I was born in 1948 in Austin, Texas to Kenneth and Bobbie Martin. My dad died in December, 1956. Mother packed us kids and move to Honolulu, where I finished most of my formative education, finishing at Kailua High School. I returned to Texas in 1968, stabbing around school and work until 1976, when I graduated from Texas A&M University with a degree in fishery biology. Having worked my way through college in a net shop and in the commercial shrimping industry, by this time I was also a skilled fishing gear specialist.
I continued working in and around the commercial fishing interests on the Texas coast for the next several years. Government policy, in an effort to avoid foreign oil, accepted foreign food, eventually forcing me out of the industry. I left the coast in 1989 to return to Austin in an attempt to change careers by seeking an entry level position in the computer industry. During my first 2 years back in my native city, I also made trips to Alaska to work in the fleets in Bristol Bay. Just prior to my 3rd trip, a bicycling injury forced my final retirement from the fishing industry, and I began substitute teaching. Eventually, I worked my way through an alternative teaching certification program and began my career as a special education teacher.
Sam and I at the Regency Bridge, one of the last of the swinging bridges in Texas
While in the alternative certification program, I met Jill, who later became my wife. It was ironic that we ended up in the same district after the program, and we have been together since. Nowadays, I am a special education coordinator and computer science teacher at Cherokee ISD, a very small and remote district in the Texas Hill Country
