Hi. My name is Jon Belden. I am a Post Bachelorette Computer Science Student at Oregon State University with an expected graduation date of June 2024.

My first degree was a bachelor’s degree was in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Idaho in 2001. After completing my ME degree I moved to Bremerton, Washington with my girlfriend (now wife) to begin my career at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard as a Nuclear Facilities Engineer. I have worked at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard as a civilian engineer since 2001. Much of the work I have been involved in revolves around designing temporary facilities to support the overhaul of submarines and aircraft carriers.

In 2005 I married that sweetheart that moved to Bremerton Washington with me, Storie, who was an elementary education teacher. In 2011 we welcomed our first child Megan and three years later we welcomed our second child Ryan into the world. Due to the cost of childcare and the pay for teachers at the time, Storie looked for a way to make a little extra money while staying home with the kids. She decided to post some of the material she created while being a teacher on a website designed to sell to teachers (https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Stories-By-Storie).

Over time, my wife started asking me to help her with small projects associated with her online business. Many of the projects were coding related and required knowledge of JavaScript (Word Search maker, Math Dice games, Spelling worksheets, etc..). I started relearning how to code and I discovered I really enjoyed it and found it rewarding. The thought that putting in 40 or 100 hours of my time upfront could save a user hundreds or thousands of hours of their time I find very rewarding.

Helping my wife in her online business eventually led me to enrolling in Oregon State online CS program. When I complete the program, I see myself having more time to dive back into working on things for her business. Probably the first of which will be working on redesigning her blog https://storiesbystorie.com/.