Neuschwanstein Castle in southwestern Germany
Germany
Now for something completely different!
Initially, I resided in a modest apartment in Ehningen, a town situated just south of BΓΆblingen. BΓΆblingen, in turn, was situated south of the major city of Stuttgart. Later, I moved to BΓΆblingen itself. BΓΆblingen was situated next to Sindelfingen, which was home to a massive Mercedes-Benz factory. I occupied the bottom floor of the stairs leading to the church and Marktplatz, the heart of town where local farmers sold their produce.
For the first year and a half, I worked in the Engineering Systems Groupβs European Marketing Center, supporting our sales teams in Scandinavia and southern Europe. To make the most of my time, I ensured that any travel trips included weekends, allowing me to extend my stay and explore the local attractions. During my tenure, I managed to visit every country in Western Europe, except for Portugal and Ireland.
I had a company car, a BMW 324d diesel, that I used to travel in southern Germany during other weekends. I spent a significant amount of time in England. During my second summer there, I embarked on a two-week car trip that encompassed England, Scotland, and Wales. A short drive south, Switzerland became a popular destination for visitors.
I worked with Rik, who supported Germany, France, and England, and spent a lot of time with him and his wife, Debbie. I did the same with Barry and his wife Diane, as well as Bob and his wife Linda, who were also from Lake Stevens. Another family, Jan and Jerry Watkins, along with their two sons, Joel and Jon, hailed from Fort Collins. We all spent time together, embarked on trips, and celebrated various holidays, including American, British, and German ones.
I made every effort to return to the US and spend quality time with my family. Rick and I embarked on two thrilling dive trips to Belize and Bonaire (we also visited Honduras before relocating to Germany). My parents visited twice, and Rick, Dave, Daveβs wife Lisa, and my two-year-old nephew Adam visited the second summer I was there. After a year and a half, I moved to the division responsible for developing the CAD software and extended my stay by another year.
Spending time with my family made me realize how much I regretted moving away from the place I had grown up in. This was despite my initial desire to get as far away from it as possible when I moved out west. A couple of years earlier, my brother Rick had bought a house and was now looking for something on the water. In 1989, I ended up buying his house with the plan to rent it out until I found a way to return to Florida.
While residing in Germany, my home division in Lake Stevens relocated to Fort Collins, Colorado, to be nearer to the teams responsible for designing the computers that the software ran on. Consequently, I promptly sold my home in Mukilteo as soon as the relocation announcement was made. Instead of returning to Washington, I decided to relocate to Colorado. I had previously visited the state on several business trips and was eagerly anticipating my move. Escaping the dreary weather of Seattle and northern Europe was a major draw for me. Additionally, I was really getting into skiing and looked forward to doing a lot of that.
Colorado
Before moving at the end of 1989, I ordered and picked up a brand new BMW 325iS from the factory in Munich. I drove it some before putting it on a boat and sipping it to Colorado.
I also visited Fort Collins and purchased a new house on the cityβs south end, near the HP plants. Initially, our group worked in a temporary office building a few blocks away from my new house. It was quite convenient, and I would walk home to have lunch!
When I moved back, my business focus switched from CAD to Engineering Data Management products. We had a product called WorkManager that required significant customization to work. I led a team to help establish a consulting business around this work. My heart was never as much in this technology, although it became an essential part of my work in the 2000s.
The Wall
Towards the end of my stay in Germany the Soviet Union collapsed and East German was reunited with the West. The Germans living in Berlin started symbolically tearing down the wall.
Shortly after I returned to Colorado I was back in Europe on a business trip. We scheduled. stop in Berlin to check out the action for ourselves.
The electric atmosphere was palpable as people gathered around the gate and other symbols of the divide to celebrate! I got my own souvenir, for a slight charge to rent the hammer and step ladder! Capitalism at its finest including the Polish Flea market where the Poles came to sell everything they own for some hard currency.
I took a subway train into the eastern part of Berlin, and the stark contrast between the east and west was immediately apparent. On a subsequent trip, I drove into the old eastern part of Germany, and it felt like stepping back in time to the 1950s.
After living on what was essentially a three-year business trip, I was ready to have a home again.
My new house had a huge basement where I built my first proper woodworking shop. I bought some larger tools, including a planer and bandsaw. I made my first furniture pieces there.
