Wow, 20 years I can’t believe it! I was not even 20 years old the last time I was at SPA. I broke out the year book and it brought back great memories (after I spent about 5 minutes laughing at the cover picture … I still can’t believe they printed that). As a late comer to SPA and an east coast boy, I am really grateful for all the friends and good times I had. Let’s just say there was not much of a comparison to Henry Sibley High School in Eagan. Of course, Dave had to remind me of French class. After how difficult the third year of French was I can’t believe I was stupid enough to take year four … and if you were in my class I am sure you would agree … with how stupid I was. Thank goodness for math and science (which equals geek).
I booked an airline flight so I am committed and am looking forward to the weekend.
If you’re interested, here is what I have been up to since SPA. I went to college at Columbia University in New York City. That was a great time and a blur … more like an alcohol induced haze with enough studying to graduate in four years. I went to work at Price Waterhouse as a management consultant after college. About 2 years after IBM bought the management consulting division of PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2002 I finally realized traveling every week … week after week … year after year really sucks. I even spent a year and a half managing a project at Thomson West in Eagan around 2003 (you can kick me at the reunion for not contacting you if you like … work just seemed to be too important at the time). In 2004 my father was in the process of easing into retirement as a financial advisor for Thrivent Financial. I woke up one morning and decided to make the career change and join him. It was rough to start over, but it was worth it and things have been great after the first year or two.
I attended the summer of 1991 Paul Simon concert in Central Park when I was in college. One of the 750,000 people there was my wife, Jola. Of course she was just someone I was sandwiched like a sardine with on the great lawn of the park at the time. We have been together ever since. Here is a recent picture of the kids. From the left Anna (13), Mary (17), Paul (4), and Emily (6).
Jola came to the USA from Poland just about a year before we met. I’m not sure if my French or Polish is worse. That said it has been great to get the perspective of someone who was not born in the USA. Let’s just say we are really fortunate. We live in beautiful New Jersey ... surprise surprise:). Here is a somewhat recent picture of the family on vacation.
I am really looking forward to catching up with everyone. Feel free to send me a email to catch up if you like at rjaep@optonline.net.
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