Conservatory of Music in an Applied Violin major.
It was while attending Duquesne that I met my future wife, Mary Jo Gagliardo. We were married on August 3, 1971 in the LDS Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah. Within a year, we moved to Santa Clara County, California, where we both worked full time until Mary Jo gave birth to our first child in 1973.
In that same year I was hired by Royal Typewriter Company as a copier service technician. I was eventually promoted to service manager for the San Jose branch. During this period I became interested in computer technology, and studied programming at San Jose State.
In 1977 I accepted an offer to join Eastman Kodak Company as an Equipment Service Representative. I was promoted in 1979 to a technical resource position, and in 1985 to an engineering position in Rochester, New York. While there, I returned to school, majoring in Computer Science at Rochester Institute of Technology.
Kodak transferred me to Indianapolis in 1990, where I worked as a regional Systems Analyst, providing technical marketing support for production printing and publishing systems.
In 1995, after much reflection and study, my wife and I decided to turn our backs on our Mormon Heritage and resign from the LDS Church. All six of our children followed suit of their own accord over the next two years.
In 1996, Kodak sold their Copier Products division to Danka. Rather than making the move, I accepted an offer at Xerox Corporation where I worked in a similar capacity until I "retired" on January 1, 2011 to go to work full time for my brother's security consulting firm, Don Greenwood & Associates, headquartered in Houston, Texas. For several years I had been developing risk mitigation software for DG&A under contract. Now working out of my home office near Indianapolis, I am managing solution development as VP of Solution Architecture and Software Development. My second son, Justin, has also made the move to work for us, and more expansion is expected over the near and long terms.
My wife Mary Jo has been a "stay at home mom" since our first child was born. Our first three sons graduated from public high school, but our two younger sons and our only daughter were home schooled through most of their education primarily by their mother. Mary Jo is an accomplished seamstress, an active member of the American Sewing Guild, and for years lead a local 4-H club for mainly home schooled children.
My oldest son, Aaron, lives next door to us with his wife Sarah and their five daughters, and works as a professional software developer. Justin, our second son, and Robert, our fifth son, are also software professionals and reside in our immediate neighborhood with their families.
Until last year, our third son, William, was a career soldier leading a platoon of scouts as Staff Sergeant. He saw combat action in both Kosovo and Iraq where, in his second tour of duty, was severely wounded in an attack by an insurgent who had infiltrated the Iraqi police. It is not certain how many bullets Bill took, but they shattered both of his femurs. He also suffered bullet wounds to his pelvis, spine, hand, and arm. One bullet entered his torso on one side, and exited the other, sailing through his abdominal cavity miraculously without injuring any internal organs. Having survived and largely recovered, Bill retired from the Army and lives in Parma, Ohio, near his children.
At the same time of Bill's injury, our fourth son, Samuel was aboard a destroyer in the Persian Gulf serving as a Sonar technician, and our fifth son, Robert, was serving in Iraq as an officer in the 82nd Airborne Division. Robert, now married, is a software developer by profession, and owns a home just a few blocks from ours. As proud as we are of our veteran sons, we are happy to report that they are all happily and safely engaged in civilian life.
Our only daughter and youngest child, Mary, is a talented artist, musician, and aspiring nursing student -- and to that end is working as a licensed beautician at a local salon. Check out some of her work on You Tube:http://www.youtube.com/user/everythingmary.
Beyond my profession, I enjoy woodworking and motorcycling. Our twelve grandchildren (with one more on the way) provide the greatest joy in our lives. We are fortunate that our daughter and four of our sons and their families are neighbors of ours, as is my 95 year-old mother, who purchased a home just two doors from ours. Life is sweet.
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