User:Danmaywiki/sandbox

'Michael Edward “Mike” Mayfield' (born August 18, 1953) is an experienced software architect, author, columnist, assistant professor, technical speaker and one of the entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Mike is the president and chief executive officer of Northwest Digital Software, a software design firm that has developed multiple commercial software products.

Notable development products have spanned his career, beginning with the first ever Star Trek video game. His most recent large development project has been the introduction of Droid TV, which currently has 100,000+ customers. During his career, he has also led multiple projects for the Microsoft Corporation, such as the Microsoft Home. This Display Home showcased the new technology being developed for home automation.

His company, Northwest Digital Software, formed 1979, has contracted to an extensive list of elite clients, to include: Microsoft, Times Publishing, Ford Motor Corporation, British Aerospace, Ronald Reagan (President of the United States), US House of Representatives, US Air Force, US Navy, Taj Mahal and The United Nations.

Early life
Michael Edward Mayfield was born at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas, to William Edward Mayfield and Rheta Jean Neu Mayfield, the oldest of five children. His father worked for GAF and was transferred from coast to coast as he was promoted, so the Mayfield family changed homes every summer when Michael was a child. The family finally settled in Southern California in the late 60s, where he met his high-school sweetheart, Barbara Jeanne Potter, as sophomores at Villa Park High School. They were engaged before they graduated in June 1971, and they married a year later, on September 2, 1972.

Mayfield attended college in Southern California, starting with classes at Cal State Fullerton while he was still a high school senior. He then transferred to Santa Ana Community College, where his life-long career in Computer Science was born. After a year of preliminary study at SACC, Mayfield was accepted into the Computer Science program at the University of California, Irvine. He graduated cum laude with his Bachelor of Science degree in 1975. Following graduation, Mayfield took a position at industry-leader Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in El Segundo, California. He moved rapidly up the ladder, leap-frogging over older, more experienced programmers, but he eventually left DEC for a smaller company, Data Processing Design (DPD), in 1977, where he led a team that developed an industry-standard word-processing program, WORD-11, that is still in use on DEC computers today. In 1978, he started his own company, Northwest Digital Software, Inc., which he moved from California to Washington the following year.

Marriage and children
In 1979, Mayfield and his wife moved from Southern California to Eastern Washington, where they built a home and started a family. In June 1981, their first son, Daniel, was born. In October 1982, their second son, Andrew, joined the family. From the beginning, Mayfield was the epitome of an involved father, serving as a classroom parent at the grade school, treasurer for the local Cub Scout Pack 696, and teaching summer school classes. He coached Little League and Youth Soccer, and he and his wife served as chaperones at school dances (where they got scolded for dancing too close).

Mike has been an avid scuba-diver since his teen years, completing master diver classes, and has photographed reefs along the California coast, Hawaii’s Big Island and many Caribbean locations. In 1997 he convinced his wife to join him in diving and they’ve been a diving team ever since, making land-based dive trips or live-aboard trips around the world several times a year.

Community Work
Mike has been a true pillar of the community for his small town of Newport, Washington. He has taught at the schools, provided assistance to local government officials, Habitat for Humanity, and their local Mennonite church, as well as many others.

He has been instrumental in the technological development of his community. He helped to introduce Newport's first Internet Service Provider, Pend Oreille Valley Network in 1996, bringing the internet to this small country town. This provider has continued to evolved with his support, recently adding fiber internet lines to all ares of this remote community.