Gary Maxwell:
CLASS OF 1975
Los Alamitos High SchoolClass of 1975
Los alamitos, CA
Stanford UniversityClass of 1979
Stanford, CA
Oak Middle SchoolClass of 1972
Los alamitos, CA
Oak Junior High SchoolClass of 1972
Los alamitos, CA
Rossmoor Elementary SchoolClass of 1969
Los alamitos, CA
Gary's Story
Went to Rossmoor Elementary K-6, with the most notable teachers being Mrs. Horn (2nd) and Miss Harris (3rd and 6th). Recess was my favorite subject.
Went to Oak Jr. High, played on Varsity Football and Track under Coach Harris. Man, those three years went by fast!
Spent my summers sailing a Naples Sabot in Alamitos Bay, and was otherwise a helper and troublemaker at Leeway Sailing Club. So, I had my sailing friends (who mostly went to Long Beach Wilson or Millikan) during the Summer, and my LAHS friends during the school year. There was little crossover, thus my split personality.
At Los Al, I spent three years just being a weird nerd that wore a stupid visor. Mrs. Zabel and Mr. Scott were my favorite teachers, and Mrs. Holzman (Looper) wouldn't let me settle for any college other than Stanford. Hung out with Mr. Schlatter's drama productions back at Oak. Ran Cross Country and Track, busting my butt practicing, but never lettered....I sorta got over it. Made some great friends I'll never forget. Worked at Carl's Jr. in the Rossmoor Center when it opened in '74.
Spent five years at Stanford to earn a BS and MS in Computer Engineering. I blame the IBM 360 at Los Al for getting me hooked on machine code. Made some good friends at...Expand for more
Stanford, but wasn't into the social scene.
Worked most of the 80's at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, in Earthquake Studies, writing system and analysis software. Helped design and build the first portable, digital seismometer.
Spent the 90's working on that new technology called "voice mail", and have been involved in telecommunications design since then. I'm currently Director of Platform Software at Vertical Communications in Santa Clara. I've been with Vertical twice, between 2000-2005 and from 2013-present. From 2005-2013 I worked for the classic Silicon Valley startup, but like most, we didn't become rich and successful.
The weekend I graduated from Stanford I met my future and current wife, Debbi Sue Jean. She's another SoCal ex-pat, growing up in Buena Park and attending Kennedy HS. It turned out her mom took over as attendance clerk at Lexington JHS when my mom retired. We married in 1980, we've lived in Sunnyvale since '88, and we have one son (Michael) who now lives in San Luis Obispo.
To stay active, I've played Ultimate Frisbee for about 26 years continuously except for injury (the most recent being an A/C joint separation in Sept. 2015), and otherwise enjoy gardening, walking my dogs, and traveling.
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