User:Mgreason/Bio

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David Mark Greason, Jr., (born March 24, 1955) is an IBM iSeries computer analyst and editor on Wikipedia.

Early years

Greason is a baby-boomer originally from Newark, Ohio. He was the oldest of four children, born to David Mark Greason, Sr., a chemical engineer, and the former Veronica Goodbread, a Physical Education teacher. His early years were spent in Ohio and Midland, Michigan where he was an above-average student-athlete. Physically, he was one of the largest kids in his class, and played football and basketball in Intermediate and High School. Boy Scouting was also a strong interest. His parents had a difficult relationship and his mother moved out of the family home when he was 13. She was a high school teacher, and returned to the family’s home daily after school on weekdays to wash clothes and prepare dinner for the family. After dinner each night, she left.

New start

The summer of 1972 was spent working in Florida. His maternal grandmother had spent her entire life in Lake City, Florida and she allowed him to move into a small garage apartment she owned and rented out during the 1960s. He worked at the Holiday Inn there as a busboy in the restaurant. While on duty one afternoon, a young guest was spotted at the bottom of the swimming pool. A cocktail waitress jumped in and brought her to the edge of the pool as Greason ran to the pool. The girl was not breathing, so he administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and she revived after less than a minute. As a result, he earned the B.S.A. Heroism Award. At the end of summer, he convinced his grandmother to allow him to stay in Lake City for his senior year at Columbia High School. He did not play sports because his father refused to grant formal custody to his grandmother, and the Florida High School Athletic Association required a release from the legal guardian to play. He finished the requirements for Eagle Rank and became an assistant Scoutmaster for his troop after turning 18. That spring, he was nominated and approved for the Vigil Honor by his old Order of the Arrow lodge in Michigan, and inducted in August, 1973.

College

Following high school graduation, he spent a year at Young Harris College in north Georgia, then finished an Associate of Arts degree at Lake City Community College, where he was named, Who's Who Among American Junior College Students. He worked for the United States Forest Service for the summers of 1974 and 1975, and began working for United Parcel Service (part-time) in September 1975. He enrolled at the University of Florida and graduated in 1978 with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, with a minor in computer science. The Columbia County School District hired him as their computer programmer, and he spent nearly three months (off and on) at the IBM center in Atlanta, taking classes and attending workshops to learn about IBM's new System/34.

Library

An IBM sales representative talked him into writing a library circulation control system in early 1980. The Columbia County Public Library was able to secure a grant to purchase computer equipment and the hardware had enough capacity for the county to use it for their financial accounting. Greason spent evenings and weekends for three months writing and testing code while the library workers input their collection. The system went live in the summer of 1980, and he continued to support it for 18 years, until the library purchased a MARC standards system in 1998.

Work

The Flagler County School District offered Greason a job with a substantial pay increase in August 1980, and he moved to Flagler Beach and worked in Bunnell. Greason married the former Evelyn Matthews on September 27, 1980. He served on the Florida Department of Education's School District Council for Comprehensive Management Information Systems from 1980 to 1983.

Young Harris

In the fall of 1980, Greason volunteered to write a software system in his spare time to manage alumni names and addresses for Young Harris College, which had no computer capability. He also input approximately 7,500 records from addressograph imprints on index cards. In the spring of 1981, the system generated the first 200+ page alumni list, class rosters and mailing labels for their quarterly newsletter. Greason continued to provide this service at no charge for 12 years, until the alumni office purchased their own computer system and software program. He even converted the data to the format required to be imported into their new system in 1993. In 1988 he was awarded the Young Harris Medallion, the highest honor bestowed by the college. Greason was invited to join the Young Harris Alumni Foundation's board of directors in 1998 and served as the Florida representative until the foundation and college reconciled in 2009.

Chiefland

In early 1982 the couple began to build a home on 80 acres his wife inherited in Chiefland, Florida. They moved to Chiefland in July 1983 and Greason was hired by First Gainesville Corporation, where he started working on the new IBM System/36. He commuted an hour to and from Gainesville each day, and began donating blood at the Civitan Regional Blood Center. After several years he reached the five-gallon level. Greason was elected to the mission board at St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Chiefland, and served as church treasurer for a year in 1987. Greason became an independent consultant in 1986 and worked projects in Chiefland, Lake City and installing IBM computers throughout the state of Florida. His first child, a son, was born in December. Greason accepted a six-month contract at Southeast Toyota Distributors in Jacksonville, Florida on April 15, 1987. After the contract ended, he was asked to continue at S.E.T. on an open-ended contract, and CMSI hired him as an employee. His wife, a small town girl, did not want to live in Jacksonville, so they purchased a small home outside St. Augustine and moved there in December.

Jacksonville

Greason's second child was born a year later, in November 1988, and he began working on the IBM AS/400. After five years, the family needed more room, so after a futile search in St. Augustine, they found a bigger home in south Jacksonville and moved there in August 1993. Greason changed from a contractor to an employee when JM Family Enterprises hired him in 1993. He began donating blood again at the Florida Georgia Blood Alliance.

GAL

Greason and his wife separated in August 1997 and Evelyn returned to St. Augustine. With more free time, he completed Guardian Ad Litem volunteer training and began working cases. He stayed with the program until the organization changed and staff employees began performing most of the casework. He received a silver five-year volunteer pin in 2002.

After JMF

The divorce was final in April, 1998. Greason sold the family home and purchased another just two miles from his job. He continued working for JM Family Enterprises until 2000, when the Information Technology department was relocated to Deerfield Beach. He declined a transfer to south Florida and accepted a position with Bombardier Capital. Greason married again to the former Lisa Ryan on October 28, 2005. Bombardier’s Capital division closed down in late 2006, and Greason became an independent contractor again. He worked a four month contract at Trailer Bridge, but declined a job offer there to avoid a 45-minute commute to and from the North side of Jacksonville. He worked a three month contract at Gate Petroleum, then accepted a permanent position with the company in 2007. Around that time, the staff at the blood bank's Mandarin center convinced him to try apheresis. Greason found that the procedure was tolerable, so he switched to apheresis every eight weeks. At the end of 2011, he had donated over 16 gallons in Jacksonville and 5 gallons in Gainesville.

Wikipedia

In the fall of 2007, Greason began contributing to Wikipedia on a regular basis. As of 2011, he was responsible for over 18,000 edits, and had created or expanded over 500 articles, including 28 entries in Wikipedia:Did you know. He became less active in the summer of 2014 after having made 24,000+ edits, 53 Did you know submissions, one featured list, dozens of new categories and lists, and hundreds of photographs.

Close the Gate

Since his start at Gate, Greason's manager was Chris Hoyle, who became a good friend as well as boss. After 16 years at Gate, Hoyle retired in 2014. His replacement was a younger woman who was completely opposite of her predecessor. Her micro-managing style and sarcasm were not appreciated by Greason, and he left Gate in late 2014. A position at Trailer Bridge opened in early 2015, so he returned to the company he left in 2007 and began working as a contract EDI Analyst.

References

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Category:1955 births Category:Living people Category:People from Jacksonville, Florida Category:People from Lake City, Florida Category:People from Newark, Ohio Category:People from Midland, Michigan Category:Young Harris College alumni Category:University of Florida alumni Category:Florida Democrats Category:Eagle Scouts Category:Computer programmers Category:Wikipedians