Patrick Murray started this blog so he could share his experiences and insights for those on the Autism Spectrum, and also for young people in general, regarding finding a career and acquiring the necessary hard skills to be sufficiently productive.
As someone who is on the Spectrum himself (Asperger’s: he was never officially diagnosed, but all the tell-tale signs are there!), he has experienced many pitfalls in finding meaningful work, but has enjoyed successes, too. One of his goals is to share advice with anyone who will listen about how to avoid some of his previous struggles.
His other goal ties in with part of his vision: to guide people towards earning marketable skills so as to help optimize America’s human capital. Murray believes that those on the Autism Spectrum represent a huge cache of human capital currently untapped. Helping such people acquire the necessary marketable skills will unleash that potential, and benefit the national economy in so doing.
Murray firmly believes that learning is a life-long process. To that end, he always seeks opportunities for growth at work, and has an insatiable curiosity about many things. An experienced educator, he has taught several business courses at a career college, as well as subjects including Geography, American History, American Government, Political Science, and Public Speaking.
While working in Louisville, Ky., he gave a few education seminars on Entomology (a life-long interest) to the docents of the Louisville Zoo. Such occasions were the perfect opportunities to showcase his extensive exotic insect collection. He has also collected minerals and fossils.
He attended Purdue University for his undergraduate studies, where he served as a student manager on the football team during the Drew Brees era, and has been a part of three bowl games (Alamo Bowl; Outback Bowl; Rose Bowl). He also has an MBA from the University of Louisville and an Associates of Applied Science in Mechanical Design from Ivy Tech Community College (the latter of which, he says, is “ironically” his most useful degree!).
An avid photographer, especially of nature, he has photographed insects from Massachusetts to California domestically and on three continents overall. During one epic trip, he photographed medieval cathedrals and insects in Germany, then later, exotic flowers and insects of the Western Cape Province in South Africa. On one occasion in early 2012, he photographed the 4-man bobsled world championship in Lake Placid, N.Y.
A previous job took him all over the country, where as an on-site project manager, he helped install conveyor sorter systems at FedEx Ground distribution centers. He remains deeply grateful for such experiences to this day.
A Louisville, Ky., native who grew up in rural southern Indiana, he now lives with his wife and special-needs toddler son in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, where he currently works in the engineering department for a sectional and rolling steel door manufacturer.
Come, let us learn and grow together!