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I attended OCU and graduated in 1964 with a Bachelor of Music degree with a major in Education. In 1963, I married Polly White who was also attending OCU. I was planning on becoming a band director. During the summer after graduation a job hadn't opened up and I made the decision to pursue computer programming instead. In the fall of 1964 my first son was born.

I worked at Tinker AFB from 1965 to 1966 and received my initial programming training there. We then moved to St. Louis where I worked for McDonnell Automation Co. (which was part of McDonnell Aircraft) from 1966 to 1969.

We then moved to Plano, Texas where I went to work for Texas Instruments from 1969 until 1973. My second son was born in the fall of 1969.

In 1973 I grew very weary of big corporate politics and started a landscaping business in Plano. The first couple of years were difficult but I started doing very well. In 1979, Polly and I divorced. I continued the business and expanded several times eventually having 18 employees.

The mid 1980s in Texas were a financial disaster. Banks closing, real estate developers going under and they nearly stopped building new homes. Most of my business was in the new housing area so my business went down also. I finally had to close the business in late 1987.

I had started dating Ruth Thompson in 1983. We got married in 1986.

After I closed the business I found a job back in computer programming. My first job was working with a Tandem computer, which I had never heard of. I changed jobs after less than a year and went to work for Affliated Computer Systems in Dallas. ACS provided computer systems and support for two welfare benefits transfer systems and a system that did ATM cash withdrawal authorizations. I worked there from 1989 until 1992. I then took a job with Availl, Inc. who remanufactured commercial jet engines for the airlines. I continued work on Tandem computers that ran an attendance and labor tracking system.

Ruth and I built our dream/retirement home in 1993. Later that year she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had a lump removed and the surgeon said that he felt he had removed all of the cancer. She underwent chemotherapy and radiation that fall. By Christmas of 1993, we thought her health problems were behind us.

The problems reappeared the following Spring and Ruth passed away in August of 1994. The following Spring I was laid off my job at Aviall. The company had already laid off half of the department that I worked in and when they made the next round of cuts, I got it.

However, Availl had two facilities and had just sold one of them 10 days before I was laid off. The main facility, where I worked, provided computer support for the other facility. When the second facility was sold they were left without support. So I started working as an independent contractor providing support for the secondary facility who had changed their name to Dallas Airmotive, Inc.

I worked from home and continued my contracting with them until the Fall of 2003. The software that I worked on was almost 20 years old so they decided to replace it and the Tandem hardware also. They offered me a job working with the new software and hardware but, being about 4 months from reaching age 62, I decided to retire.

So, here I am. Retired. I am currently working on the web site for the Class of '60. I also maintain 3 other web sites.

I am still single. I have 5 grandchildren. I enjoy jazz (I have a large jazz record/cd collection), cooking, working with my landscaping and studying WWII history. I also spend a lot of time helping with the maintenance of landscaping along a street frontage that our homeowners association is responsible for. I am doing more traveling and really enjoy seeing new places, particularly in the West. I have also delved into digital photography.