It’s MAKE Anything Thursday, and I’m thinking about intersections and circles.
Let me explain.
You might say life is all about intersections and circles. In 1984, I was MAKING intersections when I landed in Los Angeles.
How did a boy from one-stoplight farm towns in Virginia and North Carolina end up in LA?
I thought Chapel Hill was a giant city when I arrived at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill for my freshman year in the fall of 1977. By 1981, I had found an intersection between my passion for sports and my love of complex puzzles.
To help pay for school, I worked in the UNC Athletic Ticket Office. Everything was a big analogue jigsaw puzzle—giant maps of picturesque Kenan Stadium and the not-yet-built Dean Dome for UNC basketball were spread out in a vault. Also, in the same vault, hard-printed athletic tickets needed sorting amongst donors, students, and faculty. Who sat where in each venue depended on how many years one had donated to the Educational Foundation (i.e. The Rams Club), how much one had donated, and other factors. The whole process was manual, and the deck was reshuffled each season.
Fast forward a few years, and I found myself in graduate school in Columbus, Ohio, at The Ohio State University. Wow, now Columbus was a giant city! And once again, I’m working in the ticket office, this time with the same analogue complexities, only the stadium holds north of 100,000 passionate Buckeye fans.
One day, someone from Los Angeles with a first-of-a-kind startup that automated college ticketing and fundraising operations showed up in Columbus. That chance meeting led to my first business trip – a plane flight to LAX (eye-popping!) and eventually my first job – Paciolan – where I was an early stage employee of what is today the most successful company in event and athletic ticketing platforms.
And what about MAKING circles?
Did you see where Autodesk was named the Official Design and Make Platform of the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games and Team USA? Our technology will support LA28’s $1B temporary overlay, construction, and sustainability plan. Over the next four years, LA28 will use Autodesk software to help retrofit more than 40 venues across the LA metro area. What an exciting initiative!
From LA84 to LA28—44 years—this takes me ‘full circle’ back to my early career, living and working in Los Angeles during the 1984 Olympic Games. The city stood tall in ’84, and I know it will again in ’28. Photo above is a younger gPage in Southern Cal (circa 1984) during the beginning of the triathlon boom in SoCal.
A little part of me dreams that after our England adventure, might my final Autodesk assignment somehow be tied to the LA28 games. Now that would indeed be, MAKING circles!
See my journey on a license plate here.
How have you made intersections of your passions work in your life? Any circles?
Make intersections and circles.
