Gerard Garcia

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Gerard Garcia (born October 9, 1956) is an American living in Washington State. He is a former racing cyclist, engineer, and word farmer.

Gerard Garcia

Born:	9 October 1956 Tempe, Arizona, USA
Occupation(s):	word farmer, cycling aficionado, engineer
Nationality:	United States
Influences:	Eddy Merckx, Vincent Van Gogh, William Burroughs, Marsha Sinetar
Influenced:	To Be Determined

Garcia was born in Tempe, Arizona to Wilfred Garcia and Ruth Martinez. He was the seventh of seven children, consisting of four girls and three boys. His family moved to California when he was one year of age. He was raised in Garden Grove, California. He attended Saint Barbara's Catholic School in Santa Ana, California (where he was encouraged to write); and Bolsa Grande High School in Garden Grove, California. He also attended California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, California, where he graduated in the top 10 percent of his class with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering. (He did not attend Cal Tech or MIT, although he speaks irreverently about these places of education in his unpublished bitter social commentaries of modern day life.)

His distinguishing qualifications in mechanical design engineering and construction field support for industrial and commercial projects includes: nuclear facilities, clean rooms, laboratories, wastewater treatment plants; and manufacturing, chemical storage, and educational facilities. He is reliable and adaptable; learns new systems quickly, and takes initiative. He has excellent skills in team-building; staff selection, motivation, and training; resource planning, administration, and control. He is skilled at planning, budgeting, organizing, staffing, controlling, and managing complex projects. He has excellent communications skills and he is well versed in making effective design presentations.

He is currently the Bechtel National Incorporate manager for HVAC & Fire Protection at the Department of Energy Hanford Waste Immobilization and Treatment Plant (WTP) in Richland, Washington. In this position he is responsible for leading all aspects of the HVAC and Fire Protection design effort. He is also responsible for managing a mix of engineering and design professionals and providing oversight to multi-million dollar subcontracts.

His presence is stark, his closet is filled with mostly blue shirts, fundamentally minimalist, and, according to some interpretations, he is an understated achiever who is deeply optimistic. His optimism is balanced by a healthy dose of pessimism that is mitigated both by his sense of humor and irreverence, and by the sense, for some, that Garcia’s view of life's obstacles serve to demonstrate that the journey, while difficult, is ultimately worth the effort. Similarly, many posit that Garcia's expressed "pessimism" is not so much for the human condition but for that of an established cultural and societal structure which imposes its stultifying will upon otherwise hopeful individuals; it is the inherent optimism of the human condition, therefore, that is at tension with the oppressive world.

His writing often reflects a desire to break free from society's strictures and to find meaning in life. This search led him to experiment with automatic writing and the cut-up writing style of William Burroughs. His writings are counterculture and sometimes it is more like typing than writing, more like stream of consciousness, but he does not care because he believes his style is analogous to a fisherman casting a net trying to capture the meaning and precariousness of existence. He does not stop writing because he knows that sooner or later he will catch something. His writing could be criticised for epitomizing the narrow world of the under dog and being overly introspective.

He views work as an integral part of life, not as something split into a duality of working versus personal life. He sees work as an activity that emanates from the innermost part of his being, as a mirror of himself; as a natural, spontaneous and seemingly effortless extension of himself. He believes that happiness can come from work and from pride in what he does. Therefore, his scorched earth approach sometimes leads others to wonder if he's working too much. He believes that these individuals are not aware that there are many quiet unrecognized mystics who fly below the radar, transformed by something. He lets others believe that he does not have a formula to follow. He lets others believe he has no spiritual algorithm to teach. He lets others believe he has brought his own redemption. He lets others believe this because he believes the working of God’s grace is mysterious and unique in each person’s life beyond what eyes can see, where heart and soul are unconfined by rules or reason.

[edit] Selective bibliography

• Neerg, 1980
• Portland, 1997
• Word Be Gone, 1998
• Irises, 1998
• The Les Ismore Story, 1998
• Getting The Christmas Tree, 1998
• Near Death Experience, 1998
• The Day You Were Born, 1998
• Frosting (Every other line by Robert Frost), 2000
• What You Must Do, 2003
• Application of ASME AG-1 to the DOE Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, 2004
• ACFM versus SCFM for ASME AG-1 HEPA Filters
• HEPA Filter Media Velocity, 2005
• All Alone, 2006
• Nuclear HEPA Filter Plenums, 2006