Retired: President, Valleyoak Systems
Spouse: Judy Noren Faulhaber
2 Children
5 Grandchildren
Information update: 05/28/2016

Can't be.. Can't be 50 years! It was only yesterday that we were watching Howard, Kunze and team win the State High School Basketball Championship! But I guess a lot has happened in all of our lives.

After 61 and graduation from dear old Central, I attended UMD where I majored in Math, Political Science, and Philosophy. Half way through my college career I joined Air Force ROTC since the war in Vietnam was raging and I was healthy and single. I knew that as soon as I graduated I would be going into the military so better as an Air Force officer than carrying a rifle on the ground.

I started dating Judy Noren during my second senior year. Why a second senior year you ask. Because I was having too much fun and there were still too many girls to date. Of course, after getting an ultimatum from Judy the other girls were forgotten. We married after she graduated in 1967 and have been happily married for 44 years.

After graduation it was off to the Air Force to become a missile launch officer. I was stationed in Rapid City, South Dakota and I figured if they wanted my missile in Vietnam I could send them from Rapid City. So I stayed as far away from "Nam" as I could. As the war winded down I was able to separate from the military and took a job with IBM selling computers.

Computers; something I knew nothing about but that too would change as IBM sent me through all the classes I needed to learn everything needed and to get "IBM" indelibly marked on my forehead. After a very enjoyable and successful 12 year career with big blue, I joined a Silicon Valley start up as their regional technical manager in Chicago. The company, GRiD Systems, was headquartered in Mountain View, CA and produced the first clamshell notebook in 1982. After 18 months with GRiD in Chicago I was transferred to headquarters.

The family, which now included a daughter and son, moved to California and Judy started selling real estate. When I got a promotion from GRiD requiring me to leave California Judy said, "I'll write". Like in College another ultimatum. I stayed in California! I learned some things at good old Central High! Priorities! Priorities!

I continued my career in high tech management at Saddlebrook and Fujitsu and then joined Valley Oak Systems in 2002 as President. We grew the company and sold it to Aon Corporation in 2007. I stayed with Aon for a couple of years and then retired at the end of 2008.

The family grew and we now have a close international family. Our daughter, Jana, joined her mother in Real Estate after college and married a man who had escaped from Iran in the 1980s during the Iran Iraq war. Jana has two daughters. Our son, Brent, married, a girl whose father was a South Vietnamese Army helicopter pilot who escaped with his wife and three daughters in 1975. I did not go to Vietnam but Vietnam came to me. Brent has two sons. We like symmetry in our family. Brent and I also worked together at Valley Oak where he was the Accounting Manager before I joined. He likes to tell everyone that he got me the job, which was partially true.

Bicycling has been a big part of our lives since we first rented bikes on our honeymoon. Judy and I now have a tandem and travel all over the world on tandem bike trips. In 2010 we have biked in France, Germany, Luxemburg, Holland, Spain, Portugal, and Morocco. In 2011 we plan to return to Europe for a 3-week bike trip in Southern France. I can taste the great wines already. As Judy says, "we bike because we can and we can because we bike."

I guess it has been 50 years and a wonderful full life so far. The best is still to come.