I served as Vice President for a large general contractor in Los Angeles for the next four years managing the construction of the Long Beach Performing Arts Center.  We returned to Michigan in 1979 to work for Barton Malow Company and was  Senior Vice President for the healthcare group and head of their project planning operations.  During my twenty five years plus with Barton Malow I was involved in the planning and construction of over seventy hospitals from coast to coast.  I retired in 2007 and we live in the same house we purchased in Farmington Hills in 1979.  We have seven children, four boys and three girls.  All seven children attended and graduated from Michigan universities and presently live within twenty miles of us.  The four youngest children played varsity college sports which kept us very busy. I sponsored and managed travel baseball teams for sixteen years and spent the summers playing tournaments throughout the midwest. Our last team included Alex Avila, the present catcher for the Tigers. 

My first job, fresh out of college, was with U.S. Steel.  I worked in the steel mills at Gary, Indiana and Chicago.  I married in 1971 and moved to Pueblo, Colorado where I was employed at CF&I Steel Corporation.  Our son, David, was born in 1974.  (During our 10 year stay in Colorado, we had the great pleasure to blaze trails at most of the ski areas.)

After a 1981 divorce, I eventually moved to Kentucky and worked for Kentucky Electric Steel (KES) Corporation. After a brief stint there, the steel mill shut down due to an employee strike.  I then went to work at Border Steel Mills in El Paso, TX.  KES re-opened under new ownership and I returned to the Ashland, KY area in 1986.  Frances and I married in 1989 and have lived in Russell, KY ever since.  I retired from KES in 2007; Frances retired from Russell schools in 2008 as a National Board Certified science teacher.

In summary, my 40 plus year career as a Metallurgical Engineer in a number of different supervisory capacities took me to five different steel mills located in five different states.  Presently, I am a Metallurgical Engineering Consultant at Steel of West Virginia in Huntington, WV.  Even though my career has taken me a number of different places, I have always considered myself to be a “Michigander” no matter where I have hung my (hard) hat.

My son, David, is the YMCA Director for the Central Kentucky Arts and Humanities programs.  He also plays guitar for a jazz band, Superfecta, in his hometown, Lexington, KY.  His wife, Kelly, is a teacher and professional pianist.  They have twin seven year olds.

Frances has two daughters.  Sara is a police officer in Dublin, Ohio and also has an on-line jewelry business, SparklingShamrock.etsy.com.  She has 12 year old twins.  Susan is a medical doctor in Hanford, CA.  Her husband is a Navy Commander and F-18 Hornet aviator.  They also have two children.

It’s always great to get together with them, along with the six grandkids.

Frances and I are involved in church activities.  I am a member of Gideons International and a Threshold Program mentor at the Ashland Federal Prison.  The prison mentoring program prepares the inmates to re-enter society upon their release.

I still enjoy skiing in West Virginia each winter and golfing all other times of the year.  I have recently been a co-author for a book, The History of Greenup County, Kentucky (the county where we live).  The book will be published this summer.  I wrote about the charcoal- fired iron blast furnaces that were prevalent in this area during the early to mid-1800’s.  The iron products from these furnaces were instrumental during the U.S. westward expansion and also during the Civil War.  All of this was going on before the massive iron ore discovery in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

We have a summer cottage on Lake Superior, near Houghton, MI.  Each year we spend at least a couple of months there golfing, fishing, and kayaking.  We love living in Kentucky, but it’s always great to be back in Michigan, especially for the fall colors.