Biography of Jeffrey Thomas Baygents

In summary, Jeffrey Thomas Baygents has had several decades working in dozens of industries. His involvement has primarily been focused in business management, food & beverages, and information technology. He’s an Air Force veteran from the 1970s. He’s worked in the private sector as well as the public sector of the federal government. Overall, he’s lived in 7 states across the southeastern United States. Keep reading for his more detailed autobiography.

Autobiography of Jeffrey Thomas Baygents

Primary Purpose of this Autobiography of Jeff Baygents

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1953-1960s

I was born in 1953 in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. My interests in management developed at a young age because of influences while working for my father who was a service-based business owner. All of my siblings had also worked there in many different roles.

My oldest brother, Steve, was the most influential to all of us as I grew up. He was an incredible role model for all levels of business management, leadership, human relations, customer service, saving time & resources, and problem solving.

1970s

In 1971, I joined the U.S. Air Force and was initially assigned as an Air Operations Specialist (27150) stationed at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio. That was during the Air Force’s 25th Anniversary and they opened the Air Force Museum while I was there. However, I was soon told I would be reassigned to Air Traffic Control due to my stress test scores. But, I then became flagged for something else. I was immediately pulled to be put into a new special program of 55 new recruits that would be sent to Command Posts to work. This also was deemed as a high stress role. This trial program was based on test scores of IQ, psychology of emotions under high stress, & decision making. I was told they normally only used proven, experienced, career personnel.

So, after relocating to Eglin AFB, Florida, I received a great balance of leadership, training, and management experiences. As an example, the Training Sergeant of the NMCC (aka the President’s Command Post) transferred there in preparation to retire in a year or so. He became our Training Sergeant and developed me to replace him and become the youngest Air Force Command Post Training Sergeant. He also told me that there were only 5 of us, of the original 55, that became successful in the trial program. The others were gradually transferred into other less stressful jobs.

After the Air Force, my first civilian job was as a part-time assistant manager at a traditional Italian sub shop in northwest Florida while I attended junior college, majoring in nuclear engineering. However, I hit a roadblock. I have terrible recall and memory. And I struggled trying to learn and retain Integral Calculus. So, I left college.

After that, there were several fast-paced years with a career in foods and management.

I moved a lot but thoroughly enjoyed learning how to create great tasting meals while saving steps, time, and money. Because I was always in management, I could be creative and shorten steps and improve recipes for better taste. I continued to learn a lot about food safety, storage, efficiency, and quality control.

Most of the fast food restaurants involved a lot of hard & speedy work with 60 to 80-hour weeks. This later changed to home cooked style foods at Morrison’s Cafeterias (90-hour weeks). That was a tough job in a 500-seat, 3 dining rooms restaurant in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was a huge operation and I was the number 3 manager there, as the Production Manager.

Then, my brother offered me a role to manage a proof-of-concept, new fast food restaurant that was being built. Franchises were popular in those days. So, after moving to Arkansas, I worked in management for his Dog n Suds restaurant. It was a good training period and I learned an incredible amount of business management, leadership, accounting, containment, food safety, and quality control.

After the pilot franchise store was built and opened, I managed it. It was co-owned between my brother and Frostie Enterprises, Inc. The Frostie root beer company owned some other fast food chains as well but they wanted to partner with my brother due to his long time successes. After some time, the new restaurant sold off and so, I went back to school.

1980s

The management degree from AACSB business rated Arkansas State University opened a lot of doors repeatedly for the rest of my life. Also, I took a speed reading course to improve my own efficiency and peaked at 1,600 WPM. It was one of several other lifelong skills that I still use today. This was helpful to partially compensate for my bad memory. In other words, I could read something three times to have retention like an average person. So, to get ahead, I might typically have to read things about five times. Remembering formulas or technical things in the university classes took about a dozen repetitions.

After college finished, I started at Foremost-McKesson as a distribution analyst and evolved into becoming the Regional Distribution Manager over 4 states. While there, I incorporated IT work into foods distribution analysis. With that, it added to my education of foods cost control, nutrition, foods safety, quality control, and waste reduction. Those were also the years of very early personal computers.

I had the TRS-80 with 16K RAM and later moved up to the Commodore 64 in the beginning. After that, it was a $2,500 IBM-compatible PC with 2-1/2 MB RAM for which I took out a bank loan to acquire. Even though the Internet wasn’t publicly around yet, I felt technology would be the future tool in enhancing all managers in the future. I also imagined that everything would be data bound for storage and retrieval. So I focused on learning both front end and backend tech skills as I continued to improve my management and leadership skill sets.

In time, the combined background of IT and Management experience led to software development and consulting across dozens of industries.

