Jim Wigge:
CLASS OF 1968
Alameda High SchoolClass of 1968
Alameda, CA
Jim's Story
Life
I am an aerospace engineer. My wife, Maureen, is an engineer. We have been married 21 years and have two great daughters (Well, one is from my first marriage, but that woman does not count. I was barely welcome at conception, and it was downhill from there.) Maureen and I get by--you know how it is when you have been married a while. Older daughter is about to get married up in the Adirondacks, and younger one is a History major at UVa. Everybody seems happy enough. I will have to check again tonight and update this bio accordingly.
School
Crushes. God, didn't all of the guys love Kathy Giomi? I was crazy about Jamie and Sydney, but Gina Broadbent made me stutter and turned my mouth to dust. Nancy Feeney. Knew her all of my life and thought she was the sweetest young woman that God created.
Teachers. I liked my English teacher when I was a Freshman (she looked like a Geisha, and had a nice presentation), and my Physics teacher when I was a Senior.
Do it again? Go through puberty again? Are you kidding?
College
I spent a lot of time in school. Way too much time. I got my undergraduate degree at the Naval Academy and I did have a unique roommate, a guy from Norman, Oklahoma. Back in 1969 I got letters from Sydney Kapchan, and he would steal my mail. A real officer and a gentleman. I punched him out one morning before class when I found one of her letters under his blotter.
Meals were in a huge mess hall that sat all 4400 of us at once. The food was great, and it was served to us. It was very loud in there because the upper classmen would scream constantly at the freshmen (plebes) as a way of making them better officers and men (then women.) Ultimately it helped us to do better things for our careers, like drink huge amounts of Tequila a...Expand for more
nd shave a strange woman's leg at Tailhook reunions in Las Vegas. It would have been better if they had taught us how not to get caught.
Workplace
I started work at age 11, delivering the San Francisco Examiner, a very heavy newspaper. I delivered down on the Fernside area on both sides of High Street. Bev Copeland's family was one of houses I delivered to. A great Craftsman house. Bev was a dish, too. Very pretty girl.
I cut lawns for a long time until I got my work permit. Then I worked at the restaurant at the Golf Course cleaning up at nights. I worked a lot of Saturdays cleaning law offices at the Times-Star building. Lot of cleaning in my youth. I was also a life guard out at the pool at the Naval Air Station.
I went to school and then I was in the Navy for 10 years. I spent a lot of time at sea, and I got a couple more degrees that helped me a little bit when I got out.
I worked for about 14 years in a small company doing Operations Analysis and developing desk-top training systems. Simulators. I got pretty senior there when they "changed direction" and bought me out. It was OK, a good way to liquidate my assets.
For the last 11-12 years I have been working for a very nice company in the overhead intelligence/space business. It is a great company, employee owned, about 1200 of us. I am one of 10 Chief Engineers and I have the luxury of getting heard every so often. Plus the work is fascinating.
I would say that my career has had some setbacks. Whose hasn't? I am doing OK. I am moving along.
Military
4 years at the Naval Academy.
10 great years on active duty, too much of it at sea. You know the old Fred Astaire song, "I joined the Navy, to see the world, but what did I see...I saw the sea." That was me. Fred Astaire and Jim Wigge.
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