Teri Maxwell's family, school and chore organizational blockbusters of "Managers of Their Homes", "Managers of Their Chores" and "Managers of Their Schools" seem to be a perennial favorite among large families. She's also written "Homeschooling With a Meek and Quiet Spirit" which I reviewed here.
Her daughter Sarah has written ten children's books that are completely free of any objectionable material at all! (I can't bring myself to read them - the free PDF chapters on the website made me feel like I was in the first part of a dysutopian novel.)
This lead me to Steven Maxwell's book "Preparing Sons to Provide for a Single Income Family". Truthfully, I was curious what he recommended - and if his advice matched my experiences in preparing students for the workforce.
The odd thing I wasn't expecting, though, was that his book felt like I was reading two separate stories at the same time.
The official "story" goes as follows: Steven Maxwell works for 20 years in corporate America after receiving a college degree in engineering - but God was calling him to start his own business. Meanwhile, his son Nathan who was home schooled and has not attended college was out-earning Steven during Steven's last few years in the corporate world through grit, hard-work, and (the implication of) contract work alone. If Nathan Maxwell can jump economically that far ahead of his father through online certifications and a home-business, anyone can!
It's a great story - and I bet it's sold a bunch of $15.00 paperback books over the years. The real story is more complicated - and a more realistic view at how career connections can be passed on from one generation to the next.
I haven't been able to run down all of Steven Maxwell's previous employers - but he mentions having served in the Air Force for four years prior to being saved on the family blog.
- He earned a Bachelor Degree in Applied Science in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the University of Missouri in Rolla in 1979 according to his LinkedIn profile.
- In "Preparing Sons...", he mentions working for an unnamed company in marketing followed by sales before leaving the company in 1986 for Boeing on page 34.
- According to his LinkedIn profile, he worked at Wilcox / Thompson (sic) CSF from 1990-1997 as a procurement engineer. (I'm assuming he means Wilcox Electric / Thomson CSF - a major electrical company during that time in Kansas City)
This means that by 1996, Steven Maxwell had a long list of contacts in a variety of engineering firms that he could use for starting his own business and helping his sons launch their own companies.
In 1996, Wilcox Electric lost a large defense contract that crippled the company. I don't know if that's what Steve refers to as a call from God to start his own company - but it was extremely prudent of Steve to look at other options for supporting his family. I think "Preparing Sons...." mentions that Steve's original plan was that Communication Concepts, Inc was going to provide printing and electronic forms - but I could be wrong about that.
When I compared Nathan Maxwell's LinkedIn profile, I was surprised - although hardly shocked - to realize that his first listed job was at Wilcox Electric in 1996 working on the company's computer servers.
Nathan left that position in 1997 to work at Western Auto for nearly three years in their information technology department where he ran some pretty intense systems.
By 1999, Communication Concepts, Inc was running strongly enough to support at least Nathan and Steven.
The real story is pretty darn cool - and nothing that needs to be hidden. Steven Maxwell used training through the military and college to provide for his family for 20 years and had the business acumen to start a fledgling business when his original career area hit a major recession. His son Nathan had the right experience in computers to land a series of solid jobs that gave him the experience to become an computer security expert in his own right.
The only problem is that "Preparing Sons..." sells a fantastic world that doesn't represent the actual way that the Maxwell Family has reached their well-earned success.
The real story is pretty darn cool - and nothing that needs to be hidden. Steven Maxwell used training through the military and college to provide for his family for 20 years and had the business acumen to start a fledgling business when his original career area hit a major recession. His son Nathan had the right experience in computers to land a series of solid jobs that gave him the experience to become an computer security expert in his own right.
The only problem is that "Preparing Sons..." sells a fantastic world that doesn't represent the actual way that the Maxwell Family has reached their well-earned success.
The fact that Nathan, in the 1990s, could land a job (or a few jobs) in computer tech without a degree is not too surprising. In the early '80s, while living in Boston (then the tech capital of the world), I worked steadily in the computer industry despite my lack of relevant education.
ReplyDeleteMy degrees, in Religious Studies, Archaeology, and Medieval languages were totally irrelevant to the work I did but my employers hired me (alongside some Egyptologists, and Mayan experts) because they 1) needed employees and 2) could safely assume that we could learn to code... (not too different from learning ancient languages).
By about 2005, the ability to advance or even get hired in the industry without relevant degrees was much diminished. But those who had already worked in the industry, continued to be employed based on their years of relevant experience.
So while Nathan managed through parental connections and timing to garner work in the tech industry, it would be much more difficult for young people now to follow that path....
I was planning on talking about the educational curve in science/tech in a later post; I'm glad your experience matches what I remember. There's a short period at the front end of most new technologies where people can get into the field without a college degree - but that window is usually around 15 years or less. Rather depressingly the Maxwell sons themselves seem to show that. Nathan seems to have a healthy computer security business. John (I think) branched off into agricultural design but his business model seems highly flawed. (He is, however, going to marry the daughter of a farmer on 12/30 so that could improve his clientele.) Christopher and Joseph both seem to be trying to start businesses offering web page design services to local businesses which was groundbreaking in the early 2000 but not so much now.
DeleteThere tends to be a lag where the colleges aren't teaching it anyway because none of the professors know how yet. So not only is formal education not required it's often not available. Once it is businesses stop the expensive on the job training and just hire people who already know how to use the technology.
DeleteThat is true - in part too because the colleges can't afford to hire professors or offer classes on every new craze until there's enough student demand for the class. Even if an existing professor wants to run a class on a subject area, there is an insane amount of prep simply letting interested students know about the offering because the easiest class to run is usually something like BIO 345 - Special Interest Class which will attract no students if it is simply listed in the course offerings for next year. No, professors have to drum up students from the students they know already and make up flyers. If a class is going to be a permanent offering, there are even more steps involving way more levels of people and paperwork involved.
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