First, my proudest accomplishment is that I have been married to the same 'very good friend' for 40+ years - thanks Mollie, it required a lot of patience on your part. Before we retired at the end of 2008, Mollie was a CPA operating as an Accountant at the 'Earthworm (Caterpillar) Tractor Company' - she dealt primarily with the controls required to comply with Sarbanes Oxley. We also have two wonderful children that have both graduated from college. In 2004, my son received his master's degree from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management changed careers (computers & consulting to finance) and is off to a great start. 2008 saw him promoted to Vice President in the private equity firm that he is associated with. He will be getting married to a very lovely young lady in September 2009 so I put together a web site for the wedding HERE. My daughter is an elementary school teacher - she really loves kids and they return the feelings. After 10 years of teaching in Memphis TN and Columbus OH, she will be moving to Chicago during the summer of 2009. She found a job teaching in Chicago without much problem. Her website is located Here. I am extremely proud of both of my children - and both are contributing to society - not taking from it. Could you ask for more?
I entered the insurance business in June, 1968 after graduating from the University of North Dakota. After a 2 year military leave of absence (thanks to Uncle Sam), I was relocated in 1970 to Armonk, New York as a Group Sales Representative. In 1976, I learned a little about pensions and became a Pension Sales Manager operating out of Southfield, MI. In 1978, I transitioned to the individual side of the insurance business as an agent and pension consultant. In 1981, I moved to Illinois where I became the Director of Advanced Marketing and Pensions & and part-time personal computer programmer. for a Midwest insurance company. During my 35+ years in the insurance industry, from the American College I earned both the the Chartered Life Underwriter [CLU] designation in 1975 and the Chartered Financial Consultant [ChFC] designation in 1982. I also earned the Certified Pension Consultant (CPC) designation from the American Society of Pension Actuaries in 1979. Until I voluntarily let them go, I also held the Series 6/63/65 licenses with the National Association of Securities Dealers [NASD].
In the late 60's when I went to school, you went more to have fun than to learn - I like to say that 'I had a major in social events and a minor in education'. In those times, I doubt if more than one or two people where I was located (North Dakota) knew what a computer was, much less actually operated one - and the PC was still about 10+ years from it's birth. I acquired my 1st computer (TRS80, Model-I) in 1980. My love affair with the computer began and the rest is history. Until I retired, I spent most of my time playing with my toy computers and the web. I am still the Webmaster at several different web sites. I also design, write and implement a variety of end user software programs for the Windows operating system ranging from insurance product proposal programs (life, annuity, DI, etc.) - to financial planning programs and programs for calculations of minimum distributions and 72(t) distributions. My insurance/investment background allows me to convert my industry knowledge and experience to user friendly software programs. With a background in C, C++ and MFC, I currently program mostly in C#. My websites are built using Microsoft's Asp.Net 3.5 and the C# language. The sites are powered by Windows 2003 Server and the back end data base is MS SQL 2005 with Linq and SQL as the database access languages. Most fun program designed and constructed... A web based insurance quoting system. Start with an Asp.Net web application that gathers the data and stores in in an SQL database. After storing the data, it executes a C# program that 1) retrieves the data from the database; 2) does all the calculations; 3) calls a PDF print driver to format the reports; and 4) sends the reports to the insurance agent by email. It then returns control to the web app that also creates a hyperlink to the PDF file for immediate viewing by the agent - all in about one second. The reports are exact duplicates of the reports generated by the regular desktop system, graphics and all! The online insurance illustrations included life, disability and annuities. The final part of the project was a web based insurance application program that could be completed online, digitally signed and instantly submitted to the home office for underwriting. My other hobbies include sailing, taking pictures with my digital camera and building web sites like this one. Since we retired, we are living full time in downtown Chicago where I still do some website design and implementation. A few of my other personal sites!
LIFE HAS BEEN GOOD and 2002 Was an especially Good Year
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