Arnold BERNEY

Arnold Berney

Arnold's 2011 Autobiography

1961 left High School went to DePauw Unversity, Greencastle, Indiana. Graduated in 1965 with BA in History, economics. Married to Linda Mudd in June, 1965 (Tulsa, Oklahoma).

Temp jobs because of Vietnam war--taught Jr. high school for one year. Joined U.S. Airforce in 1967 and spent 6 years with them. Various positions including Special Agent for the Office of Investigations. Student getting Masters Degree at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana (1970) and taught for two more years at the Air Force Academy (Japanese Language among other subjects).

Had two children while in the military- David (1968) and Valerie (1970).

After leaving the Military, joined TRW Inc, large multinational company, as Far Eastern Representative and relocated wth family to Tokyo, Japan in 1973. Returned to U.S. at the end of 1974 and worked for TRW in Jamestown New York for two years before being reassigned to Geneva, Switzerland where I served as International Sales Manager and Business Planning Manager for their aftermarket operations until 1981.

In 1981 I left TRW to go into my own oil field service related business. Timing could not have been worse as the price of oil dropped soon after and forced closure of many small business including mine. 1982 moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma and became Vice President, Marketing and Sales for Ramsey Winch and Autocrane companies. 1992, after running out of interesting challenges with a small family company, joined a metal working company in Tupelo, Mississippi which subsequently was acquired by a public company, Leggett and Platt, which manufactures a wide variety of products including Bedding, Furniture, Steel, Office and automotive components, among others. Headquarters is in Carthage, Missouri where I and my family have resided since 1995. I currently am a vice president of the company and President of its Asian Operations, a position I have had for a number of years. At some point retirement will come-maybe after I decide what to retire to!

My wife Linda is a musician--an accomplished Pianist who taught for many years. David (Tulsa, Oklahoma) works for Okin Motor Company, part of a Swiss company specializing in motors for beds and furniture, and Valerie is a computer animator working in the film industry (Los Angeles). We have two lovely grandchildren, Lili, 8 years old, David’s daughter, and John, 2 years old, Valerie’s son.

Arnold’s Update (2021)

Sometime after I had retired in 2011 my lovely wife, Linda, asked me “How the hell after spending the majority of your life running at 100+ miles per hour, can you spend 5 hours in a tiny boat sitting and fishing or going to play golf for 4 hours?”

I realize that many of us in this class have also retired and that all got me to thinking about how I and others have made the transition from work to some form of retirement- part time working, consulting, volunteering or just plain relaxing with other things one likes to do.

In my case, I certainly miss some of the people with whom I worked- customers, friends, employees from around the world and I do miss the opportunities we had to live abroad and travel. However I decided that I do not miss being on airplanes every month to China, India, Korea, Brazil etc. where I ran factories or sold goods. I don’t miss the responsibility of 5,000 employees in the group I managed. I definitely don’t miss the daily 16 plus hours work, living on 4-5 hours of sleep for 30 years and I don’t miss constant jet lag.

I traded all that (for the most part) for a pretty relaxing retirement and am happy I did. We spend a little over ½ year at our home overlooking Table Rock Lake in Shell Knob, Missouri and a little under ½ year at our other place in the Indio, California desert overlooking a golf course with a view of the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains.

The trick was to do a combination of physical and mental activities which kept me intellectually and physically active. I learned to play golf when I was 73 (never gonna be great) and I took up fishing when we moved to the lake. Linda is a classical pianist and she is at the piano for many hours per day. She and I both read a lot and I spend time trying to better my Spanish and Chinese. We play scrabble and she usually demolishes me. Until the Covid pandemic we also went to a gym and worked out regularly. All of this has made it easy to answer her question as to how I could go from type A 100 miles per hour to operating at way less than hyper speed and enjoy it along the way.

I look forward to hearing how many of my former classmates are spending their retirement years. If they are not retired, that is great too. One of my friends turns 80 this year and he says he will never retire.