John Cutter:  

I have lived a full and busy life and wouldn't have it any other way. Hard work has been a constant since my Grant High days and has provided lots of adventure as well as learning opportunities, leading to my current profession as a general contractor. While attending Valley College, restaurant jobs offered flexible hours and decent pay. The most memorable one was tossing pizzas in the window of Magoo's on Hollywood Blvd, which led to summer food service jobs in Yosemite National Park including pancake chef at the Ahwahnee Hotel and night manager at the Village Restaurant. During the academic years at Valley State (now CSUN), I worked nights on the General Motors assembly line and in the parts warehouse for a change of pace. After college, I returned to Yosemite for one full year, serving as a fry cook and canvas tent dismanteler in the high country and the ski resort bartender while communing with nature in one of the most beautiful places on earth. After I re-entered the "real world," I was hired by R&G Sloane Manufacturing Company in Sun Valley, CA, as a sales administrator, and traveled to its factories and sales offices throughout the country. Two years later, the labor force at the Sun Valley facility went on strike, and I was offered the position as factory foreman. I spent nearly a year working 6-AM to 6-PM, 7 days a week, to become proficient in a whole new trade -- plastic injection molding. Sloane then sent me to Nogales, Sonora, Mexico to use my bilingual and production skills as a technical advisor at its small factory there. Nine months later, I was transferred to its factory in Cleveland, Ohio, to serve in the same role for an additional year. In 1975, I moved back to Los Angeles and made my next career move as the injection molding manager for Bevelite-Adler -- a theatre-marquee letter manufacturer in Gardena. Two years later, I bought my own injection molding machine and entered into a partnership with a colleague to form Sun Coast Products which designed, produced, and marketed personalized key-chains and other acrylic items. After 8 years of hard work and fin...Expand for more