Russ Button

City College - 69 - 72
UC Berkeley - BS. Industrial Engineering and Operations Research 1975
USAF officer - 75 - 79
Industrial Engineering 1979 - 1989
UNIX/Linux Systems Admin 1989 - 2019
Ordained Interfaith Minister and Chaplain - 2021

I did 4 years in USAF doing weapon systems analysis and computer projects. Did 2 years in the Florida panhandle and 2 years in Ohio. When I came home in 1979, the Castro had become "The Castro"... That was unexpected.

I worked as an industrial engineer for 10 years in one shitty job after another. But 1989 was a pivotal year. That was when I changed careers into UNIX computer systems support and went to our 20 year reunion, where I reconnected with Katie Rieke. She was in a bad marriage, I stole her away and now everyone is living happily ever after. Even her ex.

I retired from my technology career this year, have enrolled at the Chaplaincy Institute in Berkeley and expect to be ordained as an Interfaith Minister in October 2020. The most likely work will be either in hospice or hospitals.

Like so many other Lowell musicians, I've pretty much never stopped playing. I did orchestral and big band playing in college, and stayed doing big band playing up until 2000 or so. I started my current band, the Horns a Plenty Brass Swing Band, in 2006 and we've become something quite special. We play big band swing, ballroom dance music, waltz, tango, as well as Ragtime, Dixieland, Park Band and even the occasional classical piece. We also did some comic bits. One of our guys even played "Flight of the Bumblebee" on a garden hose. We played for weddings, funerals, corporate and charity events, and hold forth for the public once a month at "The Local", a coffee shop in Alameda.

In 2022 we sold our Alameda bungalow, took the money and moved to the East side of Hawaii Island. That little bungalow paid for a house more than twice the size, on an acre of land, a mile from the ocean, a full solar/battery installation, a Kia EV and a swimming pool. We now reside in Paradise.