My whole family moved to Fort Collins Colorado after I graduated from High School. There, I attended Colorado State University and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering in 1978. I went to work for IBM in Boulder Colorado in June 1978 and worked in research and development on various commercial products until 1986. My job included a lot of travel around the US plus some work in France.
In 1986, I transferred to the IBM Federal Systems group (which moved into Boulder Colorado) and then spent the next 6 years working on a variety of Air Force and Army reconnaissance systems. I again got to travel a fair amount and worked in Germany periodically.
My fiance died after a very short illness in 1991 and I became guardian to her 2 children: Charles and Allison.
in 1992, I transferred to the IBM Federal Systems Headquarters group in Bethesda Maryland. I audited programs and taught engineering classes for company employess and military contractors for the next 3 years.
In early 1995, I transferred to Portsmouth England where I became the Laboratory Manager at an Air Traffic Control center that IBM was building for the British. The job was very stressful but living in England was wonderful. I lived in a tiny village (2000 people) but everything was in walking distance (3 pubs, grocery, butcher, post office, etc ). We had a church from 700 AD and several houses I walked by on the way to the pubs had been built in the early 1400's.
I returned to the US in July 1998 and retired.
My son got married in 1999 to Ashley Williams and they now have 3 sons : Ian (2002), Phinneas (2004) and Angus (2006). They live in Cincinnati OH where he is a Vice President with Ipsos doing market research for Procter & Gamble.
My daughter lives in Denver where she medically retired from Archstone as the Director of property sales. She married in 2012 to Dan Wyks who had a son Kevin and Daughter Karin from a previous marriage.
Since I retired and have the time, I now do volunteer work at some of the local charities and travel a lot.
Hi Sharon, Have a wonderful birthday amidst all your Thanksgiving celebrations. I hope the wedding planning is going well. Take care and Happy Birthday again. Chris