Introduction of Billiam

I am not sure exactly how to open up a blog for a first post, but I will start off with an introduction.

Web browser, meet me.

I have traveled across the country, across the ocean and lived in places in between. I was born in Spencer, Iowa, but my early childhood was shaped in Japan as part of a military family. At just eight weeks old, I moved to Yokota Air Base (just outside of Tokyo) and stayed there for five years. After that, my dad was transferred to Dover, where I began my educational career in kindergarten.

Less than two years later, my father was again transferred back to Yokota. As much as I don't remember about my first trip to Japan, my second experience in the country was very memorable. For the next four-plus years, Japan came to life for me. I am sure things have changed in the 30 years since I left in 1980. But what a marvelous time I had.

I experienced many of the same things kids in the States did in the 1970s. I was in the Cub Scouts. I was in several bowling leagues. I went to an American school.

But I had the opportunity to do many other things while living in Japan. I got to know the Japanese culture, visited many of the country's landmarks and learned at an early age that people can be different and that is not all bad. I learned at a young age to accept people as who they are.

People are in disbelief when I tell them I was a child star in Japan. My blond hair and blue eyes helped me land several child modeling gigs touting anything from clothing to Honda motor scooters to a product called Gum Pach (pop rocks that turned into bubble gum).

For the life of me, I can't remember her name, but I was able to work with the top Japanese actress in 1979 as part of a calendar for Honda motor scooters. I also appeared on television commercials promoting Gum Pach in which I portrayed Spanky from the Little Rascals (Our Gang) television series.

In 1980, at the height of my modeling career, my father was transferred to Tacoma, Wash. At first, I didn't want to go as I was having a lot of fun in my first career. Plus, Mount St. Helens had just erupted months earlier and it was something of an unknown. I had lived almost 10 of my first 11 years in Japan.

However, I quickly came to love the Pacific Northwest. The scenery was great and it reminded me of the Japanese mountains. Yes, it rains a lot. But you learn to accept it.

I made many friends along the way at Heartwood Elementary, Woodbrook Junior High and Clover Park High School. Unfortunately, over time, I have lost contact with those early friends. Thankfully, I have been able to reunite with three of my best friends over the last year. That in itself probably deserves its own blog down the road.

After high school, I wanted to attend college where I was not a number and could get a personalized education. Growing up, I did not have a chance to know my grandparents who lived in Iowa. Well, I was able to solve both issues by going to Buena Vista College in Storm Lake, Iowa. The school had an enrollment of under 1,000, and it was located just 17 miles from my grandparents.

I really learned a lot while in Iowa. I truly grew as an individual, both from the books and just life experiences. I got to know part of my family heritage, made new friends while often times being an outsider to many, changed majors three times (computer science to secondary education to mass communications/public relations), employed in various media formats and finally graduated in 1991.

After graduation, I worked as the associate editor (nice title to mean sports editor and circulation manager) for the Storm Lake Times for just under a year. After the paper released me due to budget cuts (yes, newspaper experienced that back then), I went back to college to work on my master's degree at West Texas A&M University. Concurrently, I was working as a graduate assistant in the school's sports information office working 40-plus hours and going to school full-time. Anyway, I got my master's degree in communications in two years and was named the full-time sports information director even before I had my diploma in 1994.

I wrapped up my eighth year at West Texas A&M in 2000 under tremendous burnout. I was working 60-80 hours a week for peanuts of a salary and little respect on the job. Along the way, I did earn awards for the work, but it went virtually unnoticed on campus. I started to question if that was the direction I wanted my life to take. If not for some very good friends, a couple on campus and several not related to work, life would have been unbearable. I regret that I have not been back to Amarillo/Canyon as often as I would like to catch up in person.

I finally made the change in July 2000 and moved to Colorado Springs, where I accepted a position with the American Volleyball Coaches Association. In that position, I worked primarily with collegiate volleyball programs promoting the game at a national level, overseeing the awards program, compiling and distributing the recognized national poll, etc. By 2004, I was promoted to the senior director of communications, awards and technology.

The run at the AVCA ended somewhat abruptly in 2006 as the organization moved to Kentucky and I did not want to move. I think God was looking over me at that time, though. A position came open at USA Volleyball a couple months before the AVCA moved, and I was able to simply change jobs without an interruption in paychecks. All I had to do was drive a little further to work - 4.7 miles versus 2.0 miles. However, that is a lot better than about 1,000 miles to Kentucky after I had just bought a house. Plus, my new friends were here and I had learned from past experience separating from friends is very difficult.

With USA Volleyball, I am the manager of media relations and publications. One of my main responsibilities is working as the press officer for the U.S. Women's National Volleyball Team. I traveled to Beijing for the 2008 Olympic Games in which the team earned the silver medal. While in Beijing, I also assisted in the media relations efforts for the U.S. Men's National Team which won the Olympic Games gold medal. It has been a blast working with our Olympic athletes.

I also work with our high performance pipeline players and teams that feed into the national team. These athletes are generally 12-18 years old.

Other key responsibilities on my plate are handling corporate media relations, assisting with publications, writing articles for our 250,000 copy quarterly magazine and our online newsletter.

With this job, it rekindles part of my childhood. I get to travel the country and the world, while learning about other cultures and people. It seems like I have settled down in Colorado Springs, but yet having the opportunity to explore this world at the same time.

Now that the introduction is over, enjoy the much shorter blog posts.