Work: semi-retired
Spouse: Cheryl
3 Children
6 Grandchildren
Information update 11/28/2020

I arrived in Duluth in February of 1960. My stepfather was a member of the Air Force and had been assigned to the Duluth Air Base as the non-com in charge of ground power on the flight line. I had attended five different schools in four different states since April of 1955. Central was the first time that I really had fun in school. My junior (and senior) year homeroom teacher was Mr. Moe and it was he that was the first person that made my transition into Central easy and enjoyable. He was almost in the same boat, this was his first year at Central and he wasn't much older than his students. After graduation I made several attempts at furthering my education at UMD. Working at King Leo's in Canal Park and eventually full time as a sign painter at Shopper's City was always in conflict with my attempts at studying.

I think that I managed to complete two years of college in the four that I actually attempted. I quit Shoppers City and UMD late '63 to travel to visit family and friends in my hometown of Northampton, Massachusetts. In the following six months or so I spent time in New York City, northern Maine and the Akron-Cleveland, Ohio area where I worked for a trucking company. With the draft looming over my head, I returned to Duluth with the idea of joining the National Guard. Starting in June of '64 I worked in the merchant mill as a catcher's helper and in the blast furnace at the steel plant in Morgan Park. In the few months that I worked there I made an obscene amount of money and I learned many things...the most important being that I didn't like getting dirty and that a white-collar job should be my goal. Because of the money that I now had in the bank I took a job working in the display and advertising departments for $1.25 per hour at Wahl's Department Store. I learned much at Wahl's, thanks to the great people I worked with there.

My stepfather was transferred in early September of 1964 to the air base in Portland, Oregon. I elected to stay in Duluth, but several months later I realized that I had never been any further west than West Duluth. I arrived in Oregon on April 15, 1965. Two days later I was working in the advertising department of the Oregon division of one hundred stores of Safeway. Because I was not familiar with Safeway and their private label merchandise and a lot of grocery store terminology in general, I would work three days a week in the advertising offices and two days a week in nearly every Safeway store in the Portland metro area. I did too well in the stores and because the division was in a big expansion they now wanted me in their management plan. Even though the advertising director wanted me for his department, I was put in a position where I couldn't say no. After a few months I started to pursue other avenues of employment.

In August of 1966 I went to work in the advertising and display departments of Baza'r Discount Department Stores headquartered in Portland. Baza'r had twelve department and food stores from Seattle to San Francisco and eventually had all the grocery stores in Kmart on the west coast. I was the assistant advertising manager when I left the company nine years later to go work for one of our vendors, Artcraft Screen Printing. Artcraft had printed all the posters and banners that I designed that hung in all of the Baza'r stores. In 1986 I left Artcraft to work with West Coast Screen Printing and ultimately ended up owning that business. We produced posters, banners, decals, signs and transit advertising (sides of buses).... our specialty was over sized graphics...we could print up to 4' x 12' at one pass. I closed up the production location of West Coast in September of 2009 and now continue to broker jobs through other printers in the metro area. I have designed and produced many promotional packages and banners for a wide variety of chain stores, manufacturers and advertising agencies and have had the pleasure of seeing my stuff all over our country. Over the years I have produced literally miles of banners for Nike, Adidas and Avia sport shoes.

My first marriage lasted nine years, ending in 1978. For the next several years I really got involved in downhill skiing. In the fall of '78 I joined the all-volunteer, non-profit Bergfreunde Ski Club and two years later was president and held several different board positions in the years that followed. When I joined the club we had only sixty members and only winter activities. I suggested with the help of others that we have year-round activities and events. By the early eighties we were drawing in excess of nine hundred people at our monthly meetings and had activities every day of the month and taking ski trips as well as white water rafting and sailing trips. I helped organize the Pacific Northwest Ski Club Council and the annual fundraiser to benefit the Ore