About Me

I am grateful for the blessings of life that our Lord and Savior has graciously given through His love, mercy and grace.

I am blessed by an incredible wife who is loving, exciting and beautiful and a wonderful family. Sue and I have been married for 40 years. Together we have raised three boys who have grown into loving, responsible and productive young men. We were blessed with a fourth child, Elizabeth Ann, who we will see again soon. Our sons have married loving, gracious, talented and beautiful young women who have enriched our family and provided vibrancy and additional mystery. The third generation so far includes five fascinating and winsome boys full of energy, questions and their own agendas and three precious and very special little girls born November 26, 2006, May 28, 2007 and September 19, 2008.  The boys are providing a sandpaper effect on their parents’ edges, just as our sons provided for Sue and me. The girls…well they are just sweet as can be. We love every member of the family; we would be less than we are if anyone were missing. The family assembles from time-to-time, sometimes at Lake Burton in Northeast Georgia.

After finishing college and graduate school in 1970, I was fortunate to work for a major U.S. corporation and then lead a spinoff from that corporation in 1995. When I retire someday, I will have worked for the same company (or a part of the same company) for 38-40 years. Retirement seems a distant reality, but when retired I am contemplating applying to medical school for the purpose of training to become a family doctor.

With age I have found that weight control and physical flexibility are no longer “automatic”. With Sue’s encouragement, my eating habits have changed, and with proding from my sons, I have adopted a regimine of exercise around cycling. Cycling is an activity that I can do with my sons as two of them raced as teenagers. They have challenged me to accompany them on an ascent of Mont Ventoux in Provence, France – a 21 kilometer ride with average 9 percent grade! We shall see. I have been riding since December 1998. My first bike was a Trek 5200 which now has traveled 28,000 miles. In 2005 I purchased a second bike, a Trek Madone 5.9 with compact drive (50/36 on the crank), weighing less than 17.5 lbs. In cycling I have a few accomplishments completing a century ride in Claxton, GA; a three day, 238 mile ride in Georgia with Focus On The Family (FOTF) in March, 2002 and a three day, 258 mile ride from Vail to Colorado Springs, also with FOTF, in July, 2003. In June 2006, two sons and I attempted a climb of Mont Ventoux in Provence, a 21 km ascent averaging over 9% grade. The younger men made the summit!

Two hobbies have endured; an interest in old cars and in antique Amish/Mennonite quilts. Today my old car interest is in Ford flathead V-8’s produced between 1932 and 1948. It has been my good fortune to own a few beautiful cars and to meet a number of wonderful people in this hobby. I do not have the skills to restore, but I do have an interest in tinkering. Sue also has an interest in old cars. At one time she owned a red 1967 Jaguar roadster. She did look GOOD in it!!

My interest in antique quilts was prompted by Sue in 1992 when she read the novel How To Make An American Quilt. We learned American quilts tell a story about the quilt maker and her culture. Amish and Mennonite quilts continue to fascinate: the women who made them were plain people but the quilts they produced were vibrant and dynamic. The artistic skill and craftsmanship involved in their quilt making belie the simple upbinging and elementary education of the quiltmakers. Some of my Mennonite ancestors were among the first settlers in the early 1700’s in what is now Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.