I was born on Saturday, August 26, 1978 in Wroclaw, Poland to Anna and Tomasz Wielicki.  My parents met while they were students at the Wroclaw University of Technology and a few years later they became the proud parents of my older brother, Tommie.  When I was just three years old, my father took a one year position at Southern Illinois University in 1981, only a few short months before Martial Law went into effect in Poland.  Since my father was part of the solidarity movement, which eventually quashed communism in Eastern Europe, he feared that he would be arrested if he returned.  My mother cried for months when she realized that we would not be returning to the only place she had ever called home. Heart broken, she did her best to learn the language and taught her sons to love their new home.

We lived in Carbondale, IL for one year and then made the move to Fresno, CA, where my father took a position as a professor at California State University, Fresno in 1984.  After one year in Fresno, CA we were off again, this time to Mogadishu, Somalia.  Both of my parents were at the forefront of information technology and their services were recruited by the Somali government to set up an information system at the local airport in the capital.  We lived in Somalia for one year and I attended second grade at an American school in Mogadishu.  Although I did not know it then this experience had a profound influence on my life and I hope to share such an adventure with my family one day.

Me at a gift shop before we began our safari in the Masi Mara, Kenya

We returned to the US in 1987 where I continued to go to school and eventually graduated from Bullard High School in Fresno, CA in 1996.  I then continued my general education at community colleges in Fresno and San Diego and received my B.S. in biochemistry from the University of California, San Diego.  I then began to work in the molecular biology department of Epimmune, a novel vaccine company in San Diego.

After two years in the lab I decided to try my hand at sales and became one of the leading sales reps for business telecommunications in the San Diego area.  My time as an outside sales executive greatly improved my people and communication skills, as well as thickened my skin a bit.  I learned quickly that sales really is a crash course in business, public speaking, advertising, marketing and persistence.  My ich for science was insatiable and soon I found myself looking for a way to merge my love for science with my enjoyment of working with people and the outdoors.  It soon became apparent to me that I needed to follow in my father's footsteps and work toward becoming an earth science professor at a prestigious institution.