About
THE EARLY YEARS were of course defined by parents – Mom: Mary, and Dad: David.
Mama was a cook, and a caterer, nicknamed Messy Mary.
She ran a catering business with her sister and friends, called Mixed Blessings, that mostly catered out of the Round Top Retreat. But early in my life she went from cleaning lady, to day care worker, to Harris County Sheriff dispatcher, to focusing on handling phone calls from distraught people reporting their stolen auto.
Dad was is a Marine, USMC, nicknamed DOG, and later, TOP DOG.
His initials are DOG – and once he moved up the ranks in his 20 year career, he was usually the top dog in his area. From Supplies, to Recruiting, to Vietnam, to Supply Management trainer, to school principal (or whatever it’s called), to supplies/warehouse surprise inspections, he was all over, from Houston to Georgia to Virginia to New Mexico to Colorado to North Carolina and back to build fighter jets in Ft. Worth after he “retired” – once a Marine, …
They didn’t always get along, and just before I started kindergarten, Mom, sis and I picked up and moved to Grandma & Grandpa’s back in Houston. Mom worked a few different jobs at a time – and I helped when I could. She’d pay me $1 for helping her for 2-3 hours cleaning in the evenings at a business. I’d cook mac’n'cheese or ramen or hamburger and beans, etc.
She got a job helping out with day care/after school care at the private school at my grandparent’s church. It became my home away from home, going to school, church, and day care, I was at Baptist Temple practically every day. Sports-wise – this is where it all started. I learn gymnastics, tons of kickball and dodgeball, foosball, pool, and roller-skating. In the front yard – it was always football or hide-n-seek.
Mom was busy, so it seemed like she wasn’t around much, but she made good use of the time she had. We always were going to the park or zoo, or beach, or doing some kind of cheap trip that was exciting for us… like chasing the blimp, hot air balloons out west of hwy 6, or even chasing down spotlights in the evenings. Gas in the car and a Sonic Slush was all we needed to be entertained. She took me out a few times to the park to play tennis, and it was really my first sport that I started playing and keeping score.
Finally got Grandpa to put in a basketball g0al. I was good at shooting, good at positioning and defense, but playing by myself as a kid, I never got used the pressure of having to dribble and look to pass at the same time, while having pressure on you, or a hand in your face when you shoot. I still enjoyed a bit of hoops through college, but I never considered it one of my better sports.
Compared to most kids’ grandparents, mine were cool.
Grandma stayed home and did lots of paintings: owls, flowers, mushrooms, whatever – she was a great cook – where my Mom got all her talent from. I also took to drawing a lot more there, and grandma also encouraged me to read aloud to her from some ancient poetry books… including the unforgettable Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. But because of her, I definitely became a more eloquent reader, although I still despised being on stage or at a podium to speak or say anything.
Side Rant: Stage fright is evil – poor kids don’t even understand why their scared – afraid to mess up or look silly, then they get so worked up they do mess up and feel embarrassed. Then the fear becomes real and it’s a spiral. I don’t think I really started to get out of it until I forced myself to take Speech as my first class in college, then went on to take leadership roles in my fraternity that required more speaking – so that I couldn’t avoid it, I forced myself to get more comfortable and better at it.
Grandpa was pretty good with a BBQ Pit too, and that always interested me. He also loved to hunt and fish, and as a professional carpenter, he was always out in the garage building something, so I mostly got in the way, but learned a few things along the way. Some tried and true carpenter sayings, like measure twice and cut once. He always had these folding wooden tape measures, old-fashioned and great fun. He had some new-fangled tape measures too, but he liked to stick with the old wooden fold-out. He’d always shove a dozen or so nails in his mouth when he was hammering something. I guess I looked at him funny one day when he did it, and he looked down at me and said, “Not only are they easier to find when you need ‘em, but the spit helps ‘em go in the wood easier.”
I was making straight A’s when we moved to public schools in the 3rd grade. I made the football team, but mom said no. I was one of the fastest and smartest kids, and I had pretty good hands, but I was also one of the smallest. I blazed through school work and helped the other kids, while my smart sister got bored and didn’t feel challenged enough to even bother doing her work. So then we went off to special schools – magnet programs – with special programs for smart kids in science and math. Lots of trips to the museums, and I competed in ongoing math competitions – basically 80 question speed math tests and won lots of trophies.
