Mark NollSenior Systems Analyst
Funny, isn't it, how some people thrive on change while others find it so difficult? Or how some people can transition so easily from one phase in life to another while others don't? Guess you could say Mark Noll is an adapter. He's lived just about everywhere and has seen just about everything, but now he's happy to have made PLU a focal point in his life for nearly two decades now.
Mark lived the first half of his life with frequent change, especially geographic. His father was in the Marine Corps, so they moved often and usually far. He lived in San Diego three times, also Virginia twice. East Coast. Seattle. Then finally his father retired to Salt Lake City just in time for Mark to attend all of high school in one place. And just in time to make a connection with PLU.
First of all, Mark wanted a college that wasn't in Utah. Beyond this he wanted one that's church-affiliated (he grew up Presbyterian), relatively small, and in the Northwest. Finally, he wanted a school with a strong computer science program. All of which made his connection with PLU at a college fair in high school a match made in heaven. Literally.
Little did he know, though, that a whole lot more stability awaited him. Mark knew Theresa, who grew up in Portland, while they were undergrads here, but they didn't get serious until a mutual friend brought them together after they had both graduated from PLU, Mark in '86 and Theresa in '88. They were married in 1991. Since then, Teresa has acquired a master's degree in education, taught in several schools, and now works for the Tacoma Community House, teaching English as a second language for the Immigrant and Refugee Family Program.
Together they have a seven-year-old daughter, Katelin (whose stubborn streak of course comes from her Mom rather than her Dad).
Mark has been a systems analyst with the Administrative Computing group in Information Resources for several years now, but this too is a period of recent stability built on an earlier phase of frequent change. He first acquired interest in computing while in high school, batch processing programs on a Radio Shack computer with a cassette tape drive. The technology field has changed so much since then, yet his basic approach to it - and to life generally, for that matter - has not changed much. "When I find something good," he muses, "I like to stick with it and work to make it better."
Words to live by. That seems to work for his marriage and family, his approach to his job, and even his 10-year-old house. Maybe compensation for all the change he grew up with? Perhaps. But whatever the dynamic, clearly he's an adapter, a contributer, and a builder. And PLU is all the better for it.