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Today's Featured Biography

 
Shirley Burhop

After graduating from Cooley in June 1967, I attended Michigan State University. I started out majoring in art, but eventually decided that my best job prospect in that field was to teach, and I didn't want to do that. So I switched to a major in retailing, which gave me credit for all the classes I'd already taken and also required a lot of business courses. In my last quarter, I took an introduction to accounting class and decided that's what I should have been pursuing all along.

After graduation from MSU, I traveled with a college friend for two summers (working as a waitress back in Detroit in-between), discovered there were lots of great places outside Michigan to relocate, and settled in Denver, Colorado. (Remember the economy in Michigan in 1971 - 1973? It didn't seem like a great place to stay.)

After a year in Colorado, I went back to school at Metropolitan State College, got a degree in accounting, and passed the CPA exam. I went to work for the U.S. government, starting out as an auditor with the Department of Agriculture. After 31 years of work in a wide variety of positions and for a number of different offices and bureaus, I retired on March 30, 2007.

During those 31 years, I also obtained an MBA from the University of Colorado at Denver. My jobs often required travel, so I was fortunate to visit a lot of places in the U.S. During the times that I was home, I became interested in bicycling and running. Bicycling led to more travel: a ride down the coast of Oregon, a ride through Glacier and Waterton parks, and various other adventures. After retirement, I enjoyed yoga for a number of years but have now given that up for fear that it was contributing to my back pain.

I am single, having been married briefly in the late 70's, and have no children. I live with my boyfriend, Zane, and a cat, Rocky. Both of my parents passed away in 2006. I was back in Michigan many times that year and in 2007, dealing with doctors, nursing homes, financial and insurance issues, the sale of their house and everything else that needed to be done. I think that experience is what made the retirement decision easy for me - I felt like I'd been handling two full-time jobs for a year and the job I was getting paid for just didn't seem to be the important one. It also reinforced the idea that we can never predict how much time we have left to enjoy life. I've been spending retirement catching up on the sleep, reading, and travel that I never seemed to have the time for while I was working and also trying to figure out what to do with this next phase of my life. So far, all I've learned is that there's still not enough time for everything I want to do. I travel as much as my time, energy, and money allow: to Morocco, Nepal, Italy, France, Belgium, England, Scotland, and many places in the U.S., and I hope to continue doing so for many years.

It was great seeing those of you who attended the reunion in 2007 and I look forward to attending again this year.

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