Everything has a beginning: here I am in my track suit 1965 doing Long Jump and High Jump. I took 3^rd place at the Westmoor HS Invitational that year, graduated and went to College of San Mateo for one year. My brother Albert and I got our "Greetings and Salutations" letter from the draft board the summer of '66 giving us the good news that our lottery number was lucky 7. Being of sound mind and body I began running 10 miles every other day just in case. Well, my prospects of trying to stay in school diminished due to finances so I joined in July - mom had to sign for me - then on September 28^th I was in Army boot camp in Fort Lewis, Wa. I took an extra year (4 years total) to try and stay out of Vietnam by enlisting in the Army Air Defense Command, Nike Missile System, and was assigned to San Rafael as an Alternate Battery Acquisition Radar Operator doing Electronic-Counter-Counter Measures (ECCM) cool huh? Well - the duty was 24 on and 24 off, no sleep. After 16 months of that I decided I needed to make a change so I applied for and got into Construction Drafting School for 12 weeks. I graduated as top honor graduate with field civil engineer knowledge to draw up and design everything from airports, bridges, roads, concrete structures etc.

 I was sent to Germany in the spring of '68 to a Heavy, Combat Engineer Battalion near Stuttgart. I arrived as a corporal and left an E-6 Staff Sgt. This is a picture of me up on the East German border on one of my 60 day camping trips just before I was promoted:

I spent a total of 28 months in country;  they liked the fact that I could endure the freezing cold so whenever my name came up for a trip to the other war, my orders were changed, those poor guys coming back from Viet Nam had a very hard time in 15 degrees below, many who re-enlisted to go back. My experience has allowed me to get my General Contractors License and I am currently doing home addition blueprints with what the Army taught me. By the by, the Army missile experience got me into the Phone Factory, PacBell, which I retired from as a Senior Engineer in 1996. I am currently doing my construction Drafting and working at T-Mobile as a senior Facilities Engineer.

I have two sons. One born in Germany in 1969, Alex, lives in San Carlos with his wife and he works in Tech Support. Alex will be 41 this year. My other son is 3 and a half, and his name is Logan. My current wife Jill and I decided that we wanted to enjoy this experience

I will be 63 years old this year and I am enjoying being a new dad again. I just completed a major foot operation but I am limping along better and better every day.

Here is a picture of me today holding Logan at the Nike Missile Museum in the Marin Headlands

While I was working for PacBell I decided to go back to school and get a degree in the field the Army disrupted. I wanted to become a Technical Illustrator before the Army but after returning in 1970 I was employed, had a wife and son, a house payment, car payments and dogs. I had to do it all in night school taking 12 years and graduating from San Francisco State with a degree in Fine Arts and Art History, and if I would have taken a few more courses, maybe another year, I could have had minors in English, Physical Anthropology, Philosophy and Child Development. Oh well, I had a lot to talk about when it came back to dating.

The following two paintings were completed some time ago, but it demonstrates the love I have for watercolors and the range I like to work in:

Currently my wife and I live in San Ramon, California. I am still at T-Mobile and she is working as a Senior Engineer for ATT. We have done well and I in particular will be looking to hang up my Telecommunications spurs sometime in 2013 at the age of 66.

For more info, see August 2010 questionnaire response.