I probably would not have made a good benevolent dictator or philosopher king. At least that was what I thought I might become when studying philosophy and mathematics at Lehigh before senior year reality set in. Since I was curious about the mixing board I used to do sound for a band, I added electrical engineering to my education. This was a bit of a fallback position since by then I wanted to be a recording engineer. This dream too was squashed when I returned to campus during a co-op at IBM in Burlington, Vermont only to discover the band had gotten much better. Of course it was due to their new sound man. Good thing I put that back up plan in place.

My extended stay at school led to a career and meeting my first wife. Before starting full-time designing electrical circuits and embedded software for a medical device manufacturer, I took three months to backpack, hitchhike, eat chocolate, ski, and drink beer throughout Europe. I got to see Belgium, Switzerland, France, Italy, Greece, Austria, and Spain. Then shortly after starting work, I was back in Europe with an assignment in Sweden that lasted three months. After three years I switched jobs to work for a company that made products for aircraft. Professionally I have had my head in, or above, the clouds since; working on parts for the Boeing 747, Cessna, Lear, Cirrus and Bombardier business jets, Polatis and Piper, several satellites, and the Boeing 737 MAX.

I got married and started a family. We had three wonderful children: Madeline, Rebecca, and Ben. At work, I continued traveling occasionally adding to the places I’ve been to: England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Russia, India and a one-day trip to Brazil. Although I travelled a lot for work, I didn’t leave the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania. The valley is a great place to raise a family. Despite Bethlehem being the poster child for rust belt troubles they started to reinvent the city with Musikfest. Modeled off Germany’s Octoberfest celebrations, for a week downtown closed to traffic after noon and the music started playing and the beer started pouring. Almost all the shows were free. As Musikfest grew to be the largest free music festival in the world I became a big fan of music festivals, even more than the traditional concerts I saw. One particularly happy Musikfest memory was dancing with Madeline (age 4) with Rebecca (2) in a kiddy backpack and Ben (<1) in a stroller. I’m not sure but this might have been while watching Raffi, lol.

Unfortunately, not everything was so happy and after 13 years my marriage fell apart. Luckily, the kids continued to flourish, and I met Cindy. We were very different: I am a pedantic, transactional, low EQ engineer often oblivious with absolutely no facial or name memory, whereas she is relational, artistic, high EQ with an off-the-charts ability to size up a situation or a person in 20 seconds. She introduced me to more music festivals and blowing my mind by recognizing and remembering people we’d spent five minutes with years ago. We married in 2006 in Cape May, New Jersey and started living together with five teenagers that summer. The three oldest were girls and two youngest boys.

When I proposed, I envisioned our own Brady Bunch. I expected there would be plenty of fun and we’d all create shared, joyful memories. As I was beginning to learn by now Cindy knew better, but thankfully still agreed to marry me. That first summer went very well. Then school started back up. The oldest went away to college, and the others went to schools in their previous and separate districts. Due to school commute challenges, we changed routines and my kids ended up spending more time with their mom than with us. This was not how it was in the Brady Bunch. Still, we all survived and, in the end, it did create a strong foundation for our family.

I’m very proud of all the kids. I’ll introduce and brag about each one in birth order. Madeline has a PhD from Northwestern and works as a user experience researcher for Cisco. Madeline is married to Neil, who also has a DpT (Doctor in Physical Therapy) and works in physical therapy. They have our grandson, who turned one year old as I wrote this. Becca is a non-acting theater major from Emerson who manages software projects at Sense, a small Boston based startup. Becca is married to Ruben who works at a Friends’ school in Philadelphia teaching pre-kindergarteners and is on his way to a graduate degree in early childhood learning. Chiara is a civil engineer from Penn State who works as a senior engineer for Pennsylvania. She is married to Matt, who also went to Penn State and works for PA. They have gifted us with a five-month-old granddaughter. Benjamin spent two years at Rutgers School of Engineering. He worked in construction and now works in manufacturing at Stein Seal. Ben is also the inventor of an exciting patent pending product he will not let me tell you about. Jack studied aircraft mechanics at Del Tech after dragging him to Delaware when we moved there. He finished the associate degree program, got FAA certified with an airframe rating, and now is the Director of Maintenance for a charter jet company. Jack recently married Courney who has a Masters in Nursing Administration and works as a patient care manager for a large health network.

Cindy and I now live near the beach in LSD, aka Lower Slower Delaware. I am continuing my work in the sky. I work part time for Joby Aviation, guiding software engineers toward FAA approval of their work. Joby is a leading player in the new electrical Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVOTL) industry. Joby, and this new breed of aircraft, is reshaping aviation (a new breed, resulting in the first new certification class needed by the FAA in 70 years). Joby plans to operate our vehicles as in-the-air taxis, think the Jetsons and flying Ubers, with plans to be the largest airline in the world. Check out their website joby.aero.

I have a lot of interests that working part time allows me to enjoy. Digitizing my collection of 78s, 45s and 33s (each record takes me back in time so this is taking much longer than you might expect). Kayaking and catching crabs in the Assawoman Bay (once a crab escaped from the cage while on the kayak and I nearly jumped into the water to avoid it). Rollerblading along the flat roads near the beach and the bay. Riding the same bicycle my parents gave me as a college graduation present. Riding another bike, this one a ’99 Goldwing. Doing a little car/bike maintenance. This is recent, but I’m very happy I diagnosed and fixed a tricky gear shift problem; thereby, keeping our ’05 Honda Element with >200k miles out of the junk yard so we can use it to drive on the beach. Playing pickleball which I think of as a sport like cocaine since I’m so addicted to it. And in the summer, enjoying concerts at the arts pavilion one mile from our home.

Something I also do is help Cindy with her small business. Cindy is a glass artist. In DE we dedicated 1,000 sq ft of ground floor for supplies, four kilns, numerous fusing molds, inventory, and an order fulfilment area. Cindy focuses on semi-custom memorial jewelry (EternaMemories) and beach sand decorated glass icicles (Beachcicles™). Check out her website carasmiths.com.

Looking to the future, Cindy and I want to travel. We’ve bought a big truck that I hope will last forever and a big-ole RV for it to tow that I hope will last until we can’t get around too well anymore. We plan to use it to enable us to spend more time with our grandkids. I already done my share of seeing the world now it’s time to see our country. I envision going to see music (hopefully as part of a festival) in every state. We want to take it to Alaska, but I’m not sure how we’ll do Hawaii.

As many have done before me, I want to thank Michael for his work getting folks to write their stories and putting them out there to share. I really enjoy and look forward to reading everyone’s writeup and find each one very interesting. Finally, I’m mostly over being embarrassed by my lack of memory for names and faces, and so I am thinking of going to our 50^th reunion. I’d love to hear more about everyone, and I’d be happy to share more stories. I can even tell you the differences I observed at Boeing between the 747 and 737 MAX.