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I’ve been reading about the lives of so many friends from Graded. It has given me much pleasure to read about everyone’s life adventures. I thought it would only be fair to participate by providing mine to the mix. So, here goes…With graduation it seemed that a Graded diaspora had begun…. From one day to the next everyone I know was gone. Everybody had left for the US…. I felt like I was the only one that had stayed in Brazil for college. A month after graduation I started my Cursinho Semi Intensivo do Universitario to find out that my only connection to Graded that was left was in my class…Lucia Krosnowski. So, together we slugged thru the Cursinho, (Santa Dna Talita, for all the help she gave me with Portuguese grammar, literature etc, etc) and the dreaded Vestibular. In the end we both got accepted at Universidade Mackenzie; I got accepted in Architecture, Lucia in Chemical engineering.
After 5 great years of Mackenzie, with my degree in Architecture in hand I started working as a Registered Architect in a trendy, boutique architectural firm in Sao Paulo for 3 years, designing and building homes for very affluent Paulistas with a bent for the wild side of life and a penchant for living large. The firm was a Graded for grownups! At the same time I was also teaching English as a Foreign Language at Alumni. I zoomed around SP on a Honda 500 (the love of my life!), worked like a dog, partied big time and made real good money…enough to pay for a two year Master in Architecture at the University of Michigan in 1981 that I applied for and was accepted to. (Wait a moment….I was living high on the hog, working and partying a lot and left everything to go to Michigan, to the U of M? Michigan….Midwestern winters? Don’t ask why! I do not know what possessed me. I just did it.).
I earned my Master in Architecture in 1983; at the time the Brazilian economy was doing worse than the US, so I decided to stay in the US and get some work experience on an extension of a student visa. Looked for a job in NY, Boston and finally found a position in Chicago. I’ve been in Chicago ever since. I started working and at the same time followed the yellow brick road to a Green Card and then to citizenship in 1990 (+\-). During that time I married Cristina – the daughter of family friends from Italy (there is some saying about the fruit not falling far from the tree) and had a son, Lorenzo in 1995, an event that changed my life – in a really good way. In 2003, climbing up the career ladder I also added an MBA to the years of higher education. During the many years in Chicago I worked as an Architect, a Project Manager and Project Director at well known design firms such as Bertrand Goldberg (Marina Towers), Holabird and Root (Chicago City Hall), and SOM - Skidmore Owens and Merrill (Sears Tower). At Chicago City Hall, I directed the work groups for the rewriting to the Chicago Building Code and was the Director of Building Code Compliance.
In my current life I manage projects for the Corporate Real Estate Department of Harris Bank. I live in Hyde Park, in Chicago (Yep, da Prez Barack Obama lives about 4 blocks away) and have a great house and yard. In the summer we BBQ a lot, Lorenzo and I indulge in open water swimming in Lake Michigan (he’s up to 1.0 mile, swimming along side with me) and bike along the lake; in winter we play pick up hockey at the local outdoor skating rink and participate in the Lake Michigan Polar Bear Club – he goes for a dip, I just watch. We vacation in Italy a lot, keeping Lorenzo bilingual and a pretty good downhill skier. Life is now good after many years of crazed professional activity. Even after all these years I always carry o meu querido Brasil sempre, sempre dentro do coracao. Obrigado Brasil. Thank you Graded!
