Comments:
In my professional life after graduation from Lyman I went to Viet Nam and ended up making the military a career. I entered the US Army as a high school graduate with the rank of Private and left 20 years later as a Ph.D. with a rank of Major. Along the way I went to flight school and became a multi-engine fixed wing pilot and a helicopter pilot. I have an FAA commercial pilot’s license in airplanes and helicopters and I am a flight instructor. I also went to jump school and became a paratrooper and to air assault school. I served with the 10th Special Forces Group and proudly wore the Green Beret. The Army paid for my BS degree which I got by attending night school, then sent me to Stanford to get an MS in Computer Science so I could be a professor at West Point, the US Military Academy. While there I completed my dissertation and earned a PH.D. in Computer Science. I then taught at Carnegie Mellon University and, after retiring from the Army, went to Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne where I was the Chair of the CS Department for 8 years. I left to go to Washington as a technical advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Defense. After that I went into private industry where I have been a CTO, CIO, or COO of four different companies.
In my personal life, I married Gail Hammond, Lyman Class of 1968, and had a son, Charles III. Charles graduated from West Point but did not like the Army so he went to divinity school and became a preacher. He now heads a thriving congregation in Oklahoma. He married a woman from Oklahoma and gave us a wonderful granddaughter, Ada Lysette Engle, whom we call Lysa. Lysa is 21 years old and a smart, talented woman that I am very proud of. After 28 years of marriage, Gail and I parted. I then started dating Debbie Horne Warren, Lyman Class of 1969, who had been married to Jerry Warren, Lyman Class of 1968, for 34 years. In December of 2007 Debbie and I married. She and Jerry had four children together and so Jerry is still very much a part of our lives as we celebrate holidays and birthdays as an extended family. Debbie has made so much of a difference in my life and I am the happiest that I have ever been.
Life is very good as we enter our twilight years. We have done so much and experienced so many wonderful things that we feel truly blessed. We have 10 wonderful grandchildren who are our life's joy. May God so bless you also.
