2022 - 50th Do you remember the TV series ‘The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau’? Well, I never missed a show, and as we approached graduation at Mt Lebo, I bought a red navy watch cap and set my sights on attending Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. However, some pesky issues regarding GPA and SAT scores redirected my academic pursuits to Lock Haven State College for what my parents called a “let’s see” year. After a year I transferred to Florida Institute of Technology in Jensen Beach FL and earned my degree in Oceanography. After graduation I became temporarily distracted while living above a beer & wine store along the beach road in Nags Head NC but eventually saw the wisdom in gainful employment. I joined NOAA’s National Ocean Survey (formally the US Coast & Geodetic Survey) and lived & sailed onboard the NOAA Ship WHITING for the next five years conducting oceanographic surveys (primarily Nautical Charting) along the East Coast and Great Lakes. I then transitioned to the private sector and joined an international marine engineering and construction company and spent the next 15 years living and working overseas; Mexico, China, Southeast Asia, Middle East. Most of my work was/is; precise surface & sub surface positioning and site characterizations; (seafloor mapping combined with geophysical surveys to map the soils beneath the ocean floor). While working in Bahrain in the Persian Gulf I met my future wife Emer, who was born and raised on the ‘Big Island’…Luzon, Philippines. We eventually moved back to the USA, and I worked in Houston Texas for a couple of years managing international operations in South America. In 2000 an opportunity came up for me to set up a new oceanographic survey office in the San Francisco Bay area and we have been here ever since. This is a special corner of the world and hands down has the best weather. In 2015, I stepped away from full time work to focus on my retirement goals: to always have the top of my feet tan, spending time in my woodworking shop and at our second home in the Philippine Islands (did you know there are 7,107 islands in the Philippines?). Life’s journey has never allowed me to attend a reunion, so I am looking forward to seeing everyone for the 50th.