Robert E. Zakarus

To catch you up a bit I have been architecting up here in Minnesota for the last 20 years +. I always had this dream of having my own practice but it never quite came to be (arch/construction is a tough business and that is a long story in itself). My big thing is really working on a variety of large, innovative, award winning kinds of projects and I have played a key role in a bunch. My latest is a $100 million corporate headquarters for a life insurance company that is really stellar.

I am on my second marriage the second being to a wonderful woman I met here not long after my first marriage divorce.

My kids are 21 and 24, boy and girl (Dough and Jamie respectively) and both in college. Doug at U of Minn and JZ at U of Wisc in nursing. Doug is in the biz.

My major thrills in life are sports, motorcycles, hockey, tennis and generally living a good upper middle class life. I have 2 motos - one a speed racer Yamaha 600 and the other a Suzuki Bandit 1200.

Winter sucks and I am not sure why I/we live here. (Oh yes I know - our jobs and networks are here). But when we do finally hang it up workaday wise I am sure we will be doing winters somewhere warm (Texas, Florida, Ariz?) Seems that during the winter here I am never really warm (not counting the overheated shopping malls in Christmas)

In another vain attempt to stay forever young we both still try to go the occasional concert. Not long ago we saw the Doobies and the Guess Who (American Woman if you may remember). It was pretty fun but I see my concert days are numbered too as the noise, obnoxious fans and bad acoustics are far more intolerable than they ever used to be.

Here are some other flashes from the past I would be interested to know what has become of.... Bob Stack, Jerry Lucas, Mike Navarro. I actually think I know that Navarro married his sweetheart and I believe is reliving life as a coach and driver’s ed teacher at Sandburg eh?! There is some kind of odd symmetry there......

I actually keep in pretty close touch (for a guy) with a couple mates. Jim McMahon is one his email address is: JPMecowrit@aol.com. Other is boyhood friend Mark Connell who transferred to another HS at Jr year I believe.  His email is: msc-clf@bigsky.net.