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Today's Featured Biography
Mark Andre
Quick summary since '70: I took the advice of the counselor at Brush to attend Vanderbilt in Tennessee, and found that I didn't fit in at all with the school's culture or in the rebel South for that matter.
I dropped out after a couple years, bought an old Chevy pickup, let my hair grow, and worked in Nashville's alternative culture selling backpacks and bikes. Enjoyed the music scene. Met some British guys who had been traveling for years, got the travel bug myself, and hitchhiked cars and private airplanes up the east coast and into Canada. From Newfoundland I caught a ride with a Danish tramp steamer to Europe and lived there for a couple years, earning money as I went. Hitchhiked just about everywhere, including "behind the iron curtain" (still Cold War days) and several countries in northern Africa and the Near East.
With a German friend I took the Trans-Siberian train across the USSR and ended up in Japan, which I really liked--stayed there as an English teacher/missionary for a couple years. Bought a bike and rode extensively throughout the archipelago. I made my way south to Australia by boat and bike, and lived in Perth W. Australia for a year, working as a geologist (hardly qualified, but they didn't mind). Made my way back to the USA (via a side trip to China which had just opened up to tourism) to attend my brother Joe's (Brush class of '65) wedding in California. Then up to Washington State, worked at REI HQ a bit, then across the country back to Ohio to pursue a degree in technical writing at BGSU.
About six years had passed in circling the globe -- I had visited over forty countries, slept in huts, houses, hostels, temples, tents, trains, trucks, beds, brothels, boats and one month on a ping-pong table in Singapore's Catholic cathedral rec room. Upon my return, I felt really at loose ends back in the USA, but knew I had to get a career going. Youth is a great excuse to avoid joining the adult world, but I had turned 30 and had worn that one out.
So back at BGSU I got an M.A., then took my first real job (1985) at Hewlett-Packard in Fort Collins Colo, where I met my wife-to-be, Barb. Actually, I met Barb's folks before I met her, her dad the foreign student advisor and her mom a career advisor at Colo State Univ. Her parents were very easy-going and welcoming to the wanderer their daughter wanted to add to the clan.
I talked Barb into moving with me to Japan to set up housekeeping, and we lived in Sapporo and Tokyo for seven years, Scott (1992) and Naomi (1995) were born in this time. Worked as the only non-Japanese in a computer start-up business called "Brainy Uncanny Guys," which was probably the best job I've had--became fluent in Japanese, developed some skills, made some money, had fun.
Moved back to Fort Collins (1995) when Barb's aging father's health took a turn for the worse. I rejoined HP and flew over a million miles back and forth to Asia, selling network management software. Together with family, I was posted to live in Bangkok (2000). That was a good time for the kids, we had elephants and water buffalo
in the neighborhood, explored along the Burma border and the Golden Triangle. Business was a grind, I let my health go, got up to 225 lbs on expense-account food and entertainment.
When we got back to the US, my business division was downsized shortly thereafter, had to scramble to land (2003) at a venture-based start-up doing pretty much the same thing, but that blew up too, so I found myself unemployed and with time on my hands in 2006, and latched onto the idea to go after a long-held goal of completing the Hawaii Ironman triathlon championship.
That got me back in shape! Was successful at that in 2007 and even ranked 6th in the country in my age division, USAT All-American.
Current balancing-act, not surprisingly, is family, health, and career. I'm employed selling consulting services for a small Fort Collins company, Semantic Arts Inc. "I eat what I can kill." So far so that's working out, and it seems business growth is returning. I do like the company and its people very much.
In any case, the debt I feel I must generally repay is one of hospitality, having been the recipient of so much help and goodwill during my formative years and traveling 'career.' Have to say I'm a believer in basic human nature.
Hope to see many of the people from Brush at the next reunion. What I look forward to most is getting to know everyone now that we are grown people.
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