Biography

My Story
The whole story has started a hot and humid summer day in Istanbul / Turkey. Before I know anything I have found myself at primary school. We were in the East of Turkey then and have never seen so much snow in my entire life then I did in that city called Agri. Since my dad was a army man, we have traveled to different places almost every three years. I can say one thing; I had a very interesting childhood, met many different people, made new friends and seen different places. After the East, South and West, there I was at high school trying to understand the life and study hard to get in the college. I have to admit, my high school years were a little dull tanks to the city where we lived called Izmit. This highly industrialized city is located 100km east of Istanbul.
	After graduating from Izmit High School, I went to Ankara, the capital of Turkey, to study business at Hacettepe University.
	That four years of college has taught me so much, I have turned into a totally different person. Living far away from my parents, meeting many more people and making very sincere friends were the best education that I could get besides the classes. Those years were difficult in a sense because I had a very low life standard, always trying to make most of my limited money. However the fun that I had with my friends was priceless.
After graduation, thanks to my parents sacrifice, I had a chance to go to the US to study even more. March 1993, I was at Tennessee, signed on the University of Tennessee's English course. I lived there with my very close two friends until I gained the acceptance to MBA program at UT Chattanooga in May 1994. It took two years to complete the program and I graduated in August 1996. As soon as I graduated, I had to go back to Turkey to serve in the Army which is mandatory. Probably, I would pass it if it were optional. So, I have found myself wearing camouflages in December'96, going through the basic military training. After 4 months of walking 3 miles in the snow, doing area cleaning everyday, running even under the rain and firing rifles occasionally, I was sent to Cyprus to become a lieutenant. For a year I went though extreme heat, a lot of stressful time, sleepless night watches and mind abusing nonsense. Even though I have learned many things such as team work, discipline and managing people, I realized that I am not an army man. I can take orders but I need to know the reason and I respect hierarchy but value democracy.
March 1998, I came back to Istanbul and started looking for jobs. It was not an easy task, because Turkey was deeply affected by the Asian melt down and Russian financial crisis. Luckily, I have started working at a textile company called Aydin Textile as the assistant manager of one of the owners on 07 July 1998. More than a year past by handling the raw material imports, negotiating with Koreans, Indians and Taiwanese to get the cheapest good quality polyester yarn. I was also involved in the new textile machinery purchasing project that would increase the fabric production almost %80. In this process, I have dealt with Germans, Austrians and Italians to gather information about the machines, bargain for the prices and determine the conditions.
	Mean time I was also preparing for a wedding too. I met this stunning girl in Knoxville, TN in 1993, and set my mind to her. We have started dating January 1995 and even though I left the US and went to Turkey for the military service, we have maintained our contact. After the service we got engaged on December 1998 and got married on September 17 1999 in Istanbul, Turkey and again October 9 1999 in Santa Cruz Brazil.
Starting from Fall 1999, I moved to export department and became the regional manager for European market. Dealing with accounts and being involved with the production to meet the shipment dead-lines were the most fun of this period. I have to admit I enjoyed the challenge in convincing the customers to buy and motivating the production people to produce on time which seldom happened. In this loosely structured organization, personal relations and motivational skills were very handy to get the job done. Marcia started working as an consulted to her American company called WatchMark in Istanbul as I continued working at Aydin Textile. The economy in Turkey has gone bad to worst and after 2 years of work, I found myself laid off as Aydin Textile kept downsizing its workforce to half. Very depressing job market and Marcia's finishing contract with her company forced us to consider other options. Luckily, there was an opportunity at her company in Dallas / TX office and we jumped on it. Now, since February 18, 2001, we have been living in Dallas, TX. I am attending to a graduate program of MS in Management and Administrative Science concentrated in e-commerce at University of Texas at Dallas. In this program I am closing the technological knowledge gap and gaining of better understanding of the new-economy (if there is any left). Graduation was May 10, 2003. After all kinds of unexpected developments I am back to UTD. Now, I am in Information Technology Management program at UTD and expected graduation is May 2004. Mean time a huge change happened in our lives: we had a baby boy in December 2003. We named him Aidan Derin which was done on the way to hospital. He was born pre-mature but he is doing great, growing and gaining weight. He sure brought joy to our life.
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