Barham Puttinger

Born to Bob and Tammy Puttinger in the city of Seattle, Barnham. His childhood was very unremarkable aside from numerous random incidents that border on absurd. On one visit to Pike Place Market when he was 5 he was focused on the small pebbles that lined walk way and bumped into a small coffee stand before tumbling backwards into a vat of fish. In another incident at age 14 he was trying to clean a phaser for reasons he was unable to articulate and he managed to discharge the phaser with the tip pointed at his chin. Thankfully it was set to level 1 and despite causing a great deal of pain the only permeant effect was that he manage to burn all the hair follicles on the lower part of his face, resulting in an inability to grow facial hair. For reasons known only to him he opted to not have it corrected.

While his grades in school were acceptable his parents were very aware that he would not go on to lead any sort of adventurous life. They did their best to direct him towards careers that felt aligned with his interests while also being something he could handle; their main goal was to see him safe and happy, no matter the job. His grandfather owned a small bakery on the Seattle Waterfront and for a time he seemed keen on taking over the business. During his senior year of schooling, after a rather persuasive Starfleet recruiter visited the school, he took the Academy entrance exam. His parents expected little to come of it as Starfleet only accepted the best and brightest and Barnham was squarely in the middle of ‘Eh, his grades are good enough’.

Much to everyone’s shock he was accepted. His parents chalked it up to luck or simply low recruitment numbers that year. His grades kept him near the bottom of his class all 4 years but he cleared the minimum requirements with room to spare. While he excelled in nothing, to the point the Academy auto assigned him the security track after he couldn’t make a choice, he found a sense of purpose. He wasn’t concerned with being the best; he was concerned with helping people that needed it. In Starfleet he was finally able to help. He could do some good. That was enough for him and he was often a favorite student of his instructors thanks to this attitude. He did almost get expelled his second year due to accidentally injecting himself with 55cc of Hymorphlox during emergency medic training but the inquiry board felt that giving students real medications to practice with was a lapse in judgment and protocol on the part of the instructor and he continued on.

He was assigned to the USS Resnik 4 days before the Blackout took hold across that galaxy as part of the armory maintenance team. Time will tell if he turns into a semi-competent officer or just manages to phaser himself in the face again.