[at Willow Springs Raceway]

"I was comin' real hard into that turn, tapped the brakes to drift the back end out, was all crossed up, yeah- totally sideways, pulled it back in and hooked it up, and I was gone....."

I'm pretty sure that's how it happened  =)

My name is Mike and I currently reside in San Pedro, California.  I'm 29, single, and work in Construction Management.   I was born in New Jersey, but moved to Seminole, Florida when I was 6.   When I was 15, my family moved to Miami, Florida.  I later attended the University of Florida in Gainesville (Go Gators!!!), and received my Bachelor of Science in Building Construction  in December of 1994 (a mix between Civil Engineering and Business Management).

About a month before Graduation, I accepted a position as a Field Engineer with a General Contracting company based out of Little Rock Arkansas.  This company was licensed in all 50 states, so it was understood that I would be working on projects in Florida for a while.  Well, a week after graduation, I found myself in my '87 honda civic hatchback, hauling everything I owned up to Greenville, South Carolina to work on a $14 million mall renovation.

It was in Greenville, where I purchased my 95 Integra GSR, which I credit for somewhat changing my life, and causing me to go down a path I normally would not have taken (well, for a while at least.  More on that later).  Anyways, I have since lived, and spent time in Florence, SC; Greensboro, NC; Little Rock, AR; and Shreveport, Louisiana, before making the trip out to Southern California.  This was all in the span of 1.5 years while working for that particular General Contractor.  Here are some of the projects I managed with that company:

Greenville Mall Renovation, Greenville, SC
Circuit City Superstore, Greenville, SC
Circuit City Express, Greenville, SC
Circuit City Superstore, Florence, SC
Books-A-Million, Shreveport, LA
Lakewood Mall Renovation, Lakewood, CA

I also helped out on an OfficeMax in Greensboro, NC.
 

Then, I got involved in the whole "import racing" scene, or whatever you want to call it after I moved to California in 1996.  I had always been a race fan, attending 4 Miami Grand Prix events, a couple of 24 hr Daytona races, and the 12 hrs at Sebring.  Now I started hopping up my car with bolt on accessories, hoping to gain a few horsepower here and there.  To make a long story short, I wanted to stay in California for more than 7 months, and had the opportunity to work for a well-known "import tuner" shop in the SoCal area.  The owner actually asked me to work for him at least 3 different times before I finally committed.  Anyway, since I don't want to waste my web space on the crap that happened there, I won't go into details.  Let's just say I learned a big lesson about how irresponsible, fake, conniving, and unethical some people can be.

So I moved on to better things, namely, I resumed my career in the construction industry.  And things are good again.  At my new company, I have more duties, since we are smaller in size and volume (at least the Los Angeles branch is) than my previous employer.  I still get to go to job sites, but usually only a couple of times a week to help out.  I also handle all construction accounting, so I frequently get phone calls from people asking for money.  I have also had the opportunity to manage a few of the smaller projects that have come by.  Here are some of the smaller projects I've managed with this company:

Doctor's Office, Gardena Medical Plaza  (Gardena, CA)
Bryman College - (Gardena, CA)
Pioneer Electronics - Sound Testing Room  (Pomona, CA)
Mutual Trading Office Remodel (Los Angeles, CA)
Roland Audio Development - Assembly Line Quality Control Rooms  (La Mirada, CA)

I get a lot of variety in my daily tasks.  That's what I enjoy the most about this company.  They keep me busy =).