Dave King

Dave

Dave King was born in New York State in the small rural community of Guilderland Center in 1939. His mother's two sisters and a brother all lived in the community, and one of his uncles ran the only business in town - a grocery store and meat market with two gas pumps in the front and a Post Office in the back corner of the store.

Following up on his early interest in things mechanical and electrical, Dave graduated from Clarkson University with a degree in Electrical Engineering, and went to work for IBM in Poughkeepsie, NY. He continued to work for IBM for the next 35 ½ years in a variety of tasks - including hardware design, computer performance modeling, and management. In the last half of his career he discovered his true love, working as a programmer and specializing in the design of user interfaces. The programs he created were widely used by IBM employees throughout the world. Dave has never regretted his career choice of the computer industry, since the rapidly changing technology meant that there were always new things to learn, and never a chance for boredom.

Dave interrupted his career in 1963 to serve for two years as a volunteer with the Peace Corps in Thailand. The experience was extremely enjoyable, and shaped his adult life in many subtle ways. Dave also has always been attracted to sports cars, and has owned a wide variety over the years that have brought him much pleasure (and misery.)


Booth cartoon

Dave retired from IBM at the end of 1996. At that time he took over the cooking duties of the household, and specializes in low fat cooking. He also has plenty of time for various other interests, such as woodworking, juggling, and messing with the family computers.


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Dave, fixing a computer.

After retirement, his first significant activity was spending 3 years helping organize a Poughkeepsie branch of SeniorNet, a volunteer organization that offers computer courses to seniors. Dave did hardware and software support, produced artwork for advertising, created a website for the organization, developed curriculum, taught classes, and much more. Unfortunately, he had to terminat this involvement when he moved to the north-country.

Since the move Dave has done the interior work for a small addition to his home, and keeps busy with numerous wood working projects. He is also the webmaster for the Brant Lake Association, the Brant Lake Milfoil Control Program (a group formed to control an evasive water plant in the lake), the Horicon Historical Society, and the Seniors On Bikes bicycling club. He has also founded his own bicycling club, the Adirondack ezRiders. He continues to take Internet programming courses, and uses his skills to write on-line applications to facilitate the activities of the Crooked Canes, a local hiking club, and the local Friends of the Library group.