1990-2005

I received my first big contract job at Coca-Cola World HQ in Atlanta, Georgia. This period continued with software development, martial arts, and business technologies consulting with mid and large sized corporations. Key contracts were with Coca-Cola, NCR, MCI, Digital Equipment (DEC now as HP), and GE Capital.

It involved a family life as well. While in Atlanta, Georgia, I thoroughly was the luckiest man in the world having met my wife and 2 sons.

2005-2021

I was contracted as a management consultant and then hired permanently as an IT Manager for the federal government in South Carolina. After 16 years, I retired in 2021.

2021-Current

After decades of IT management, development, and consulting, I returned to my roots in the kitchen and to business technology in my home office. In 2022, my wife and I began to work together to improve how to make Southern foods speedy, easy, and tasty. She named our food blog as DarnGoodRecipes.com™. Our dog, Trudy, is our cost control manager and ensures there are no excess leftovers. Learning and improving never stops.

So, I continued also on a “Blogging at Home” site (Linxent.com) to help others avoid the pitfalls and misconceptions of that niche.

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Work Experience by Role

The following sections represent an authoritative biography and are organized by role.

Current Co-Owner

• DarnGoodRecipes.com™ (Food Blog of Recipes and Articles. Emphasizes recipes that are Southern, Easy, and Tasty.)
• Linxent.com™ (Food Blogging at Home. Emphasizes how to create and maintain a food blog from home.)
• Baygents.com™ (Genealogy Blog. Emphasizes the surname ‘Baygents’.)

Former IT Manager at United States Probation Office, District of South Carolina

• 2005 – 2021
• Columbia, South Carolina
• Systems Management for the Federal District of South Carolina
• USPO, managed by U.S. Courts.

Co-Owner & Consultant at Linxent.com

• 1994 – 2005, 2021 – present
• Atlanta, Georgia
• Professional software development (full life cycle) for primarily Fortune clients. Also, included consulting, training, and management. Clients included Coca-Cola, NCR, Quantegy, Profit Recovery Group Intl, Meag Power, GE Capital, Digital Equipment, MCI, Scientific-Atlanta, and some smaller companies. Currently, focused on Blogging technologies and management.

Former Marketing Support & Graphics Designer at Intersoft Systems, Inc.

• 1990 – 1994
• Atlanta, Georgia
• Graphics Designer, Marketing Support, Distribution Support

Former Food & Beverage Manager in Southeast U.S.

• 1975 – 1989
• Southeast, United States
• Covering Management involving Food & Beverage industries related to:
  • Service
  • Restaurants
  • Retail
  • Convenience Stores
  • Wholesale
  • Manufacturing
  • Distribution
• Positions held
  • Restaurant Assistant Manager
  • Restaurant Production Manager
  • Restaurant General Manager
  • District Manager
  • Regional Distribution Manager
  • Corporate Business Technology Manager

Former Command Post Training Sergeant at USAF

• 1971 – 1975
• Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio and Eglin AFB, Florida
• Emergency and Wartime Planning and Operations
• Youngest Training Sergeant for a Command Center; trained by NMCC Training Sergeant.
• Airman of the Quarter, 3201st Air Base Group
• Air Force Commendation Medal
• NCO Leadership Academy (New Mexico)
• TS Crypto clearance.
• Began Aikido training in 1971

Martial Arts Experience

There were a total of about 27 years of 6 styles of martial arts training and teaching. Often, two arts were practiced concurrently with the emphasis on Taekwondo and Aikido.

Former Taekwondo Chief Instructor & Aikido Sensei

• 1971-1998
• Aikido (24 years) and Taekwondo (25 years) training and teaching, some concurrently.
• Former USTU (U.S. Takewondo Union) Certified Referee
• Former Georgia State Taekwondo Secretary General
• Former Chief Instructor, USTU

Education

• Studied Management of Information Systems at Kennedy Western University
  • ABD 2002 – 2004
  • Worked on combined Masters-PhD. Ended as ABD due to work & family responsibilities.
• The George Washington University
  • Scheduling & Cost Planning
  • Business Analytics
• Miscellaneous Project Management Coursework
  • Financial Risk Management
  • Information Systems and Systems Integration
  • Project Management·2009 – 2010
• Arkansas State University
  • BS, Business Management (Industrial, Quantitative)
  • Added emphasis on Data analysis, Data Processing, Programming
  • Class of 1983
• Nuclear Engineering at Okaloosa-Walton Jr. College
  • 1973 – 1976 (part time & full time)
• CCAF (Community College of the Air Force)
  • part time coursework while in Air Force (1972-1975)
• High school
  • Poplar Bluff Schools
  • Class of 1971