Brooks Hurd Brooks Harding Hurd

3 years at Bitburg Air Base, Germany.
Married Nancy in 1970.
Finished OSU, graduating 1974, BS Chemical Engineering.
Worked for Air Products for the next 14 years, living in Media, PA; Allentown, PA; Washington, DC; and Lansdale, PA.
Worked for SAES Getters for several years living in Colorado Springs and San Luis Obispo, CA.
Worked for AM Associates for 7 years. Worked on projects in Icheon, Bucheon, and Cheonan, Korea; Narita, Japan; Hsinchu, Taiwan; Avezzano, Italy; Edinburgh, Scotland; Texas, Colorado, and California.
Started my own company and ran it for off and on since 1998. Lived in Hsinchu, Taoyuan, and Taichung, Taiwan; Migdal Ha'emek, Isreal; and Cheonan, and Seoul, Korea.
Joined Matheson in 2007. Spent 1 year living in Asan, Korea and the next year commuting between Asan, Korea and New Johnsonville, TN.
In January, 2009, Matheson moved me to eastern PA as GM of a mini refinery producing products for the semiconductor industry.
In 2009, Nancy and I visited our daughter, Ashley, in Germany's Black Forest.
In September, 2011, we attended the wedding of our daughter, Ashley, and Andreas Ludäscher's in Eastham, Mass on Long Pond. They lived 4 years in Berlin, an amazing city. In 2015, they moved to San Luis Obispo, CA near us. Ashley and Andreas have two sons, Easton (2020) and Hayden (2023).

Now our son Brooks III, married Katie Taliao in 2012. They bought a condo in Livermore. On July 31, 2014, Katie gave birth to a 9 lb 9 oz boy, Owen Rhys Hurd. Brooks III is Director of Operations at Benchmark.

We celebrated Christmas 2011 with Ashley, Andreas, and Andreas' family in the Offenburg area. We had a wonderful time celebrating Weihnachten and visiting many Christmas markets.

In June, 2014, we went to Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and France. We met Ashley, Andreas and Nancy's brother in Sindelfingen near Stuttgart and picked up our new car. We visited Andreas' family in Offenburg (B-W) then drove to France (Strasburg and Rouffach). We then drove to the Bodensee (Lake Constance) and through the Alps to see friends in Ingolstadt. Then on to Regensburg, Bamberg, Dresden and then to Berlin to visit Ashley and Andreas.

2015, from January through the end of April, I helped an old friend set up his company's first manufacturing facility outside of Japan. Nancy and I enjoyed the Atlanta area. After Atlanta, we headed to Cape Cod now to work on the house in Eastham to have it ready for the rental season.

In June 2016, we demoed the kitchen in the Cape Cod cottage and replaced the cabinets, sink, and floor. Our daughter Ashley, her husband Andreas, Nancy and I did almost all the work ourselves.

In 2017 and 2018 I worked on a Micron project in Taichung, Taiwan. In 2019 and 2020, I did a project at the Tesla Fremont factory until the Alameda County sheriff shut down the plant. From 2021 through 2023, I worked on TSMC Fab 21 in Phoenix. It's a small world. The TSMC engineer who I worked with at Fab 12B in Hsinchu was the project director in Phoenix.

This Summer (2020) my cardiologist told me that the time had arrived for my mitral valve to be repaired. Since COVID-19 meant that the hospitals were not very busy, I got an appointment for surgery for the following week. Dr. Luis Castro and his team were excellent as was the staff at Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City.

In August we went on a wonderful Rhone River cruise with members of the Wolff Vineyards wine club. Nancy and I spent 4 days in Paris, then took the TGV to Arles to begin the cruise up the Rhone River, ending 7 days later in Lyon.

Since early October, I have been back in San Luis Obispo. I am now working on setting up hydrogen systems for vehicle fuel.