Allen Schroers

After high school I completed a 2 year vocational degree in Electronics, worked for Kodak for 9 years servicing duplicators and printers, transitioned into IT with Océ USA in 1998. In 2000 I took a job with IBM as a presales technical product specialist, which is what I still do today. I went back to school and completed a BS in IT at age 40.

I married in 1999 and divorced in 2007. We never had children.

For fun I enjoy reading, traveling the globe, sky diving and running marathons. In 2004 I decided to drop down to my high school weight and 9 months and 40 lbs later I achieved that goal. In 2005 after I completed my BS in IT (graduated with honors) I decided to fill much of my free time with marathoning. 49 weeks later I completed my first of now 14 marathons including Boston in 2008.

My first skydiving adventure was August 2007. I was looking for other exciting things to try and jumping out of a perfectly good aircraft sounded like fun! It was one of the most exciting adventures I've ever had; definitely a serious adrenaline rush.

On my path through life I've taken 5 trips to Europe, one, a very fun Mediterranean Cruise. I thought I'd hate France, but Paris turned out to be my favorite European city, which goes to show that one should form his own opinion and not listen to the rhetoric of others.

In 2022 I sold my Maple Grove home and moved in with my wife Sue in Plymouth. We’re in the process of building a new home in Lakewood Ranch, FL and are expected to close on the house in March 2024.

Life has been pretty good to me. I have a great career, a beautiful home and I'm in probably the most fit I've been in my life, I've been blessed. I feel great and loving life.

One time in typing class, I think it was my Junior year in Mr. Frederick's class Tom Muer (Yuf) was sitting in the back row nearest the windows. You may recall that Terry Fredericks spoke with a lisp. One day in class it began pouring and hailing outside. Tom, bored, looks out the window and without realizing it said outloud, "Wook Tewwy haiw baws aw fawing". The class erupted in a roar of laughter and Mr. Muer got a trip to the Principal's office.

Another story was back in 10th grade when after walking into band practice late Ms. Solhide forced me to play my trumpet piece solo in front of the entire band. About a month later I was again running late and rather than facing the embarassing punishment I dropped out of band. :-(

I still play my trumpet now and again although it has found new use by a 12 year old, my fiance's son Joshua who is now using it to learn trumpet for band. I had to explain to him that the dent it has in it was from Karen Coller's trumpet case when I crashed mine into her's one day going to the bus after school just goofing around, which dented the trumpet inside... live and learn I guess. :-)

A final story doesn't involve a school activity but happened in school. I was in Golden Glove Boxing throughout High School and after one fight several guys were giving me a hard time about having been knocked down in the ring in the previous night's fight Shakopee hosted in the High School gym. I was pretty fired up over these comments because I had taken great pride in the fact that I had never been knocked down in 6 years of boxing so it wasn't possible that such a thing could have happened without me being aware of it. I think it was Mark Suel who was teasing me that I was raising my hands over my head as if I thought I had won the fight. I recalled quite clearly that although I was daised my hands were up because the coach always said to show the ref you are ready to fight especially if you are a little daised to prevent him from counting you out during a standing 8 count. Determined to prove him wrong I went down to the police station where our gym was and watched the video of my fight and sure enough it looked exactly as he described it. Somehow I was knocked down, did a summer sault and wound up standing, all without my knowledge. I was right about my hands being up to show the ref I was ok to continue, but in my daised state they were way too high, nearly over my head, so again it looked exactly as it was described to me. I didn't lose many bouts, but it was good that the ref counted me out that night as I was in no shape to continue. :-) Cross Country was so much safer!