I have created this website to introduce myself, and to function as a kind of augmented, online resume and summary of my professional experience and competencies.
I have posted a single-page, PDF version of my resume here.
As of early 2021, I have created a “business website” for my work in website design and hosting: raggedsign.com.
My name is Jared Way. I hold a Master of Arts Degree in Spanish Literature from the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1997). My Bachelor of Arts Degree, with double major in Linguistics and Spanish, is from the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis, 1989).
I moved to Craig, Alaska, in August, 2018, for family-related personal reasons. I had some intention of working as a teacher, locally, but between the State of Alaska’s lackluster commitment to education on the one hand, and Covid on the other, opportunities are quite slim. So… I am working part-time as a clerk and framing and matting specialist at Alaska Gifts in Craig, and I am dabbling in providing local-friendly website design and hosting solutions with my IT skills.
Work in Education
For 11 years, from 2007 until 2018, I worked as an EFL teacher (English as a Foreign Language) at various locations in South Korea (mostly northwest suburbs of Seoul).
My hope is to be able to continue work in education, but I recognize that I’ll have to “start over” in a sense, since I have not worked in education in the US since 1998 and do not hold any kind of US-based teaching certification.
For a detailed summary of my experience in education, and my thoughts about it, see here.
Work in Information Technology
Prior to 2007, starting 1998, I worked in private-sector IT in various capacities. I was primarily a database prototyper, doing business systems analysis and migrating data from legacy systems to up-to-date, web-based data entry and business reporting environments. I was involved in data warehousing, database reporting, web UI design, and systems requirements documentation.
During my years in Korea, I remained a “hobbyist programmer,” designing various personal websites and blogs. I have maintained a personal blog since 2004, and have been a volunteer systems administrator on a popular “geofiction” website, including substantial technical support and some wiki-related web design.
For a detailed summery of my experience in IT, and a discussion of my abilities, see here.
Other Relevant Skills
Languages
I am fluent in Spanish, having lived in Mexico for two years when much younger and of course all my graduate coursework was in Spanish, given the major. I also studied in Chile for 6 months and in Guatemala for 3.
Although my time in South Korea was longer, in fact I would only claim an intermediate-level competency in Korean. Korean is very difficult.
Because my undergraduate major was Linguistics, I have studied “a little bit” of many other languages, including (in approximate descending order of time and ability): French, Portuguese, Russian, Latin, Dakota (North American Native language), Mapudungun (South American Native language), Italian, Japanese, Welsh, Dutch.
Creative Work
I enjoy visual arts, including drawing, painting and photography.
I also do creative writing, including a “daily poem” on my personal blog for the last several years, and occasional work on several “novels in progress.”
I have published three volumes of poetry. Paperback copies are available on Amazon, on my author page. The prices are set based on cost of printing – I am not out to make money from my poetry.
I had originally intended to also publish Kindle (electronic book) versions, but Amazon was making that difficult, and so I decided that if what you really want is to read the poems cheaply or electronically, I’ll give them away for free. Here are PDF versions of the volumes:
- Caveat: Poem – Volume 1: Mostly in Korea
- Caveat: Poem – Volume 2: Mostly in Alaska
- Caveat: Poem – Volume 3: Mostly among Trees
Marketing and Accounting
When working in business IT, I interfaced closely with accounting and sales and marketing departments. As a result, I developed some broad understanding of the business processes involved, up to and including a good understanding of double entry accounting practices, corporate general ledger, accounts receivable and accounts payable and electronic invoicing, drafting “requests for proposal” and responses to such for large (million-dollar) clients, etc.