It’s Jim White, of course.  Southern California native – grew up in Redondo Beach, lived in Hermosa Beach and Santa Monica, but transplanted 35 years ago to the Silver Lake/Echo Park area of Los Angeles. I love it here, in spite of the fact that Forbes magazine named Silver Lake “the Hippest Place in America.”  It’s gotten beyond hip and trendy.

I’ve spent most of my life (the last 42 years) working at Southern California Edison as an I.T. geek.  For those who understand the lingo, I’m a Mainframe System Programmer – my specialty is CICS but also pretty good with DB2, MQ and z/OS.  For those who don’t understand the lingo, I’m a glorified computer programmer.  Most of my value at this point is that I’ve been there so long I know how all the ancient parts and pieces are hung together.  Probably going to really retire (I took an early retirement offer 17 years ago and have been contracting back as a consultant, doing exactly what I was doing before) within the next 6 months or so – I’m about done with it all.

The other thing that takes a significant amount of my time is the Episcopal Church.  I’ve been a member of All Saints Church in Pasadena for nearly 30 years.  And I’m also involved with Holy Spirit Silver Lake, an “emergent church” experiment that a small group of us started eight years ago (we think). Also very involved with the Diocese of Los Angeles – I’m a co-chair of the Commission on Ministry (the group that makes recommendations to the Bishop and oversees people in the process that leads to ordination as a priest or deacon).  Have also been a Deputy to General Convention (the Episcopal Church’s triennial gathering that is the governing body of the church) several times.

I’ll add more here as time goes on, but this is enough to get us started.