A Brief Biography of Keith Gillette

Oof! What is it?
A brief biography of Keith Gillette.

Greetings, stargazers! You've happened upon the very fine Web pages of Keith Gillette. (If you happen to be a namesake of the Gillette Company, I'm your long lost cousin from Wisconsin. No, really, I'm sure I'm somehow an illegitimate heir of King Camp Gillette.) Honestly, I don't have much to say about myself but I feel compelled to do so anyway. Don't worry, I'll keep my comments brief.

Education

Graduating as high school valedictorian of a class of ~80 in tiny St. Croix Falls, WI was not much of an accomplishment but it did get me a nifty Academic Excellence Scholarship to the University of Wisconsin at Madison. In May 1995, five (mostly*) fabulous years and only three changes of major after I began, I received my Bachelor of Science degree in Philosophy (what did he say? Philosophy!?!), along with an Integrated Liberal Studies (ILS) Certificate. Quite the liberal arts accomplishment for a science & technology guy such as myself. (*The less than fabulous parts of those five years mostly consisted in the calculus courses that ultimately prevented someone like me with underdeveloped study habits from actually making it through a "hard science" degree sequence.)

Following a five year respite, I picked up where I left off in college, following the interest in systems science that I gained from my favorite UW professor, Tim Allen. (No, not that Tim Allen.) In January 2000, I began part-time Internet coursework at Capitol College in their Master of Science in Systems Management degree program. (OK, it's actually now called Information & Telecommunications Systems Management, but I like the old name better). Four years of tinny Internet lectures later, I graduated with honors.

Employment

My favorite work experience to date was my six years (6, yes count them, VI years) at Academic Resources & Computers in Housing (ARCH). (Formerly the Computer and Resource Centers [CRC]). Some part of the fact that it took me five years to get a baccalaureate was due to the long hours I spent at work in my various positions at ARCH. (A much larger portion of it was due to the long hours I spent avoiding my homework, however.) But shirking school for work paid off, since they hired me full time when I finally did graduate. In addition to coordinating the technical aspects of the computer labs, I got to help launch the Residential Network (ResNet) in the residence halls at UW. Mondo cool stuff for a youngster such as myself. But the fun ended when my position was transferred to the deadly Data Systems Office in Housing, and I decided then that it was time to try something new.

Not quite unlike like a salmon swimming upstream, I returned to the state of my birth. From late November 1996, I lived in lovely Austin, TX, working for the Texas Animal Health Commission as Network Manager/Systems Analyst. (I was hired as Network Manager, then got promoted, but since no one was hired into my old position I got to do them both!) After a year, we finally hired a very competent network specialist and then I got another promotion to Assistant Director of Information Resources. While not so much fun as my stint at ARCH, TAHC was a fabulous learning experience. By simply filling out the appropriate paperwork and acting intelligent, I worked the state bureaucrasy and got to go more technical training in three years than most people do in their entire careers.

In 2000, I was hired as the founding Information Technology Manager of Conserve School, a private boarding high school that finally opened in August 2002. This change brought me back again to Wisconsin, but this time, extreme Northern Wisconsin—Land O' Lakes to be precise. (Nothing to do with the butter, that's headquartered in Arden Hills, Minnesota. Go figure.) Conserve School was a fantastic professional experience. Being a full-time employee as well as a House Parent for a wing of 10 teenage girls was challenging, rewarding, and exhausting.

Seeking refuge from a Asperger's-driven culture, I found a new home as Director of Information Technology at Lake Forest Country Day School in July, 2004. So far, I'm liking the position and have found everyone associated with LFCDS to be most welcoming.

Personality

I crave order. That, above all else, describes my personality. I am neat freak, an organizer, a systematizer. I hate waste and inefficiency. I enjoy reuniting socks separated in the wash. I hate wasting time. I love simplicity, understatement, elegance. I hate clutter, bric-a-brac, façades.

Sci-Tech

Molecular Gear
When I was in college, I used to shock my friends by making bold prognostications like, "If I live to 50, I'll live to be 500;" So sure was I of the unprecedented technological progress we are making that the advent of molecular nanotechnology would lead to such an extension of lifespan within our times. I pretty much still believe that, but my better judgment and more realistic understanding of progress keeps me from spouting off about it so much anymore. Or maybe I'm just getting boring.

In any case, I find science and technology fascinating. I make no claim to understanding it, but it's darn cool: Cosmology, evolution, particle physics, quantum mechanics, relativity, space travel, optics, material science, and, of course, computers.

Philosophy

Yin Yang
When I'm not either using or fantasizing about computers, you'll probably find me dozing off in the middle of the preface to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. (Unfortunately, I can't seem to get beyond the preface, as Kant's prose is superbly soporific.) If you didn't skip over the Education section to get to the good stuff down here (heh, bet you're disappointed), you'll recall that I majored in philosophy in college. While I love science, I wasn't any good at it because, dammit, you had to turn in homework with the right answer every week! With philosophy on the other hand, I could slack off for six weeks then stay up all night and write and anti-objectivist treatise arguing that there was no "right" answer, get an 'A', then go back to sleep for the rest of the semester. Choosing between that and turning in problem sets every week was quite easy, actually.

And not just because I didn't have to work as hard ... I actually liked the BIG QUESTIONS of philosophy and still do a bit of reading and thinking. My favorite writers are Robert Pirsig, best known for his first book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, but more important for his second work, Lila, and Ken Wilber, author of more than 22 books, including his magnificient magnum opus Sex, Ecology, Spirituality. Both Wilber and Pirsig are grand synthesizers, so reading them makes an excellent jumping-off point for exploring other philosophers, like Lau Tzu, Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, William James, Alfred North Whitehead, Neils Bøhr, Heinz von Foerster, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Humberto Maturana, Daniel Dennett, to name a handful that interest me. Some day I'll have some interesting writing in my Philosophy page, but perhaps not for a while because, you see, I want to get it right.

