I was born in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, as one of the first "baby boomers" about ten months after my Dad returned from Germany in 1947, where he served as a tank driver then tank commander.

My mother's mother, Gramma Jess, had by then moved to Colorado for her health; Colorado Springs was reknown as a resort for the recovery of tuberculosis patients in those days.  One by one, her children moved to Colorado Springs after coming to visit her.  My parents were the first.  We moved in 1949, before I was two years of age.

I grew up in Colorado Springs.  I went to grade school at St. Mary's Catholic School through grade three, then at Divine Redeemer Catholic School through grade six.  Beginning in grade seven (junior high school, in those days before middle school had been invented,) I went to public schools, starting with Horace Mann Jr. High, followed by Wasson High School, where I graduated in 1965.*

The Viet Nam war and the military draft were going on then, so I hoped for a deferment to allow me to study architecture, the only work I ever really wanted to do.  I was accepted at the University of Colorado in Boulder, in spite of mediocre grades in high school.

I was able to secure deferments (often with a great deal of trouble because the course of study for architecture was five years) and graduated on the Dean's list in 1970.  I immediately went into the U.S. Air Force, on the premise that I would be less likely to be killed or have to kill anyone in the Air Force than in the Army.  And into the Army I would surely go otherwise, as I was in the original draft lottery ... my number was 5 out of 365.

During college, on Thanksgiving Day 1967, I met Karen Bricker (Click to see Karen's Page), daughter of a work friend of my mother (I know ... fixed up by our mothers!)  If it wasn't love at first site, it was love during first weekend.  We married August 16th, 1969, just before our last year of college (Karen's Senior Year, my Fifth Year.)

Right after graduation, I went to basic training (unfortunately, the damn Viet Nam War was still going on) then directly to Tucson, Arizona.  I spent my entire four-year enlistment there, although we wouldn't know this would be the case until it was over.  Our daughter, Morgan (Click to see Morgan's Page) was born there in 1973.  I left the service in 1974 and we moved back to Colorado Springs.

 *  Karen (Click to see Karen's Page) later worked for many years as a teacher in this school.  At a professional dinner, we sat at a table with our structural engineer, Howard Dutzi, and his wife, Ruth.  I knew she was Karen's boss ... the principal of Horace Mann.  As the evening progressed, I knew I recognized her from somewhere else.  When we were talking about Karen and Ruth's school experiences, I casually mentioned that I had attended there the year it had opened.  We then connected that Mrs. Dutzi had been my seventh grade English teacher.  She was then Miss Leese, but later married Howard, who was the engineer on the project.