Friends

After working 10 years at Indian Hill for the Computing Center I took a job in 1982 running the Computer Operations group for Denver BTL - Dick Severson hired me. His boss at the time was Ken Switzer and one year later Gary Probst moved out here to work with us. Talk about IH west!

It is now 19 years later Ken - Dick - and Gary have all retired and I have held a variety of jobs from running the Hardware Group, Telecommunications and Data Networking for the facility, and a 18 month stint as a Product Manager in CIO running video conferencing for global internal Lucent use. That was my favorite ever job in my career.

Currently I am a Tech Manager running a Windows Desktop and Server support group for Avaya Laboratories, still here in wonderful Denver Colorado. Linda and I have never regretted our move to Colorado. It has been a great place to raise our 3 kids - Wendy, Jake, and Josh. Only Josh, a senior in high school still lives at home. Wendy graduated from CSU this spring and Jake next year (2002) also from CSU.  I would love to hear from old friends.

I first met George when I was 15 years old. A classmate invited me on an Explorer Scout outing to Bell Laboratories where George was a mentor.

The next time we met was after I graduated high school and I landed a contract assignment at Bell Labs doing program maintenance and documentation. George encouraged me to take a position in the UNIX computer systems operations department (which I did) and he became my supervisor.

My career followed George again in October of 1984 when I went to work for Computer Technology Group as a video producer. George was an instructor for CTG and had told me they had a need for someone to help with their video curriculum development. George left CTG to build his own company (MSS) and I stayed on at CTG going from video producer to Director of Media Based Training and ultimately VP of Product Planning and Development.

Since I left CTG in 1994 I have been consulting in the UNIX and Web arena in Muscatine, Iowa (the picture on the city’s home page was taken by me from a fire engine crane), Battle Creek, Michigan; Dallas, Texas; and currently in Jacksonville, Florida. I have one web site that has some photographs of my travels (albeit outdated) at www.bigfoot.com/~dreambig.

I have had the great pleasure of working with and learning from some wonderfully talented and gifted people of which George is tops on the list.

Thanks George for your inspiration and friendship.

Dream Big, Do Big!

April will mark 19 years with The Labs now Lucent. It's not the age, it's the miles :-)

UN*X is still my favorite OS of choice. Nothing comes even close. Still a jack of all trades and master of none. Have been coding applications using HTML, JavaScript, Excel ( embedded with Visual Basic ) and of course the meat and potatoes stuff - shell, awk, and perl.

My wife Terri and I have been married 4 years in October. I have been asking Terri of late "Getting close to 4 years. How long does it really feel ? :-) " We are simply inseparable. Our world wide junkets have included Australia, the Bahamas, Canada, and Italy. Terri is a software developer for SSA in Chicago. We are currently DINKS ( Dual Income No Kids) residing in Naperville.

Attached is a photo of the (gracefully) aging warrior during a brief break at work.

(Mike was one of my best friends in HIGH School, a star athlete, and quite an accomplished billiards player... I am saddened everyday that he has passed - gfh)

I have sold the marine portion of my business, the deal should be completed as soon  as all the liar's, I mean lawyer's get done feeding on my net gain... I will  be resuming the portion of my business dealing with high Net Worth clientele.  My base core is the music and entertainment sector as well as the wide spectrum of people I have met world wide. I remain based in Ft.  Lauderdale with a small office in LA

Born: Rock Island, Illinois 1954
Kindergarten through first grade: Hamilton Grade School, Moline, Illinois
Second through sixth grades: Andalusia Grade School, Andalusia, Illinois
Junior High: Rockridge Junior High, Edgington, Illinois
High School: Rockridge High School, Edgington, Illinois. Graduated 1973.
Purchased 50 % of Kitchen Cooked Foods July of 1973, 5 weeks after graduating from high school. Spoon River College Advisory board 1985 - 86. Sold Kitchen Cooked Foods in 1986. Joined John B. Sanfilippo and Sons, Inc. 1986 as Product Manager. Invented worlds first biodegradable plastic made from grain in 1990, patent for same issued February 1993. CEO and Chairman of the Board of Eagle Scientific, Inc. 1990 - 1993. CEO and Chairman of the Board of Zero Impak, Inc. 1990 - 1993. Sold Eagle Scientific and Zero - Impak June, 1993. Executive Vice President Gem-Pack, 1993 to 1996. Director, Research and Development, The Cougar Group 1996 to present. Current areas of Research: Exotic polymers, ceramic matrix composites, and virtual prototyping of materials, other things. Married to Glenda. Three children: Ariana, Lucas, and Trent.

(Brad is the only friend I have who has a scanning electron microscope in his home. Check out his home page by clicking on his name!)

Things are going well at the Tanksley's house. Maria is still with IBM they treat her good. She's always getting awards. Mike is finishing up at Illinois School for Broadcasting. He's at a small radio station in Aurora doing an Internship (WBIG) and will continue his internship with Jerry Springer show in May. He says its the number two show to Oprah and I think number 3 market. So dont look at the content he tells me, I dont know.

The other two boys are doing fine. Justin my youngest B-ball team finished number one in Naperville two years in a row 7th and 8th. They went undefeated. He's Six Feet tall already. Taller than his older Brothers. Kevin,(2) well we are getting ready to go through that stressful time of learning how to drive. Do I need to say anymore...... I left Lucent in Dec 2000 and i'm working for Bank of America as a Sr. Analyst in the Sys Eng/Arch group.. I like it a lot. They give me free parking across from the Sears Tower. I'm on the 28th floor

I first met George in 1982 when I started working for the labs. I was a UNIX Computer Operator and George was my Supervisor. I had various positions within the Data Center. Comp Ops, UNIX Coordinator, UNIX SA, Hardware Group, Networking Group and one year in wireless as a Field Eng. with the Cellular Digital Packet Data(CDPD) group. This was the first packet data that went across the cellular system. The Bay stations are still used today with CDMA. In 1996 when AT&T split I left the company and went to PEROT Systems to work on Swiss Banks Global Network. In 1997 I went back to then called Lucent, and worked in CTS doing Retrofits on the 5ess switch. I also was moonlighting on the side at a major Internet Service Provider as a UNIX/Network Analyst.

In December 2000 I left again and now I'm working at Bank of America as a Sr. Analyst in the Sys. Eng. Architecture Group. George has been a mentor to me for many years in many areas. I am truly grateful to him.

Al has supplied me with a copy of his resume.  Fun/interesting guy to chat with.