Roger Borkenhagen:  

After graduation from Beloit High School I enrolled at the South Dakota School of Mines in Rapid City, SD. I quickly realized it wasn't for me and I quit in the middle of the 2nd quarter. Upon arriving home, I told my father that I was going to Georgia Tech in Atlanta, GA. He said that I should go there as soon as I'd saved enough money to support myself. Wow! Talk about jumping into total financial independence at a relatively young age!! I started at Georgia Tech in the fall of 1956 and I finally graduated in March 1962. I attended Georgia Tech each Fall and Spring quarter. During the summer and the winter, I was working at Fairbanks Morse. Usually worked at 2 full time jobs while in Beloit - 90 hours / week including all day on Saturday and on Sunday. Typically, I had one part-time job during my time at school. It seemed like I worked all of the time to pay my way though college. Just before graduation from Georgia Tech, I met the beautiful and wonderful Dolores Fornara. After a whirlwind romance, we were married in June 1962. That marriage lasted 36 years until her death in 1999. It produced Roger, Jr. (Keith), Gina, and Matthew all of who reside in the Atlanta area. None of them have seen fit to produce any grandchildren and they are likely to never do so. I was commissioned an Army 2nd Lt from the ROTC program at Georgia Tech. I served 2 enjoyable years at Anniston, Al. I was on active duty during the "Cuban Crisis". I was slated to be a member of the first wave of an invasion force. Fortunately, that invasion never took place. I was the Company Executive Officer with about 125 - 150 men under my direct command. I then joined IBM where I was a systems engineer assisting our customers develop computer based business applications. I enjoyed working at IBM. It was a culture of hard work, exciting innovation, and high performance that was to serve me well throughout my entire career. I eventually left IBM and I completed all of the course work for a PHD in Business. I earned an MBA in the process. I took many courses in Advanced Statistical Methods which I really enjoyed. Guess that I was somewhat of a nerd. Realizing that I would never teach at the college level, I passed my comprehensive exams in Advanced Statistical Methods and then I dropped out of the program. Without a doubt, that decision was probably one of the wisest decisions of my entire life! I went back into the data processing field. I eventually became a Vice President and a Officer of a fairly large company with approximately 800 retail outlets in malls across America. I was head of The Management Information Systems portion of the company. The company was acquired by an English company. Shortly thereafter, all of us at the top were replaced with their own folks. I was "a big shot in the morning and i was begging on the street that night"! I spent the last 20 years of my career in Atlanta working for a large electric utility as a manager over folks developing very complex computer based systems. I was pretty good at that job and I loved it. When I retired, the company hosted a company wide reception for me which was unheard of for others who had left. All of the "top brass" attended. Very emotional that they did that for me! Dolores had died and I had met the wonderful, and beautiful Jeane. We married in 2000. Jeane attended a couple of our class reunions so some of you have probably met her. We decided to move to CA which had been "home" for Jeane for much of her life. She had a teen daughter at home so we had to wait for Jennifer to go off to college before we could move. We built a home here in Del Webb's Lincoln Hills outside of Sacramento, Ca. It is an over 55 community. Our house set vacant for about 2 years until Jennifer left home for the University of Michigan. We came out here in December 2003. Although I didn't work for a couple of years, I remained busy with real estate investing in Atlanta, New Mexico, and here in California. Jeane was involved with a government agency concentrating on cleaning up the bad air. A chance meeting lead to my working in the same agency. Much easier job than any previous jobs but I enjoy it. Dolores and I had accumulated a number of rental houses in Atlanta. Over the past 10 years I have renovated 14 houses in Atlanta while living in Ca. That's been a real interesting challenge. My last renovation should ...Expand for more