After the Co-op, I helped build the Domes (Baggins End) on campus in the summer of 1972, along with Mike Kluk and others. I lived there until I gradua
ted in 1975. I met Brooke Connolly in the Fall of ‘74. Brooke just moved into the Domes, and I was returning from a long summer of working for the U.S. Forest Service. Sparks flew. ( See “Wilderness Love Story” at ColorfulClay.Wordpress.com)
I started with the Stanislaus National Forest as an engineering tech and sometimes firefighter in the summer of ‘73 and returned in ‘74. After graduation in ‘75, I was offered a job as a backcountry ranger and later trails foreman in Emigrant Wilderness, just north of Yosemite. Brooke graduated in ’77, came up to join me in Tuolumne County, where she worked for the Ag Commissioner. We married in 1978.
In 1980, I accepted a career-ladder position as a hydrologist with the Sequoia National Forest, so we moved to Porterville, CA. Among other duties, I was assigned a small team doing the environmental analysis for a proposed ski area. It was never built, but I learned a lot about the ski industry in Southern California. Brooke substitute taught high school for a bit and then started work for Sunkist. Our social life centered on Brooke’s membership in the local American Association of Women. For fun, we did an of hikes and backcountry skiing. Our first daughter, Brianna, was born in 1983. At that point, we started talking about moving to a town with better schools and closer to family.
In 1986, I wangled a two-year job with the Snow Survey, California Department of Water Resources. We moved back to Davis that fall and bought a house. Our second daughter, Chloe, was born in 1988. About that time, Brooke started a small business out of our home doing property management. I went back to the Forest Service as a hydrologist on the Eastside of the Tahoe NF. I commuted to Truckee weekly. But that got old after a year, so I took a job with the US Bureau of Reclamation. A year later, a portion with California/Nevada Hydrologic Forecasting Center, NWS, NOAA, both positions in Sacramento.
In 1991, I switched from the Feds to State and took a research position with CDF (now CALFIRE) in Sacramento. I tried to share my practical experience with the PhDs. that I worked with, with mixed results. In 1999, I left the research and went to work as a watershed specialist in Forest Practice Regulation. I also did post-wildfire assessments, as needed. This job required considerable travel and fieldwork, which I enjoyed. About this time, I joined Rotary. In 2012-13 I became club president, and Brooke and I went to Rotary International Conference, held in Bangkok that year. We extended the trip to tour much of Thailand and most of Cambodia. I did not get to Vietnam, though we were very close in the lower Mekong Delta.
In 2015, I retired from CALFIRE. I’m enjoying retirement. Brooke runs her property management business and has one employee. Brianna (38) moved back to Davis and started a fitness business called Yolo Barre. She and David sold the house they restored in Berkeley and bought a 5-minute walk from us in Davis. So our grandchildren, Stella (9) and Zephyr (6) are just around the corner. Chloe (34) and her husband Kyle moved to Portland, Oregon, last year, after their Fresno County Court House wedding. We did have a family celebration later. They just moved into a 1927 vintage bungalow they bought near Reed College. Chloe is a physician with Kaiser Permanente, specializing in sleep disorders. We are so glad there is good air service between Portland and Sacramento.
