User:ConnarRice/sandbox

Joseph R "Joe" Sedlacko; (born February 7, 1995) is an  American young professional, skydiver and nap aficionado. He was raised in Grayslake, Illinois. Sedlacko attended the local grade schools and then attended Grayslake Central High School for 4 years before graduating apart of the class of 2013. Sedlacko chose to attend Bradley University starting in the fall of 2013. In May, 2017, Sedlacko graduated from Bradley University with his Bachelor's of Science degree in Marketing, with a concentration in Global Supply Chain Management, and a minor in Management and Leadership. Sedlacko is most well known for becoming the first person to correctly list the first 25,000 digits of pi and for his activisim in the chicagoland and central Illinois skydiving community.

Early life

Born and raised in Grayslake, Illinois, Sedlacko was the second child of parents Gary and Tari Sedlacko. His father is of Slovakian, Russian, Hungarian, and Austrian decent and his mother is English and German decent. Sedlacko is distantly related to Thomas Edison through his mother. He has one older brother, Chris, born in August 1991. His father is from Streator, Illinois and has 5 brothers who live across Illinois and one who lives in Montana. His mother has one brother who currently lives in Hollywood, California with his wife and daughter. Growing up, sports were a large part of the household and both sons played baseball, basketball, and tennis. Chris also played soccer while Joe wrestled throughout their younger years. The entire family are die hard Chicago sports fan, including the Chicago Cubs, Chicago Bulls, Chicago Bears, and the Chicago Blackhawks. During high school, Sedlacko was on the tennis team for all four years and wrestled freshman year until a broken ankle made him give up the sport. Sedlacko chose to attend Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois after graduation, where his older brother also attended.

College Years

Sedlacko chose to study marketing with a specialization in Global Supply Chain while at Bradley. His grades were average his first 4 semesters and then increased during his junior year. His improvement academically helped him acquire an internship in the summer between his junior and senior year. During his first semester, Sedlacko pledged the fraternity Phi Kappa Tau and became initiated in December of 2013. Sedlacko soon realized he was poor and went out and got a job through the Alumni Association. Spring semester 2014, he began calling alumni of the university trying to secure donations for the school. Sedlacko became a top caller and was in his 3rd semester, was promoted to a team leader and managed a team of 8 callers. In his first semester as a team leader, Sedlacko's team came in second place but came back stronger in the spring semester and won the top spot with a clear lead. Starting his sophomore year, Sedlacko also worked at Bradley University's student recreation center as a rock wall supervisor.

After Graduation

After graduating from school, Sedlacko quickly joined the workforce and began working on moving out from his parents house. After a year of living at home and saving money, he was able to move into a house with some friends in Hoffman Estates, IL. After a year of living there, Sedlacko realized he wanted to move to Chicago and soon moved into an apartment in the Wicker Park neighborhood with some friends. Sedlacko spends his time between work, doing activities with friends, hinge dates, and enjoying the local Chicago Sports teams.

Skydiving

Sedlacko had always wanted to go skydiving since he was a child. His parents said they would never allow him to go but Sedlacko was not easily persuaded. He knew he wanted to go but his parents didn't really believe he would do it. He asked around if anyone wanted to go and his cousins agreed right away. He tried to bring his brother along as well, but Chris did not want to go. The plan was to not tell anyone that they were going and just show everyone the video after it was done. He was picked up by his cousins in July 2013 and they set off to go but the weather was not on their side that day. They had to reschedule their jump for 3 weeks later. When the day did come, they chose to be the first group to go in the morning so that they had the best chance of going. He was picked up from a friends house at 6 in the morning so his parents did not grow suspicious. The tandem jump went great and Sedlacko was hooked. During his fall break of freshman year, he went on another tandem with friend from his pledge class. They both wanted to become licensed skydivers after that. Sedlacko set out to become a licensed skydiver. His two jobs at school helped him save a lot of money and by the summer of 2015, he could afford it. He began ground school in early July 2nd at Skydive Midwest in Racine, Wisconsin. Sedlacko had some trouble during the first few lessons but soon became quite talented and completed the training within three weeks.