Education
	Graduating as high school valedictorian of a class of ~80 in tiny St. Croix Falls, WI was not much of an accomplishment but it did get me a nifty Academic Excellence Scholarship to the University of Wisconsin at Madison. In May 1995, five (mostly) fabulous years and only three changes of major after I began, I received my Bachelor of Science degree in Philosophy (what did he say? Philosophy!?!), along with an Integrated Liberal Studies (ILS) Certificate. Quite the liberal arts accomplishment for a science & technology guy such as myself. (The less than fabulous parts of those five years mostly consisted in the calculus courses that ultimately prevented someone like me with underdeveloped study habits from actually making it through a "hard science" degree sequence.) Following a five year respite, I picked up where I left off in college, following the interest in systems science that I gained from my favorite UW professor, Tim Allen. (No, not that Tim Allen.) In January 2000, I began part-time Internet coursework at Capitol College in their Master of Science in Systems Management degree program. (OK, it's actually now called Information & Telecommunications Systems Management, but I like the old name better). Four years of tinny Internet lectures later, I graduated with honors.
Employment
	My favorite work experience to date was my six years (6, yes count them, VI years) at Academic Resources & Computers in Housing (ARCH). (Formerly the Computer and Resource Centers [CRC]). Some part of the fact that it took me five years to get a baccalaureate was due to the long hours I spent at work in my various positions at ARCH. (A much larger portion of it was due to the long hours I spent avoiding my homework, however.) But shirking school for work paid off, since they hired me full time when I finally did graduate. In addition to coordinating the technical aspects of the computer labs, I got to help launch the Residential Network (ResNet) in the residence halls at UW. Mondo cool stuff for a youngster such as myself. But the fun ended when my position was transferred to the deadly Data Systems Office in Housing, and I decided then that it was time to try something new.
	Not quite unlike like a salmon swimming upstream, I returned to the state of my birth. From late November 1996, I lived in lovely Austin, TX, working for the Texas Animal Health Commission as Network Manager/Systems Analyst. (I was hired as Network Manager, then got promoted, but since no one was hired into my old position I got to do them both!) After a year, we finally hired a very competent network specialist and then I got another promotion to Assistant Director of Information Resources. While not so much fun as my stint at ARCH, TAHC was a fabulous learning experience. By simply filling out the appropriate paperwork and acting intelligent, I worked the state bureaucrasy and got to go more technical training in three years than most people do in their entire careers.
	In 2000, I was hired as the founding Information Technology Manager of Conserve School, a private boarding high school that finally opened in August 2002. This change brought me back again to Wisconsin, but this time, extreme Northern Wisconsin—Land O' Lakes to be precise. (Nothing to do with the butter, that's headquartered in Arden Hills, Minnesota. Go figure.) Conserve School was a fantastic professional experience. Being a full-time employee as well as a House Parent for a wing of 10 teenage girls was challenging, rewarding, and exhausting.
	Seeking refuge from a Asperger's-driven culture, I found a new home as Director of Information Technology at Lake Forest Country Day School in July, 2004. So far, I'm liking the position and have found everyone associated with LFCDS to be most welcoming.
Personality
	I crave order. That, above all else, describes my personality. I am neat freak, an organizer, a systematizer. I hate waste and inefficiency. I enjoy reuniting socks separated in the wash. I hate wasting time. I love simplicity, understatement, elegance. I hate clutter, bric-a-brac, façades.
Sci-Tech
	When I was in college, I used to shock my friends by making bold prognostications like, "If I live to 50, I'll live to be 500;" So sure was I of the unprecedented technological progress we are making that the advent of molecular nanotechnology would lead to such an extension of lifespan within our times. I pretty much still believe that, but my better judgment and more realistic understanding of progress keeps me from spouting off about it so much anymore. Or maybe I'm just getting boring. In any case, I find science and technology fascinating. I make no claim to understanding it, but it's darn cool: Cosmology, evolution, particle physics, quantum mechanics, relativity, space travel, optics, material science, and, of course, computers.
Philosophy
	When I'm not either using or fantasizing about computers, you'll probably find me dozing off in the middle of the preface to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. (Unfortunately, I can't seem to get beyond the preface, as Kant's prose is superbly soporific.) If you didn't skip over the Education section to get to the good stuff down here (heh, bet you're disappointed), you'll recall that I majored in philosophy in college. While I love science, I wasn't any good at it because, dammit, you had to turn in homework with the right answer every week! With philosophy on the other hand, I could slack off for six weeks then stay up all night and write and anti-objectivist treatise arguing that there was no "right" answer, get an 'A', then go back to sleep for the rest of the semester. Choosing between that and turning in problem sets every week was quite easy, actually. And not just because I didn't have to work as hard ... I actually liked the BIG QUESTIONS of philosophy and still do a bit of reading and thinking. My favorite writers are Robert Pirsig, best known for his first book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, but more important for his second work, Lila, and Ken Wilber, author of more than 22 books, including his magnificient magnum opus Sex, Ecology, Spirituality. Both Wilber and Pirsig are grand synthesizers, so reading them makes an excellent jumping-off point for exploring other philosophers, like Lau Tzu, Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, William James, Alfred North Whitehead, Neils Bøhr, Heinz von Foerster, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Humberto Maturana, Daniel Dennett, to name a handful that interest me. Some day I'll have some interesting writing in my Philosophy page, but perhaps not for a while because, you see, I want to get it right.

Last updated 2007-03-04.