Chris McNulty
About me
This is a bit of my story. If you want the professional version, visit me on LinkedIn.
Origin Story
My parents, Bill & Maureen McNulty, met in law school at St. John’s University, got married and lived on Long Island – about halfway between my mom’s childhood home in upper Manhattan and the old McNulty family farm on Peconic Bay in eastern Long Island.
I was born like many of us at Mercy Hospital in Rockville Centre, NY - the oldest of five kids (Tom, Liz, Mark, and Meg), living in Greenlawn, NY. I was baptized, raised Catholic, and somehow still identify as Irish Catholic.
Mom started in law, took a break to have us, and returned to work as a schoolteacher and theater director. My dad had also earned his master’s in chemical engineering at Princeton, so he was a patent attorney – first with Texaco at the Chrysler Building in New York, and then in private practice
Long Island and Connecticut
Every December (it seems) Mom would take all of us on the LIRR into the city to visit Dad at work (midday). (December 8 is a Catholic holy day). We’d leave for lunch, see the tree at Rockefeller Center, the Rockettes at Radio City and drive home, stopping at the colossal Millerridge Inn in Nassau County.
I was trained in classical piano and voice through high school at Holy Family. (I made valedictorian! Still hard to believe). Next, I attended college at Fairfield University in Connecticut. A chorus trip junior year was the first of many dozens of trips to London.
Summers I worked as a lifeguard on the North Fork from high school through college and beyond. I also taught grade school music for my first year after college at St. Hugh of Lincoln in Huntington and St. Aloysius in Great Neck.
Convinced I was destined for law school, I started working at a New York law firm as a paralegal. In that role, I discovered a real need to steer my career toward information technology, database design and computers.
Boston and Travels
And it brought me to Boston for a four-month business trip. I fell in love with the city. And I split with my New York girlfriend. So I stayed in Boston.
I lived in the Boston area for several decades, as the father of three wonderful kids – Devin, Nate, and Rachel, and as a proud fa of Boston sports teams – the Red Sox, Patriots, Bruins, and Celtics. We’ve been lucky to get to a few championship parades this century,
I earned my MBA at Boston College (Go Eagles!) I also discovered my love of hiking and skiing though the mountains of New England. Also, as a close student of early American culture, I knew the region was steeped in colonial and Revolutionary history which deepened my reading and travelling. Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts is already magnificent, and visiting their early American collection, for me, is like entering a cathedral.
And I extended myself as a songwriter and performer in and around Boston, Cambridge, and the region. Club Passim in 1999 remains my favorite gig ever.
Of course, with family in New York, we’ve taken many passages across Long Island Sound on Cross Sound Ferry between New London and Orient Point.
My professional career continued to develop with companies like Santander and John Hancock – and then making the leap to consulting and software with KMA, Quest, Dell and Microsoft as an MVP, author, and conference speaker. In 2009, a collective book project was cancelled, so I published my section as the first of theee books on Microsoft technologies.
Technology, and conferecnes, and customers, have taken me to London (many dozens of times), Scandinavia, Germany, Europe, Australia, Africa & Asia. Travel is a great joy and privilege.
Pacific Northwest and Microsoft
After over seventeen seasons of coaching youth baseball, I moved to the Pacific Northwest near Seattle, where I live with my amazing partner Michelle, her son Brenden, and my kids (at various times in the year). And I get to hike and climb in the Olympics and the Cascades – especially in and around Mount Rainier, the jewel of the Pacific Crest.
As a result, during the COVID-19 pandemic I was lucky enough to drive cross country four times, visiting national parks and cities from coast to coast – including Yellowstone, Glacier, Independence Hall, Chicago, Gateway Arch, Great Salt Lake, Snake River Canyon, the Rocky Mountains, Denver, Montana, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Corn Palace, Wall Drug, Mount Rushmore. Many many chances to develop my photography skills.
For about three months, I had a project with a manufacturer near Wichita Kansas – another of my favorite places with great people, food, movie theaters with real curtains, and the stark beauty of the Tallgrass National Preserve.
Now and Next
My role at Microsoft – technology marketing - has also driven me to extend my creative skills, with video, audio, podcasting, graphic design and more. I'm also Treasurer and a Board member at AIIM, the Association for Intelligent Information Management.
Michelle and I work a lot with rescue dogs, including our Max and Zyla. And we continue to ski, travel the coast, and plan our next gateway to beautiful Whidbey Island. (Another Ferry across the Sound – this time, Puget Sound!)
And my brothers, sisters and I still share our old family beach house (shack?) on the North Fork of Long Island in Laurel, NY. We try to gather there for Fourth of July when we can for our big family reunion holiday - that is, if no one gets blown up by amateur fireworks. Tom and his family live near LA, Liz and Mark are still in New York, and, coincidentally my sister Meg and her family live in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, about 20 minutes away.
Music
Music is essential to me – when I discovered Billy Joel as a piano player in high school, it was a great social skill to be able to blast through Scenes from an Italian Restaurant at parties. Other moments - Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska. The Beatles Abbey Road (including buying the reissue AT Abbey Road Studios in London on its 50th anniversary!) Radiohead’s OK Computer. Synchronicity. Jay Z and Ella Fitzgerald and the Beastie Boys.
Sitting waiting in the car while WBCN played U2’s Achtung Baby in its entirety on its release day, awestruck and their reinvention. Dave Brubeck and Miles Davis too. Along with many musicals, especially Rodgers and Hammerstein (I’ve been music and lighting director for more than a few amateur productions – one of which got me to play the Hatch Bandshell at the Charles River Esplanade in Boston.)
Interests
What else? I’m obsessed with Christmas, collecting many (too many) ceramic houses for my annual Christmas village. Christmas Mass at the cathedral, with full choir, percussion, organ, and brass ensemble can move me to tears with awe and majesty.
Seeing the aurora three times in 2024 was another privilege (on Whidbey Island, in Iceland, and close to Seattle).
What else about me? I’ve worked as a volunteer, board member and fundraiser for several homeless shelters and organizations back East and in the Seattle area. I love seafood, cooking, hiking, and the smell of the ocean. Great stories – especially Richard Ford and John Irving (I believe they hate each other.) Autumn and winter. Spring and summer. Coupeville Wharf.
The spirit and beauty of sunrise, meant to be seen without sunglasses or windows. And my family above all.
I can’t wait for what comes next.