I did a dream vacation in 1991 to Australia and New Zealand. I spent a month there and did my first live-aboard dive boat on the Great Barrier Reef. After I returned, I met up with a guy I knew from Germany who had moved to Colorado and just learned to dive. Dan and his German wife Maggie had relocated back to Dan’s hometown, Fort Collins. We became good friends, and Dan and I did four dive trips to the Caribbean and South Pacific. They had a cabin in the mountains near Breckenridge that I would visit after I left Colorado.
While living in Germany, I skied every chance I could get. I bought my first pair of skis there. When I moved to Colorado, it became my passion, and I did it as often as possible. I would do weened trips to Steamboat Springs, about 3 hours away. Over time, my favorite area became Winter Park, outside Denver. Later, when I moved to Atlanta, I owned some property outside of Winter Park. I intended to retire there someday.
In 1992, I moved back to Germany for a six-month business trip. I would lead the team in launching our new CAD modeler, SolidDesigner. It was a whirlwind adventure, and we made three major stops in Chicago, Amsterdam, and Tokyo. We worked hard, and I was physically exhausted at the end of it.
I came back and did some different stuff, but it was clear moving forward would not be easy. The answer? Build a house! π΅βπ«
I knew some friends from Germany who had built a home in the mountains near Estes Park. I used to go up and visit them and started warming up to the idea of doing something similar – but close to town where I could live full time. I eventually realized this when I bought 40 acres of land outside Fort Collins. It was situated in a canyon and was part of the Swanson Cattle Ranch. It was a little over 30 minutes from Fort Collins and a very scenic drive on the southern end of Horsetooth Reservoir. The land was undeveloped except for a gravel road back to the lot. For reasons I can not entirely remember, I named it Valhalla after Nordic mythology.
I hired an architect to draw up some plans and get power to the lot. I eventually started construction towards the end of 1994. I spent all my spare time there while it was being built and finally moved in (after some weather delays) in the early summer of 1995. I loved exploring my land. It was very rocky in spots and featured a small canyon carved by the water runoff that was a running stream for a while after I moved in. It indeed was Valhalla!
In the meantime, the situation at Hewlett-Packard had gotten pretty bad. I had bounced around between different assignments that never lasted long. I did R&D project management for a while and considered becoming a traveling consultant. My heart was not in it like in the early days.
We were under a lot of internal political pressure because of our relationship with the hardware group. They saw us as a threat to other software companies to run on the HP platform. Some nasty battles had been waged, and morale was pretty much in the shitter. I had started working with a new group of people because I had nowhere else to go.
In the meantime, back in CAD-land, things were changing. The PC was now a decent substitute for expensive workstations, and companies like AutoCad (who I would later work for) were booming. Their products ran on PCs and cost much less than the old dinosaur mini-computer applications.
Over the years, I have worked with a group of developers in Ithica, New York. They went by the funny name of 3D/Eye. It was started by a professor at Cornell University and a couple of his graduate students. Several of my colleagues had left over the past couple of years to join them. They had ambitions to become more than guns-for-hire and 3D molding products to exploit this trend. I had already been recruited, but seeing as I was building my dream home, it was a no-go. Besides, I had no desire to move to New York. I had heard the winters there were terrible, and I loved living in Colorado.
I got a peak at what they were up to late in 1995. At the last minute, I made a business trip to Chicago to look at some of our competitors’ products at a significant annual tradeshow. 3DEye was also there, introducing their new Microsoft Windows 95-based solid modeler. Windows 95 was a really big fucking deal, and everyone was looking for the next killer app to become rich and famous. I nearly left the show without seeing them, but I went to check them out at the last minute.
I was dumb-struck at what I saw. When most booths were vacant at the end of the show, their booth was packed. I watched a demo of what they were doing. It was a drag-and-drop-like interaction like I had never seen in a modeler, all running on a PC. I had the most intense ride home that evening as I digested what I had seen. By the time I got home late that night, I had decided to quit my 11-year career at HP, leave the dream home I had just built, and move to a place I never intended to live. It was the most significant change I have ever made other than moving back to Florida.
The month of December 1995 was one for the record books π. I worked for a week in Atlanta, hosted my whole family at my new, beautiful house in the mountains for Christmas, then packed up everything and took a trailer packed with some of my stuff to Atlanta. I arrived on January 1, 1996, to begin the next (and most tumultuous) part of my journey!
