Hollister
–John White may be a quiet guy, but his life has been anything
but. This one time career Army officer has traveled the world, but
these days you’re more likely to find him touching up his hot rod
at his Hollister home than flying across the Atlantic.
”
This is a great place to be,
”
he said.
”
I’ve been all over the world, but you won’t find a climate or an
area like this.
”
Hollister –John White may be a quiet guy, but his life has been anything but. This one time career Army officer has traveled the world, but these days you’re more likely to find him touching up his hot rod at his Hollister home than flying across the Atlantic.
“This is a great place to be,” he said. “I’ve been all over the world, but you won’t find a climate or an area like this.”
White, 51, was born in Los Angeles, but moved with his family as a young child to South Dakota, to be closer to relatives. He remained there throughout his college years, attending the University of South Dakota’s pre-med program. White decided not to continue on to medical school however, and received his Bachelor of Science in mathematics and chemistry.
“I thought I would just take the major because it would be useful,” he said.
Upon his graduation, White decided to pursue his aspirations in the military. In 1978 he became a commissioned officer of the United States Army and was sent to Germany, where he spent six years working with nuclear weapons.
“Honestly it was a lot of fun,” he said. “Some of the best parts of my life were when I was young and in Germany.”
After his stint abroad, the Army sent White to graduate school where he received a degree in Operations Systems Research and Analysis. He spent the next four years in Oklahoma and at the White Sands missile range in Arizona.
“We spent our time evaluating new weapons systems and seeing what they did,” he said. “It was a very cool job.”
In 1989, Uncle Sam wanted to send White to Saudi Arabia which, though he didn’t know it at the time, would have landed him in the middle of the Gulf War. White had met a young woman named Marybeth, however, and was not too eager to head abroad any time soon. He left the service after 12 years as a career officer, married Marybeth and the two took jobs as software engineers with IBM.
“The company has really changed and evolved over the years, along with the industry,” said White. “They’ve had to keep reinventing themselves to stay on top of the food chain.”
Employment with IBM lead White back to California and the Silicon Valley, which in turn lead him to Hollister in the early 90s.
“We were at the Santa Clara Wine Festival at Casa De Fruta, and we knew there were some houses out here,” he said. “At the time, there were over 100 people living here and working at IBM in San Jose.”
Today, White works at home for IBM most of the time so that he and his wife can spend as much time with their children, Jared and Kendall, as possible. Raised around mechanics as a child, White indulged his passion for classic cars when he has time, and when his children are old enough to help, plans on building his own hot rod from scratch.
“It’s such a different world today,” he said. “My kids like video games and technology, stuff that just didn’t exist when I was a kid. It was all about cars, that was about as high-tech as you can get.”
White’s plans for the next few years are modest, he hopes to continue in his career and see that his children have the opportunity to go to college when they are old enough.
“I guess if there’s any moral to the story, it would be to stay on the educational path,” he said. “Everything I’ve been able to achieve is because I was able to stay a little ahead of the game, and I’m pretty proud of that.”
Danielle Smith covers education for the Free Lance. Reach her at 637-5566, ext. 336 or ds****@fr***********.com
