GirlGeek of the Week
July 1999

Beth Whitman

Having programmed computers since I was 8 years old, I worked at a nuclear reservation in eastern Washington programming a small database document archiving program in high school. I also worked at Siemens Power implementing a cut-down version of a spread sheet and a word processor, along with programming their Electron Microscope.
 
At Washington State University, I was the only woman in the computer science / engineering program. While a systems administrator in the student computing labs, I became the web engineer/database guru for the Crop and Soil Sciences department. I also had my own business on the side. All this while attending classes full-time for 3 years. Now, as if I'm not busy enough with full-time work, I'm pursuing a Masters of Science in Computer Information Systems.

Moving from the wheat fields in Washington after graduation to the wild life of Silicon Valley, I worked for Sun Microsystems as documentation webmaster, and servlet engineer. After a year in El Nino-plagued San Jose, I could not take the rain anymore, so I headed to sunny Phoenix to work at Motorola as an Intranet Application Engineer and Systems Administrator for the local intranet tool. I later returned to Sun with the bonus of working from my home in Phoenix, where I live with a pyscho cat that loves to dance. Hooray for telecommuting! 

Do you consider yourself a Geek?

Sure I am a geek, but I am a geek that knows how to have fun!

What is your favorite Web site?

I read a lot of the technical publications Web sites, ZD, info world...stuff like that, oh and of course South Park sites.

What do you do when you are not working?

I like to play my acoustic guitar, listen to CD's, go to concerts and just hang out with my friends.