Third in a series
Re “Assistant Super’s Career Almost Was an Accident”
The career bridge from accounting to education was shorter than other crossings he had made in his early life, said the new Assistant Superintendent of Business Services for the School District.
“After being an accountant for quite awhile,” Mike Reynolds said, “I worked my way up to corporate controller at a plastics corporation in Ontario, not far from where I had grown up in Mira Loma.
“One day in 1985, I saw a newspaper ad: Riverside County Office of Education wanted someone who knew a lot about computers and software. As the controller, in addition to the books, I was doing all the product-costing for the plastics business.
“You had the machine cycle time, the labor, the packaging, the plastic bottles. That led me into writing data bases. We used those to do the quotes for the products instead of having to do them manually.”
An inquisitive expression dashed across Mr. Reynolds’s friendly face.
“Have you ever had a premonition, like, ‘That is the job for me’?,” he asked.
“I did this time. By gosh, I went down and interviewed.
“One of the things I felt confident about when I was working on my BA and started on my Master’s – I took a lot of classes both in undergrad and grad – was childhood education.
A New Door Flings Open
“When I saw this job, I thought ‘Wow. This is a chance to take my data base information and go to work in education.’
“I had taken a number of organizational theory classes, too. I once had a Prof. Rogers who assigned me a paper, and here again, maybe there was a Higher Power involved. My topic was Integrating New Technology into Existing Organizations. I did a lot of research in this management psychology class.
“When I went to interview at the Riverside County Office of Education, with all of the research I had done on integrating technology and the early childhood development and education theory I had done, the answers just flew out of my mouth,” Mr. Reynolds said.
He stayed for three years.
As the owner of a superior sized bundle of energy and a matching wagon load of curiosity, neighboring school districts began taking notice of his outsized gifts.
Soon, the trail led to the next plateau in Mr. Reynolds’s career journey.
(To be continued)
