Kevin Merrell

Hello all! I have had quite the wild ride since May 1991. I'll try to not bore you with the details.

Like many from our graduating class, I spent two years as an LDS missionary and then attended BYU. I crammed 5 years worth of undergrad courses into 4 and escaped the zoo with a bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering. My biggest accomplishment at BYU was being the president of the first student chapter of the Society of Automotive Engineers ever organzied at that school. My friends and I participated in the SAE Mini-Baja challenge in 1997-8, and placed second. Not bad when we were going up against dozens of other schools that had many years of experience behind them.

After BYU I headed to the Midwest to try and get a job within the automotive industry. I did this via going to graduate school at Ohio State University. After 6 months of living in that illustrious state I came to my senses and realized that I would rather stab myself in the face with a dull butter knife every morning than live in the Midwest for the rest of my life. So, in a caffeine-fueled frenzy, I finished all coursework and my thesis in a year and half and left OSU with my Masters in Mechanical Engineering.

I left Ohio and headed out west in July 2000. I ended up in the Los Angeles area working in the aerospace industry for Boeing. I spent five years at Boeing between their facilities in El Segundo and Huntington Beach. I worked on the Space Shuttle program for a while assisting the team that was investigating the Columbia disaster in 2003. Aside from that I worked on communications satellites and the Delta IV rocket. Boeing was also kind enough to pay for me to get my MBA. Thanks guys!

In 2005, under threat of a forced relocation to Denver, I told Boeing to shove it and I went to work for another local aerospace company, Raytheon. I've been with Raytheon ever since then, working as a Mechanical Systems Engineer on radar systems.

During all of this time a lot of major things changed in my life. Probably the most significant event was when I came out of the closet and met the man of my dreams. Boy, oh boy, did that throw my family for a loop. It took a while, but they are pretty cool with it now. They have to be, because my husband is the best son in-law (or daughter in-law for that matter) that they have. The others are pretty lame-o. In fact, now my parents come down to So Cal every year to stay with us for a week and go to Disneyland.

Anyway, my husband's name is Derrick, and we have been together for just over three years now. The honeymoon is over, and now it's just awesome. He's a financial auditor, working for PricewaterhouseCooper.

At some point along this path I picked up an excessive need to travel. It all started when a friend invited me to go to Peru with her to see Machu Picchu. I had always wanted to start traveling internationally and I had always wanted to see Machu Picchu, so I said yes. Wow, what an amazing experience! I was hooked with traveling. Since then I've been to Ireland, the UK (several trips to England, Wales and Scotland), Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Australia and New Zealand. This year in June we are heading to Switzerland and Southern Germany. I'm super stoked for that. We've also done a fair amount of traveling around the U.S. to places we haven't seen before, such as Hawaii, Austin, Miami/Orlando, and NYC.

We've done a lot of volunteer work with local GLBT organizations. One of my favorite things to do is work with college-aged GLBT kids who are getting ready to transition into the full-time workforce and advise them on life in the workplace as an out, gay individual. We're also hoping that within the next few years we can have greater flexibility in our jobs so that we can become foster parents for homeless gay youth. Keep your fingers crossed for us on that one. There are an alarming amount of gay teenagers out there who get kicked out of their homes when their parents find out they are gay. We want to be able to help provide kids like that with a welcoming place to live.

There's plenty more to tell you about ... but I'll wait until the reunion so that we have something to chat about over dinner.

P.S. I promise to return and post a few pictures on here. I don't have any on my work computer. Gah!