Guest of Honor: John Burch

A paragon of virtue and exemplary example of masculinity, the truly spectacular being known to this world as John Burch has lived in the Chicago suburbs for his entire life. His storied journey has taken him from chopping firewood to designing power supplies to teaching to fabrication. The majority of his career was spent in the manufacturing sector but after a decade of crossing the globe to resolve the world's problems (in so far as they relate to CNC manufacturing), he has finally settled down as a technician and fabricator at a prominent national physics laboratory. He designs, builds, repairs, programs, and kludges his way towards expanding the foundational knowledge of the universe and, when he is not thus occupied, he writes science fiction and posts it to the internet under a nom de plume. Truly, he is the greatest of us, the most humble, and definitely didn't write this bio himself.

Huh. Don’t know where that came from. Anyway, John Burch started out like many of us do, going to college and managing odd jobs, then using that knowledge and experience to move on to something bigger and better. His first real big boy job was repairing manufacturing equipment; routers, plasma cutters, knife machines, waterjets-

And lasers. Don’t forget the lasers.

Who is that? Stop interrupting.

...

Anyway, after that he moved on to working at a tool and die shop, then became a travelling engineer and technician for another CNC company. Much of his work involved commissioning custom systems and one-off machines. When he wasn’t doing that, he was sent around the world to train customers and help optimize their manufacturing processes.

…nothing? Huh. Kinda expected another interruption. He eventually left industry to-

You forgot the writing.

Oh. Yeah. He did a lot of creative writing and went to college for that instead of something useful.

You’re being uncharitable.

Well, you keep interrupting. Anyway, he eventually found himself working for a large national physics lab where he has found his true calling in implementing the plans of the scientists and researchers. They come to him with an issue or idea and he designs, machines, 3D prints, and otherwise builds a solution that allows the project to go forward.

Before getting dragged on to the next one.

Hey, it beats spending ninety percent of your time driving or at the airport. Oh, and he still writes, but does a lot more now. In the last four or five years he’s pumped out more words than The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Simarillion combined. It’s become kind of a problem.

I’d hardly call it a problem. He’s the voice of a generation.

Ugh.