RON JONES:
CLASS OF 1967
Lansdowne High SchoolClass of 1967
Baltimore, MD
RON's Story
Hi class of '67, I'm Ron Jones, I lived in Arbutus during high school. I currently live in Ellicott City with my lovely wife of 33 years, Linda (a 1968 Milford Mill grad), and I work for HP. We have 4 daugthers, Karen (39), Kelly (37), Julie (31) and Jenny (29), and 9 grandchildren, 6 boys, 3 girls ranging in age from 11 to 1 year next month. We lost a granddaugther (Kayla) at age 16 mths to Neuroblastoma cancer. She was a delight and a real warrior as she put up a 1-year fight. We miss her very much.
After graduating Lansdown I attended Progamming & Systems Institute (PSI) in Baltimore.... I didn't really know why at the time, but I knew I wanted to do something with computers. After graduating PSI I went in the Navy (1968) destined for the UDT program (Underwater Demolition Team... now known as the SEALS). However, a not so funny thing happened while in Charleston, S.C. waitng to attend Mine Warfare school. I got a little loaded at the enlisted men's club, while celebrating the graduation of the class ahead of me, and fell down a flight of steps in the barracks in the middle of the night. The sentry on duty reported it as a sleep-walking incident, something the Navy won't tolerate, (especially in special forces) so, bada-bing bada-boom I'm booted out with an honorable discharge. Since I had never sleep walked before, I'm certain that since I was drunk, I just made a wrong turn on the way to the head... go figure. 8-/
After the Navy I went to work for Montgomery Ward (1970) in their data processing department and worked for them for 14 years and progressed up throw the organization to Regional IT Operations Manager. Montgomery Ward moved us to Saratoga Springs New York in Oct'79, where we bought our first house... all the same month Linda and I got married. Talk about a life style change... in Oct'79 I went from 30 year old bachelor to being marr...Expand for more
ied, a step-father (Linda had two of our daughters from a previous marriage... Karen, 6 and Kelly, 4 at the time), a 1st time home owner, changing jobs and relocating out of state... what a month! My office was in Albany and I managed Wards' Northeast District. We only stayed in N.Y. for 2 years before Wards moved us back to Baltimore, and good 'ol Arbutus. While in Saratoga Springs we had our 1st daughter, Julie in Oct '80 and after moving back to Baltimore we had our 2nd daugther Jenny in May'82.
In 1984 I left Wards and moved on to MCI Telecommunications in their IT organization responsible for hardware installation and facilities planning at their Rockville, Md. data center. The mid-80's was a period of rapid growth for MCI due to the AT&T divestiture so they kept me pretty business upgrading and expanding their existing 3 data centers and working with corporate constructon in building 2 new ones. MCI moved my family and I to Colorado Springs in 1993 when they relocated their ITO organization there. MCI was bought by WorldCom Oct'98 and WorldCom outsourced their IT Operations and Technical support to EDS (Electronic Data Systems) Feb 2000 and I transitioned to EDS along with the work. As beautiful as Colorado Springs was, it was never home. Linda and I wanted to move back to Baltimore, so when EDS asked me to manager the MCI and WorldCom data centers I accepted because I could do it from Baltimore. :-) EDS was bought by HP Aug'08, and here I am.
Over the years I played a lot of softball and basketball until surrendering to golf in the early '90s.
I'm somewhat of a frustrated carpenter... mostly cabinet building and DIY home projects.
Somewhere along the way I lost my hair, but found a few pounds... not fair!
What I enjoy most these days is seeing my grandkids have fun.
What I enjoy 2nd most is seeing them go home... just kidding, sorta. 8-)
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