If you ask where he’s from, Jon Gummo-Wagner will list a few notable places – “Bahrain, Spain, England, Belgium, Iceland and Cuba, not to mention a few stays in California and Pennsylvania” – but the longest he lived in any one place before coming to Arizona was in college at Penn State.
“My father was originally from central Pennsylvania, but by the time I arrived on the scene he had been working for the Department of Defense as a school teacher for almost a decade, moving to U.S. military bases in different countries every couple of years,” Gummo-Wagner said. “My mother was born in Argentina, but her father was in the Navy and she had also been pretty much nomadic her whole life.”
Though he has turned the trend of constant resettlement around — this year marks nearly a decade and a half of residence in the area — Gummo-Wagner admitted that the move to Arizona was largely arbitrary. In 2002, his wife began interviewing at veterinary clinics all over the state; he still recalls his first view of the Verde Valley and Sedona.
“We came over the mountain on I-17 around 10 in the morning and saw the green valley with the high desert all around,” Gummo-Wagner said. “I’m sure Jen’s interview had something to do with our decision, but I pretty much knew from that moment that we were going to end up staying.”
Seven years after arriving in the area, the Gummo-Wagners welcomed the first of two daughters into their home — a development that inspired Gummo-Wagner to reduce his hours as a software specialist by half. Now that his second daughter has entered kindergarten, he has resumed working for the New York-based company full time from home.
“I love the work I do, but I also love that I can get away from it to spend time with my family,” Gummo-Wagner explained. “My family is definitely the center of my life. The only thing I remember wanting to be when I grew up was a father, so it was pretty natural for me to take on the role of primary parent when we had kids …. Being the only man in all of the mommy groups was fun if occasionally a little odd.”
Even as Gummo-Wagner and his wife trade more and more time between tasks, balancing two full-time jobs, their house remains full of activity. An upstairs landing features a specially-built mat for practicing Tae Kwon Do, a martial art Gummo-Wagner and his daughters took up a couple years ago. Camping and hiking remain a priority.
Asked if he identifies as a geek — an unfair assumption about a software specialist, perhaps, but one an interviewer may be compelled to inquire about — he readily chimed in.
“Oh yeah. The geek,” Gummo-Wagner answered. “I would probably consider myself more of a nerd than a geek, but it’s all semantics, really. I love to code and I’m interested in science and technology generally. I love gadgets. Looking around my desk, I have a mini robot, several Lego pieces, two smart phones and several xkcd comic strips. I love to read and I manage to find time in my busy schedule to ‘waste’ on computer games.
“I also really like flow charts. Seriously, a well-designed flow chart is like high art.”
