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After leaving Columbian, I went to OSU for a semester and then transferred to General Motors Institute (now Kettering University). GMI was a co-op school then and I alternated 6 weeks of school with 6 weeks working at Chevrolet Flint Assembly, but dropped out during my fifth year.
I joined the Air Force and served as a radio intercept operator flying out of Okinawa, Japan on missions over Laos. I met my future wife in Okinawa and we got married when I returned to the states. I got hired at National Machinery in Tiffin as a numerical control programmer and returned to school at Tiffin University and I stayed with National for three years after I graduated with a degree in accounting.
My wife and I moved to Richardson, Texas for a year where I worked for Texas Instruments as a CNC (computer numerical control) programmer for TOW missile control housing components. We returned to Tiffin and I spent another five years at National Machinery, but this time as a mainframe computer programmer and, later, as manager of the programming department. It was during this time that we had our son, Michael and that I entered a three-person partnership to open the Computer Works store at Westgate.
In the mid 80’s we moved out to Seattle, Washington where I worked for Nordstrom as a programmer and department manager for six years. We lived in Redmond and we absolutely loved the scenery and wonderful weather (nope, it doesn’t rain every day). That’s where we were when the Berlin wall came tumbling down.
We wanted our son to have some exposure to his mother’s culture, so we moved to Okinawa, Japan in 1992. I worked as an instructor for Central Texas College for six months and finally got hired by the U.S. Army as a computer specialist. I worked my way up to become the network manager for the army on Okinawa, providing network access and facilities for hundreds of military and civilian workers in multiple locations on the island. I obtained MCSE and CCNA certifications while there.
Our son graduated from high school in 2000 and wanted to go to school at the University of Missouri (Mizzou) in Columbia, Missouri. My wife and I wanted to be fairly close, and we couldn’t easily do that from Okinawa, so we moved to St. Louis, Missouri and bought a place on the west side, in the city of Ballwin.
I worked as a contractor writing training materials for students seeking Cisco router certifications and, during that time, I acquired several more Cisco certifications to go along with my CCNA. That writing job led me to write two books for Cisco Press. I didn’t get rich from them, but it was cool being published.
I worked as a contractor writing training materials at Charter Communications for sales reps. I was eventually hired by Charter and continued to write materials for the field technicians for a few more years until I retired in the spring of 2009.
Our son, Michael, married in 2008 and he and our daughter-in-law bought a home close by and we see them pretty regularly. He’s a network engineer for Savvis Communicaitons and his wife, Megan, teaches music at one of the middle schools here. I’m into Sudoku puzzles and researching my ancestry. I walk regularly and try to stay healthy. My wife, Mari, writes stories and paints and does other art projects. We hope to do some travelling this coming year and will probably stay in St. Louis.
Retirement was not complete as I worked part-time as a tech writer and Excel programmer until 2017.
