Hi, my name is Patrick McClellan. I grew up in a small town in Colorado. When the first Nintendo came out, I wanted one really bad, but it was very expensive. Instead my parents bought me and my brother a used Texas Instruments Computer and and Atari. I got to play Nintendo and Sega at freinds houses and I knew I could make better games than what was available. The Texas Instruments computer could be programmed if you didn't put a game cartridge in it. It was a simplified version of Basic. I had no idea how to program, so I would try to guess commands and see if they would work. There was no internet and the local library had no programming books. There was one computer store with programming books in the town about 20 miles away that we would get to go to once a month, but they didn't have a book for our old computer. One day I found someone's Apple II programming homework in the trash at school, so I took it and used it to learn more about programming our computer even though I knew they were completely different programming languages. Our family eventually got a Nintendo which only inspired me more.

When I got older I had saved enough to buy the least expensive 8088 Tandy Computer. I had to put it on lay away but it was a modern and new computer. I bought a book at that computer store on programming Basic and taught myself GW-Basic and QBasic making Mad Libs and simple graphic video games.

By the time I got to High School I traded in my 8088 computer for a 80386 Tandy computer, and my parents helped me to afford a 80486 Tandy Sensation instead. I had the best computer around for about a month. I bought Turbo C++ and got a book on that and taught myself C++. My video game projects suddenly became much much better. In high school I took the only programming class they offered and learned Pascal. I hungered for more programming and started my own BBS, and took a College release class for high school credit in Intermediate Programming were we made a music album database in Basic.

I was obsessed with programming video games by my senior year in high school. I was also obsessed with making movies, skiing, and baseball. I had way too many interests, but I loved them all. When I decided to go to college I knew immediately that Computer Science was going to be my major. In hindsight I should have waited and made a choice after experiencing college.

In college I excelled in Computer Science classes. I joined the student ACM club, IEEE, and went to programming competitions. I joined CAB (the student club advisory board). I was hired to design and program the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics website, and import the Colorado River Project website into the schools web system.

Right around the time I graduated the Tech bubble burst, and it became very difficult to get a job. I did computer retail and repair jobs to make ends meet while I programmed my own projects and made my own movies.

Eventually I opened up to other possibilities and found new activities and interests. I took up Aikido, and dancing. I got a job as a Security Guard. I found my fiancee. My fiancee and now wife and her family convinced me to try the Landmark Education Forum, which inspired me to continue on my path of Web Design, among other things.

I found a job after this working for HSS Inc. as a Technical Support Analyst. After 1 year I was promoted to an Associate Engineer. That job title changed to System Administrator. This is when I picked up Power Platform developing, and trained and worked towards being a Solutions Architect. I thrive in finding solutions and managing projects.