BE '86
I chose CCNY because it was close and affordable. For my first year or two, tuition was free. My sister attended before me so I was able to take a look at the campus before they tore down Lewisohn Stadium to build the North Academic Center. The campus at that time had a real Ivy League feel to it. I started at CCNY in 1974 and earned a BA in psychology before returning in 1983 for engineering. CCNY has been a big part of my life and defined a lot of who I am today. The first time around, I played on the baseball team, was a manager for the varsity basketball team under Floyd Lane, and was a student athletic trainer. I made a lot of dear friends that I still am in close contact with, and I met my wife of 40 years through one of them. That first time around, I was distracted by games and practices for two sports and bounced around several majors before settling on psychology. The second time around, I was more focused and it was all business. I was married by then and my wife Catherine was studying architecture at CCNY at the same time. It was fun to be on campus with her and meet her for lunch. We both worked part-time and we had help from relatives, so that was a bit of a challenge for us. Between those two time periods, I worked as an actuarial assistant. The work involved a lot of mathematics, which I enjoyed, but I felt something was missing. Since I loved flight and space, I decided to get an engineering degree so I could work in the aerospace industry. I worked at Grumman Aerospace Corporation for 12 years after graduation and during that time earned a master's in engineering from Columbia University. The end of the Cold War resulted in massive downsizing at Grumman and I was fortunate to get a job with Bloomberg Financial Services as a software developer. I worked there for 19 years until my retirement in 2017. We have two kids who are doing great, and life is good.