Getting to Know Your Staff

Darren Thompson
Manager of IT, Tech & YA Programming
Blue Island Public Library
dthompson@blueislandlibrary.org
(708) 388-1078 x 28

How did I end up here and who influenced me?
	Great parents of course.  They definitely had their hands full with me.
	Provided me with the discipline and college money I needed to do my job today and the guts to do fun stuff when I'm not at work (e.g., scuba diving, sky diving, mountain biking down ski resorts - in the summer of course - and on double-black diamond trails, and hiking...19 miles down into the Grand Canyon and back up in one day - haven't felt pain like that since the Army :-) )
	Dr. Lawrence Leff.  I knew him both as an undergrad Computer Science professor and boss when I attended Western IL University (WIU).  He was a great mentor and also helped me publish my first professional conference paper.  A great example of the professor who goes the extra mile.
	Dr. Kent Harris.  Calculus professor and bicycling buddy at WIU.  If there was ever a professor who could make Calculus look easy, it's this man.  He taught me to love both math and biking.
	Dr. Lewis Sadler.  Directed the Biomedical Visualization Lab at University of IL @ Chicago (UIC) when I attended.  He was my boss when I was a Research Assistant and was a perfect example of what you get when you provide a brilliant artist with the right technology.  I worked on projects with him that include machine vision, facial recognition, parallel MRI & CT volume reconstruction used in virtual reality (VR) and desktop applications.
	Dr. Tom DeFanti.  Was the director of the Electronic Visualization Lab @ UIC, my professor and advisor.  He introduced me to VR and its many benefits.  Definitely a mover and shaker in the graphics world and now in the telecommunications world.  I studied human actors in VR and wrote a library that programmers could use to populate their spaces with the actors.
	Prashant Banerjee.  Is a professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department @ UIC and was my boss while I was a Research Engineer.  There I published and worked on CAVETM projects such as forklift training and industry training and simulation.
	High Voltage Software. There I learned what it takes to create a game...a lot of people and a whole lot of effort.  I worked on projects such as collision detection between actors and their environment and animation key-frame reduction using 3D interpolation.
	Red Eye Studios. There I learned about motion capture and editing the data using a 16 Vicon camera system that, most times, required little editing.  We captured everything from the human face, people rolling around to an iguana.
	Bremen High School District 228.  There, I was a Network Analyst and learned how enjoyable it is to work with teens and technology.  It was a great place to work and I learned what it takes to manage 2000 clients and 10 servers distributed between 5 buildings...sometimes not a pretty sight.
	Deborah Beasley. Is the Youth Services Manager here at the Library.  She's taught me the importance of service and has enough wit for 10 people combined.  Every library needs to have someone like her on their staff.