What on earth have you been doing these 39 years?

Ok, here goes.... If you would, please, could you comment with a short history of your life-journey since graduation.

Here's mine:

After graduation, I worked the summer for the Oregon State Highway department, on a survey crew, while the rest of my family moved to Roseburg, Oregon. Then in the fall of '68, I started at Oregon State.

While at OSU, I met the love of my life, Dorothy Walz. We were married on Friday Winter term finals week, in 1972, and then in 1973 I graduated with a BS in Chemical Engineering. Unfortunately, the job market at that time was pretty miserable, and opportunities not good at all.

In 1974, I joined the US Air Force and received my commission in July. From there I was posted to North Carolina State University for a year to learn meteorology, then was sent to Travis Air Force Base for the next three years as a weather officer. I left the Air Force in 1978 and returned to graduate school at OSU, and in 1980 finished my MS in Civil/Environmental Engineering.

After Graduate School, I joined Union Oil Company of California (later UNOCAL, and now non-existant) at their San Francisco Refinery. I worked in environmental compliance, environmental management, and environmental remediation/cleanup positions over the next 15 years, living in Fairfield (CA), Pasadena (CA), Atlanta (GA), and Nederland (TX). Then in 1995, the bloody axe of corporate downsizing finally made it to my little corner of Unocal... and I decided to take their severance package rather than stay with a company that was just getting smaller and smaller (until they disappeared completely a few years ago).

After finding that consulting work was not my cup of tea, in 1996 I found a position as manager for a large environmental monitoring project in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. Jubail is an enormous industrial/petrochemical complex, and we did virtually all the air, wastewater, marine, and public health monitoring and testing for this area. The most interesting thing about the project was that it had been running on "autopilot" for nearly 3 years without a permanent project manager. If they'd told me that before I took the job I would have asked for a lot more money! But after 2 1/2 years, we were in good enough shape to win the contract again for several more years... and I decided to move on to something even more interesting.

In 1998, I moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and joined Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC), an conglomerate of some two dozen mostly very large petrochemical manufacturers, but including a big steel mill as well. My job was to help them set up environmental management and compliance programs at each of the manufacturing facilities. It was a huge challenge, but we were well situated to have our environmental programs recognized and certified under internationally recognized standards programs (ISO 1400).

I left SABIC and Saudi Arabia in early 2002... after 9/11, it was not a very good place for a Western expat to live, and was only getting worse. Dorothy and I had thoroughly enjoyed our time in Saudi Arabia (and the travel opportunities from there), but it was time to leave. And at that point I decided to enjoy an early retirement!

Dorothy, the love of my life, had been working as a recreation program manager (civilian) for the US Army while we were in Riyadh, and we decided that we would let her pursue her career while I stayed retired. And shortly after we left Riyadh, she was hired to work with the Army recreation programs in Korea.

We lived in Seoul for 3 years, and while Dorothy worked for the Army, I got to hike the mountain trails of Korea. I spent a lot of time on the trails of Gwanaksan, a 2000-foot mountain in Seoul, and probably hiked over it about 200 times while we were there (and ate the lunch served by the Buddhist temple near its summit over 100 times).

Then in 2004, we moved to Belgium... the land of chocolate and beer! Dorothy is currently working here as a community recreation officer for the entire Benelux area, and with current Army money issues (gotta' buy those bullets!), including hiring freezes and budget cuts, has had a challenging but rewarding tour here. We are currently living in the town of Tertre, Belgium, a small town about 10 minutes from the French border, and to be here for another 2 or 3 years, and will likely move back to Oregon at that time.

Dorothy and I have been married now for 35 wonderful years. We were never blessed with children, but we did manage to pick up a bunch of cats along the way. We currently have 5 felines, all rescued from the streets. Four are from the streets of Jubail, Saudi Arabia, and one adopted us here in Belgium.

Although I'm retired, I'm currently doing a little part-time work for the Arts & Crafts shop on the large NATO base in Mons. I help out in the woodshop, the picture-framing shop, and also work as an engraver. When I have time I get out to do some cycling in the Belgian countryside, especially along the paths that border the canals that criss-cross this part of Europe. And my four years of high-school french have finally come in handy!

Well, that's about all for me for now. Hopefully you can comment with what you have been up to all these years!

All the best!
Dave Keasey

Postings to this blog...

I've invited Scott & Colleen Foelker, Ted Huff, and Gail Sandgathe to post to this blog so they can keep folks updated on the upcoming reunion. It can also be a place for general information and discussions for the alumni of Putnam '68.

At present, anyone can provide comments to posts. If we have troubles with spam-comments it may need to be restricted. Hopefully that won't happen.

If you have suggestions for how to improve this blog, please let me know.

Finally... See you all in August!

Kingsmen Class of '68!

Hi there fellow Kingsmen!

I finally got fed up with the "Classmates.com" site and created this blog so we can organize events, reunions, post photos, and generally have an open discussion about whatever.

More Later
DaveK