You know, I think this year could use a little more……COWBELL
Well, hi, hello there!
My name is Maryann Shirley. I am a current resident of the famous Panama City Beach, FL (maybe infamous is the better word choice there.) My hometown is the city of Destin, FL, where I grew up on the beach learning how to swim, surf, and fish. I lived in Fort Wayne, IN for about 4 years after I graduated from FSU in 2015, but I finally realized that my bones weren’t made for -46 degree weather, and decided to thaw out down here in Panama City Beach, FL.
I graduated from Florida State in 2015 with a Bachelor’s degree in Commercial Music with a Minor in Business. From there, I moved up to Fort Wayne, IN to work as a Sales Engineer for a major music equipment retailer, Sweetwater Sound, Inc. I ran my own “business within a business” of roughly 6,000 customers and designed anything from home studio rigs to commercial studios out in L.A., Miami, and New York or live sound and wireless set ups for venues like Madison Square Gardens. It was a fantastic job, but “winter is coming” is a constant and I was (thankfully) not built for that, so I was hired on with Progressive Insurance as a claims adjuster, which brought me right back down to Panama City Beach, FL. I have been with Progressive now for about 3 years, and working there, I have seen a need for IT staff, so I am going back to school to hopefully earn my degree in MSIT along with obtaining a certification in Information Architecture.
I am very excited about taking this course, the assignments look challenging, but exciting to learn about and complete. I’m hoping to learn more about photo and video editing processing and how to use that knowledge as an advantage to bring more attention to whatever type of information/product that I’m selling. I am familiar with the copyright side for music, but learning about the copyrights in media will be beneficial to know and utilize as well.
In my free time, you can normally find me loving one of our 5 fur babies. We have two cats and three big ‘ole dogs with our newest edition being an 11 month old 70 pound Coonhound/Boxer mix. Yes, my back yard does look like moon craters, thanks for asking! If that isn’t happening, then you will also find me being the coolest Aunt in town to my 5 nieces and nephews, taking them out on the paddle board during the summer time or letting them bang and sing on my piano during sleepovers. And if I’m not doing any of that, it must be a blue moon because I’m sleeping in until noon *rhyme alert*. I’m very excited to meet everyone here and learn more about you, here’s to a great semester!
Hi Maryann!
I’m interested in what wireless setups for large venues entail. Does that mean setting up AV equipment or doing sound checks wirelessly? I didn’t even think that was an option! I realized earlier this year that I was interested in Music Business as well as Art and information, but I’m trying to finish one project (Information) before I decide to start another, haha! I’m happy to meet you and excited to work with you in this class.
Living in Florida has its quirks. Sometimes it feels like SNL and other TV sources mention us way too much not realizing that every state has people like that, mostly, maybe, jury is still out. It’s like this image once I saw of this cartoon devil, “Why is everyone always picking on me?”. Anyway, welcome back to Florida. I’m envious of your past career in music. I was really going forward with it with music and then after going to Douglas Anderson here in Jacksonville for Vocal I didn’t feel like it was realistic for me, getting a job in the music business never occurred to me. 🙂 There is definitely a need in libraries for those that know the IT side of music and music in general and it sounds like you will be perfect for that. In response to a comment you left to me, I too find Jacksonville’s roads to go out of Jacksonville with all the construction to be quite a lot. I’ve driven through downtown Atlanta traffic and I’m never as nervous as I am driving on the highways here. Why are the lanes so narrow?!