I have been many places and done many things in my life. On this page, I'll try to summarize them and give you links to places you can go for more. I first created this page in 1995 as an early experiment in web page development. As such, there is nothing terribly fancy on this page or any others that I maintain. I've always believed that pages should load fast and be informative.
I work as a consultant to healthcare organizations as an expert in business intelligence, with a focus on clients who use software from Epic Systems Corporation. This is largely an extension of work I did when I worked at Epic and I've been doing work like this for the past twenty-one years.. The work is fulfilling, I'm good at it, and it pays well. Before the Pandemic, I traveled a lot for work. I have always loved travel, but during the Lockdown, I grew to appreciate how much easier it was to work remotely and grew to enjoy that more.
I enjoy dining out and have a particular fondness for sushi, cheese, and beer. My tastes tend to fluctuate, but these days I'm enjoying salmon, aged Swiss, and stouts infused with chilis. I'm a verocious consumer of Young Adult literature and maintain a BLOG with reviews of the books I have read.
I'm always been a collector and enjoy acquiring and cataloging the things I collect. For the past thirty years, I've focused on antique photographs of people. I'm particularly interested in what the British call "social history" (basically, pictures of people doing things) and also pictures of interesting clothing. My collection is immense but honestly is focused more on quantity than quality.
In addition to collecting old photographs, I take a certain number of my own. Without children to put through college, I have a decent amount of disposible income to expend on world travel. In the past few years, we've been to Alaska, Gallapagos, Baja California, Yellowstone Park, the Netherlands, the Scottish Highlands, Costa Rica, Botswana, and the Falkland Islands. The more remote, the better. And I've enjoyed documenting these far away places and theire more exotic inhabitants.
I've managed to live the past twenty-nine years in Wisconsin, so I suppose I consider this to be home. I'm married to a very understanding wife and we have a pair of lively of lively fur babies named Barlow and Bellamy.
Spiritually, I am a Quaker (but was initially raised as a Unitarian). I don't always live up to the lofty ideals of the original Quakers and find Simplicity to be a great challenge. However, I do strongly believe in giving back and I make a point of tithing to various charities and causes I believe in.
I've gone through many changes in my life. If you had told me in High School that I would be a jet-set consultant, I'd never have been able to picture it. Yet, I have found that plans really do change and it is never too late to start a second (or a third) career. Interests and hobbies change as well, and the ability to acquire new ones (and let go of the ones that no longer inspire you) is a mark of a cultured person. So, here is a brief history.
I used to teach political science at the University of Wisconsin -- Platteville. I received my PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Russian Politics and Political Philosophy. As an undergraduate, I attended Simon's Rock College and got my A.B. from Vassar College. I published a book called Pornography and Democratization: The Case of Legislating Obscenity in Post-Communist Russia with Westview Press in 1999 and I have published several articles on that subject (as well as giving several talks at various universities and institutes).
I eventually gave up on academia. The next step after leaving teaching was to get a job as a project manager with Epic Systems Corporation. After three years at Epic, I moved on to consulting. The subsequent years have found me shifting employers several times and far more often switching clients. At this point, I've worked with around 38 different heathcare organizations across the United States, ranging in size from the very small to some of the largest in the world.
The dominant hobby of my earlier life was medieval reenactment. I was a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) for nearly three decades. In that time, I've done all sorts of things, including heraldry, embroidery, and crossbow shooting. I've held a variety of offices ranging from Hospitaller to Seneschal. About twenty-five years ago, I founded an organization called the Slavic Interest Group, which promotes amateur research into medieval life in Eastern and Central Europe. My single largest contribution to the SCA (and probably my life's most important work) is my Dictionary of Period Russian Names. Between it and my archive of related articles, I'm still considered the "expert" on medieval Russian onomastics for the SCA, even though I am retired. In the SCA, I am known as Paul Wickenden of Thanet, a Anglo-Norman noble residing in my ancestral abode on the Isle of Thanet in the early-mid 13th century.
Drop me a note (paul@goldschp.net) if you want.
This page last updated on May 12, 2024