MIDDLE SCHOOL
We continued to another magnet school for middle school, where I began to play hacky-sack continually. Sometimes the bus got to school more than 45 min early – hacky sack time. 45 mins at lunch – sandwich in one hand, drink in the other, and kicking for 45 min. I also started in band, and my music knowledge from choir at church and several piano lessons had me move to the head of the Trumpets section. But I was good without trying, so began my avoidance of practice and not trying to be the best – why? Well, I didn’t really enjoy practice, and while band was fun, some of it I didn’t really like. But my mom was keen on balancing my math and sports with arts and music. I also managed to make to state with a history project on the Houston Heights – my grandparents neighborhood, but it helps when you also have a 90+ year old great grandfather to interview. Got into the boy scouts a good bit. helped build foundation for love of outdoors and camping.
I continued to want to play football, and mom finally said ok. I tried out, and I was probably one of the 2 smallest guys… still I was also one of the smartest and fastest, but you don’t get to show that much when the first couple days is tackling drills. So I didn’t make the team and instead ran track and cross country – I finished 5th in the city in the 400, and was 19th in cross-country city-wide. After I played wide receiver on a “free-play” Friday and caught 7 touchdowns, the coaches tried to get me to play football the next year, but I told them they blew their chance, maybe they should reconsider how they evaluate talent. No I’m not bitter.
So I ran alot. I played a ton of hacky-sack. I had some crazy skills with my feet and the ability to lift, flick, power, kick, poke a tiny little object wherever I wanted with great skill, dexterity, and accuracy. It was the beginning of my interests in soccer, and I didn’t really even understand the game.
School-wise, I was blazing through honors classes, tops in math, and starting to realize that I could really cut back on studies and still make great grades.
HIGH SCHOOL – SURF WALTRIP
- STUDIES
~ Band, IB Classes, Physics, Chemistry FAIL,
- ACTIVITIES
~ boy scout, leadership, working at summer camp
- WORK
COLLEGE
- WORK
- ACTIVITIES
OFF TO WORK
WEB-RELATED WORK SUMMARY
James Gorley started as a jack-of-all trades web guy, but honed his technical skills around HTML and front-end development while mixing in usability, user-centered design, and information architecture. He transitioned to managing web marketing development and enhancement projects, including leading major corporate site launches and re-design for various companies related to his time at Reliant Energy, including Houston Industries, HL&P, Entex, corporate intranet sites, e-commerce functionality, web chat, B2B extranet sites, online account management and online bill pay functionality etc.
With the emphasis on workforce reduction/outsourcing/offshoring, James shifted energy from Information Technology to leading web marketing strategies, creative, development etc for campaigns, projects and enhancements from the Marketing side. He lead intiatives to implement a corporate-wide content/document management platform to provide system integrations into web platforms, SAP, Billing and Bill Presentment, and internal HR and Communications platforms.
From the marketing side, the ability to be more creative, whether guiding graphic design or brainstorming creative marketing messages, James identified the need for more consistent cross-channel marketing messages and higher levels of interaction from direct mail to the web site, social media to customer service, and across email, tv, and print advertising.
James took both his technical and marketing management experience to Academy Sports + Outdoors to manage the web marketing team. James led web strategies for search engine optimization, marketing campaign process improvements, email marketing strategies, web marketing strategies to improve acquisition and retention through customer loyalty programs, strategic coordination of off-line marketing such as weekly ads and store events with online web updates and email marketing messages.
James also jumped into the e-commerce initiative to help guide usability and design principles for page designs. He designed the site architecture, header and footer navigation to be easy to use, and also developed process flows and usability enhancements to make the shopping experience simple for users to be successful.
~ foundation/education
~ work through college
~ early work experience – built computers, ran cable (cat 5 ethernet – early web)
~ first email – to Bob Dole
~ student worker – lab assistant, pc troubleshooter
~ build first web site hbu.edu 1996
~ Team Building (PM, management, coaching, strategic guidance)
~ Creative
~ Technical
~ Now and the Future
~ Family – expand into new section
~ Interests – expand into new section