Brian D. Smith was born in Berkeley, Calif., and even though he only lived there for six months, some say he retained the spirit of that town as he grew up in Charlottesville, Va.

Eighteen years later, including four high school years full of musical theater and marching band, he graduated and moved to upstate New York to attend Cornell University. There, in addition to singing with the Glee Club, he discovered that he had a talent for digging in the dirt and double-majored in Archaeology and Anthropology.

After Brian graduated from college, Teach for America sent him to teach high school Science in Zuni, NM. During his two years there, he fell in love with New Mexico — and with his eventual wife, Caitlin.

They then moved to New York City where they lived for three years so Caitlin could attend law school, and Mr. Smith kept busy writing and teaching middle-school Science at Harlem Success Academies. However, they both wanted to return to the Land of Enchantment, so after Caitlin graduated, they moved to Santa Fe. “And the rest is history,” he said.

These days, Mr. Smith teaches four different computer science classes at Santa Fe High School. When he’s not teaching or otherwise occupied with school duties, he enjoys film and digital photography, origami, building and launching high-power model rockets, playing video games, and painting and playing miniatures games like Warhammer 40k.

If it ever seems like Mr. Smith is sleepwalking, it’s probably because his two sons have much more energy than he does, and it’s hard to keep up with them.

Mr. Smith said he loves teaching, especially all the problem solving and applications that are involved in computer science. “Coding is really the greatest thing ever,” he said. “Seriously. If you’ve never tried it, go pull up https://hourofcode.com/us/learn right now and give it a try.”