My story on my entry into I.T. is a bit backwards. I was a naive boy when I moved to the U.S. from Germany (Navy Brat) and got a job working with a Metals Company. We sold Aluminum, Stainless, and other metals to machine shops, military, and contractors. Great stories while there and it was neat to work with some cool customers. Quick aside: received commendation for logistics support for a military base just prior to the 1st Desert Storm. I handled the logistics coordination for the aluminum that went on all the armored vehicles that used rakes for the mines they cleared. Anyway, back to I.T. After working in sales, purchasing, and management, it became clear to me this was an old boy's network and upward mobility was just too far off for me. As a young, headstrong person, I didn't want to wait till I was 50 to make VP, so I had a friend that was part owner of an IT company that wanted to grow, so I moved over there for sales.
I had played with DOS and like technology so I made the jump. My only requirement when I made this move was that I wanted to learn from the ground up. Well, the first week had me building 30 workstations to hook up to NetWare 3.12. For the first two years, I was given all the crap stuff until I started taking on more sales stuff. Eventually took over sales full time and eventually was promoted to VP, but during the whole time I played with stuff in the office and developed a tight relationship with the Engineers. I listened really well and had them teach me a ton of stuff. To be honest, I ended up taking on tech support, sales, project management, and politics. I was a bit fed up with the latter and resigned so I could go back to school.
After 3 months of going to school full-time and gauging my workload, I put out feelers to executives looking for some part-time work. One company called me in so I could help them with their business processes. They were growing like crazy, and about a month later was asked to come work full-time as VP. In addition to running IT, I also handled 3 other departments. Fast forward to today, after a massive layoff there and a 3 year stint of running an IT company part-time with two others, I now work here at the Engineering company.
While I made VP twice before I was 50 (remember the headstrong boy at the metal company), I really now enjoy just working and playing with technology. I've built/replaced tons of servers and PCs, am migrating Exchange at the moment, and just am in love with virtual technologies. I'm in a good place right now. 
