Let’s see…where to begin – that’s always a tough decision. First, I think it would be helpful to clear something up: my name. The spelling is German, and, although I look German (tall, blond hair, blue eyes, etc.), my ancestors immigrated to the US quite a while back. My parents liked the name but wanted to switch it up a little, so I ended up with the H. It sounds cool when authentic German speakers pronounce it as they would in their native language. The English pronunciation is no different than that of the names Eric or Erik or Erick. Many of my friends and a few coworkers call me either “e-rich” or “air-rich” because of the spelling. My last name sounds just like ‘music’; the k is not pronounced, nor does it change the pronunciation of the name even a little bit.

I was born in a Chicago suburb hospital on December 31, 1984 and spent my childhood in West Chicago, a suburb about 30 miles west of the big city. In May 2007, I graduated from MSOE (Milwaukee School of Engineering) with a B.S in Software Engineering. After graduating, I stuck around in the Milwaukee area and accepted a position with FIS (formerly Metavante) as a software developer with the Electronic Payment and Presentment (Online Bill Payment) team. While at MSOE, I also picked up a German Studies Minor and consequently have somewhat of an interest in the language and the country. I’ve traveled to Germany twice and would love to visit again. More recently, I moved to Seattle to pursue a career with Microsoft, where I’m working on the Exchange team.

As for interests … First and foremost, Jesus – He’s the greatest and I owe it all to Him. I honestly could not tell you what my life would be like without Him – I’ve grown up all my life learning about Him and getting to know Him, so I really don’t know what it would be like without Him, just that it wouldn’t be cool. Second: my wife. I got married nearly four years ago and am enjoying married life, good home cooked meals, etc. I’m also really into computers, especially the programming aspect (C#, Java, PHP, SQL, HTML, JS, CSS, CGI/perl, C++, etc.). My first personal web site went live on March 3, 1997. The majority of my experience has been closely related to front-end development, though I’ve worked extensively with SOAP web services. I’d love to spend more time making sites look all snazzy, but I don’t have the artistic flair required to do that sort of work full time. So, I’m working as a web application software engineer, which satisfies my need for front-end work. Back in the day (high school), I wrote a guestbook, a news manager, a counter, a content management system, and an online gradebook and had a little web design company I called MusickNetworks. Now that I’m working full time, I’m trying my best to keep my part time web development work to a minimum.

I also come from a “high-energy” family – sports are in my genes, even though I’m not that great at most of them. My senior year of high school, I ran cross country for the first time. Through college and afterward, I’ve continued to run but you’re more likely to find me playing ultimate frisbee or volleyball.

Well that’s about all I can think of right now – if you want some more info, contact me or read my testimony, my resume, or one of these essays I wrote about myself at some point while growing up: Transformation, My Dad and Me.