I have been fascinated by both engineering and computer science since I was a kid. At the age of 9 or 10, my father (a civil engineer and college professor) first brought a PC into our home - a Zenith HeathKit. Monochrome (green) screen, Zenith versions of an operating system and software (ZDOS, ZBasic, etc.)... it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. Of course, at the time my family had a single black-and-white TV that only got good reception for 2 stations, so it didn't take much to be "the coolest thing I had ever seen", but still - you get the point.
It was love at first sight, and, in competition with my older (and wiser) brother, I started creating my own video games. That love of programming continued into college, when I attended the University of Vermont, with its surprisingly advanced technical programs (given the relatively small size and rural setting). Every incoming freshman with a technical major was issued a PC (an IBM-compatible 386 - sweet!), and I discovered that I could write engineering programs as well as video games. After all - why spend an hour doing my homework when I could spend eight hours writing software to do my homework for me in 5 seconds? Note: I didn't take engineering economics until my senior year...
Upon graduating, I wasn't sure if I wanted to follow a civil engineering career or a software career, so I decided to start with engineering and see where it went from there. I worked for a small engineering firm in northern Vermont, which was a great experience. I got to do everything there is to do as a general civil engineer, from site design and construction inspection, to water and sewer design. And yes, even some mosquito-infested surveying assignments and more than a few blueprint copies - to this day, I still look back fondly on those can't-smell-because-of-the-ammonia-burn days.
I still found myself writing software as a hobby, but with even more of an engineering slant - creating programs to do soil sieve analysis, tank buoyancy calculations, and so on. Finally, I figured that if I was going to work on software anyway, I might as well do it as a career.
So I got in contact with Haestad Methods, interviewed, got an offer, and took it. I found myself working around the clock (by choice, not by mandate - although no one seemed to mind) on everything I could get my hands on. Engineering support for our products, technical sales inquiries, product testing, and so forth. I also started to get into the code, and eventually found myself as part of the core development team, and then managing the development of our storm and sanitary product lines.
When Haestad Methods was acquired by Bentley in 2004, a lot of us found ourselves being reassigned to apply our talents for the best use for the much larger company. I took on a Director role for the civil engineering products, and then moved on to direct marketing systems, using my engineer-oriented brain to improve our internal and external processes and tools. I enjoy the work very much, but I will always have a spot in my heart for water resources - it's the closest I'll ever get to having a modeling career ;-)