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BJ Winters
Born in Fort Worth, Texas, raised in a rural suburb with the comfort and security of a working dad and stay-at-home mom, Ken always knew who he was and where he was going. Growing up in a relativel...view moreBorn in Fort Worth, Texas, raised in a rural suburb with the comfort and security of a working dad and stay-at-home mom, Ken always knew who he was and where he was going. Growing up in a relatively big house at the top of the hill, “Kenny” walked to school on sunny days, took piano lessons on Wednesdays and played outside after his homework and piano practice were done. Most nights, after dinner, he and his little sister would spend some time “watching the lights” from the wonderful view from the front porch.
Most of the lots along his side of the street were two or more acres each, which provided plenty of extra space for things like a three-level tree house complete with a “crows next” high above the main levels and behind the over-sized, two-car garage, a special room for his “laboratory” and “radio shack”. His mother seemed oblivious to some of his less-than-safe adventures and his father encouraged his insatiable appetite for mechanical and technical projects. As a teenager, he build a corral for his beloved Palomino horse out of 8-foot railroad crossties and an underground bunker complete with fire pit and chimney.
Despite the dangers of falling out of a 50-foot-high tree house, electrocuting himself playing with electricity, experimenting with chemistry making rocket fuel and nitroglycerin and suffocating from smoke inhalation or cave-ins, Kenny somehow survived his adolescent years and over time he came to realize that despite his mother’s seeming nonchalant ignorance of his adventures, she always knew exactly where his was and what he was doing. This was to prove later to be an important factor in forming his character.
The other side of Ken’s character was formed by his father’s strong-silent-type persona. J.E.”Dutch” Winters was one of the best-known and most-respected members of the Texas Judicial System. Ken’s dad was a civil law attorney, later a prosecutor for the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office and finally a Criminal District Court Judge. And although fascinated and keenly interested in his father’s work, Ken’s own career interests favored science and engineering. He attended Arlington State College until it became the University of Texas at Arlington. There, Ken learned “outside the box” as he participated in the Vaqueros Rodeo Club, discovered he could earn college credits bowling and was graduated with more than the basics of his formal curriculum.
It was his diversified interests across several disciplines that drove Ken’s success over his 30-year career in the computer business. Ken spent a couple years as a research technician working with lasers and holography in the early 1960’s. He earned a U.S. Patent and prided himself on being “The first person to ever brand cattle, peel potatoes and pop popcorn using a laser.” He participated in the official opening of the final section of the LBJ Freeway loop around Dallas by setting up and executing a ribbon-cutting ceremony using a high-powered laser to cut the ribbon.
The publicity and notoriety of getting his name and photograph published in the Dallas Times Herald was only the beginning. He later authored three magazine articles, published two books and was interviewed by all three national network television affiliates for his knowledge in communications and computers.
Ken always had a passion for writing and his favorite part of his job as a computer systems consultant was writing proposals, operating manuals and other such technical documentation. He always took great pride in making highly technical information easy to read and understand by the layman, so, it was no great leap for Ken to step into the world of writing fiction. His broad background across many different areas gives him a Tom Clancy-like style that lends realism to his stories.view less