There’s a new professional nerd at Moraware. Hey, it’s me, Calen Lopata!
I started out as an amateur nerd, spending most of my early years near Chicago. My first computer programming experience involved attempting to create original music and violent video games in QBASIC. I was fortunate to have access to the young Internet thanks to family support and a 2400 baud modem. I picked up HTML and Javascript by looking at code created via Netscape Communicator’s WYSIWYG editor, and designed and built what I thought were really fantastic sites on Geocities. I was hooked on the boundless potential of the Internet and programming.
After high school, I enrolled at the University of California, Santa Cruz (Go Banana Slugs!). I graduated with a computer science degree – right after the dot-com bubble burst. I couldn’t get a “real job”. So, I started freelancing, doing any computer-related work I could find – running network cables, setting up Network Appliance equipment, programming Microsoft Access, and web development in Perl, PHP, Classic ASP with Visual Basic, and eventually .NET and C#.
During the next 15 or so years, I started, operated, and sold an online traffic school business, and worked for a couple interesting web-based startups, one helping families organize safe carpools to school, and another crowd-sourcing stock market predictions.
I happened to come across this opportunity at Moraware, and immediately appreciated the company’s values and goals. Here was a place where I could do the work I love, make a meaningful difference in the products, and apply a variety of web-based development skills – all with a smart, talented group of people. Finally, I found my first “real job” and I am very excited to be here.
Outside of work and coding, I play guitar, play beach volleyball, hope someday to get back to homebrewing beer, and with my wife, do my best to raise two daughters in Southern California.
