I have 5 adult children-- 3 men(Dan
jr.,Tim,Stephen) and 2 women( Jeanine,Kathleen). All ofthem
are hard working and good parents. My youngest daughter is
a succesful small business owner of 2 fairly large beauty and
hair salons in San Diego County. My youngest son is an
Attorney in Orange County. The oldest daughter's husband is
career Army currently serving in Iraq. She is a realtor in
Texas but is moving back to California next year when
hopefully her husband will retire from the army. The other
two sons are climbing the corporate ladder in
management /sales positions.
14 grandchildren ranging in ages from 22 to 3. Two of my
granddaughters will graduate from college this year. One
grandson is in the airforce. The 3 year olds are twin girls.
You may remember my youngest sister Becky. Her son is a
paramedic in the army. He was wounded in Iraq but is ok. My
other sister Maryann passed away in Hawaii of a blood
disease that was never identified about 26 years ago. I
raised my niece and nephew who turned out just fine.
I graduated from USC in 1959 where went with JBHS
classmate John Frasier on an NROTC scholarship. I think
another JBHS classmate, Burt Dole attended Stanford on an
NROTC scholarship. Anyway I had a great time at USC. I was
president of the Squires a sophmore men's honorary.
I also
was president of the Trojan Knights which is the
Junior/Senior men's honorary and Chief Justice of the men's
judicial court. During the year I was president of Squires we
infiltrated the UCLA card stunt committee and altered the
card stunts so that a block USC appeared somewhere in
every stunt. When I was president of Knights we printed a
phony Daily Bruin newspaper quoting members of the Bruin
football team as being afraid to play the Trojans and stating
that they wished they had gone to USC. We substituted our
paper for theirs and distributed it on the UCLA campus.
needless to say it created quite a stir. After graduation,
I owned and operated several small businesses but was
always under capitalized so I sold them. I went to work for
the LA County Flood Control District so that I could attend
Loyola Law School at night. I had 4 children at the time. I
graduated in 1968, passed the bar and went back to work for
the county in its civil attorney office (County Counsel) I
became an Assistant to the County Counsel in 1973 in charge
of the Labor Relations Law Division. I left for private
practice at the end of 1975. I became a partner in that firm
in 1976. After the death of one of my partners in the PSA
plane crash in San Diego in 1978 the original partnership
deteriorated. Two of my partners and I formed our own firm
in 1980. We specialized in representing Citys,Countys,Special
Districts,Colleges and School Districts in their Labor Relations.
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I have spent the better part of the past 23 years
negotiating with Police , Fire, Transit District and teacher
Unions. I think I have sat across the table from every union
you have ever heard of including the Teamsters, the United
Auto Workers, IBEW, Correction Officers union, Police
Officers Association, Brotherhood of Fire Fighters, SEIU,
AFSCME, California Teachers Association, Classified School
Employees Association, Technical Clerical Union, California
Nurses Association, to name a few. We have grown from 5
to 47 attorneys with offices in San Fransisco and Los
Angeles. During a strike at the Metropolitan Transit
District in Los Angeles in 2000, I sat across the table from
the Reverend Jessie Jackson. He got the publicity but we
got the settlement at less than the MTA had on the table
before the strike. Currently the ATU has been on strike for
3 weeks after negotiations on a new 3 year contract failed.
The other unions while not on strike are honoring the picket
line. I bet they don't bring the Reverend back even if the
strike continues for another 4 weeks.
I am now semi retired. Working about half time and traveling
with my wife Terri the rest. While Terri is licensed to
practice law in California she has spent her professional life
as a Director of Human Resources in the City of El Cajon, then
Deputy Superintedent of Schools in Capastrano Unified
School District and currently the Director of Human
Resources at the Mesa Water District. She too spends a lot
of time in labor relations. This past spring we went on a
cruise from Tahiti to Hawaii. We also flew to Munich and then
took a river boat down the Danube to Vienna, Budhapest and
Bratislave. During the fall Terri and I go to all of the USC
football games, home or away. We went to the bay area for
the USC/Cal game in September. After the game we went up
to the Napa area to visit two restaurants and a bakery that
we have a small ownership interest in the city of
Yountville. (The French Laundry, Bistro Buchon and Buchon
Bakery) We went two weeks later to Chicago for the
USC/Notre Dame game. There I mixed pleasure with
business. I am a part (very small part) owner of Wolfgang
Puck's Spago restaurant in Chicago. It is not doing too well
and we may close it. I was also a partner of Puck's in LA but
sold that interest as I began entering retirement. My
youngest son Stephen graduated from the Uof A so we
always do a father-son trip to Tucson for the USC/Arizona
game. Terri stays at home and entertains some of our
grandchildren. I really think she prefers that since she also
opted out of the Seattle trip.We are lucky that 9 of the
grandkids live within an hour's drive.
While we have been fairly successful in business what is the
most important aspect of life is the happiness we have had
with our family and friends.
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