Rick Garcia:  

What a great life… Started with Washington Elementary School, then Bancroft Junior High, and Finally SLHS. After grad went to work at Ford in the city of, Milpitas assembly line, for 8 months, then onto carpentry for 4 years. Switched, to selling new homes in Vallejo, and Castro Valley. In 1977, my brother Bill, who graduated in 1971, and I, hired a consultant, to help us start a tropical fish collecting dive business, in Hawaii. Jim Fanjul, and Rick Ramsbottom, and 3 others, also went with us. Long story short, we had the business for years with a house on the beach. That was one of the best times of all our lives. Ramsbottom continued with the company and expanded further out into the South Pacific. Bill and I moved back to San Leandro and, through a head-hunting agency we were both hired by a company named Ritchie and Associates. A very high-profile consulting firm with an office at the corner of Rodeo Drive, and Wiltshire Blvd in Beverley Hills. They did manpower and product scheduling. This was the job, that really changed me, and my life! My university education boiled down to pure business education. It was running with military precision. I learned everything about planning and running corporations. Scheduled clerical head offices, Plywood Mills, Fish Processing Plants, Warehousing operations, anything that involved people and production. Most importantly, a Chain of Mexican Restaurants, where I learned to forecast customer numbers for any given day including weather. My contract with them was, they would fly me anywhere the client was on Sunday afternoon, then Friday afternoon, they would fly me back home to SF. It was while I was working on a job in Manitoba, Canada, that I had the opportunity to route myself through Vancouver, BC, and reconnect with a woman I met, when I first moved to Hawaii, Louise Chin. We met on a Windjammer Dinner Cruise off Waikiki Beach. Ramsbottom and I acted like her and her girlfriend’s dates, and guides, for the two weeks. I knew I was hooked, when she hugged me before getting on the plane home, and whispered, she loved me. In March of 1981, we were married in Vancouver, BC. We both agreed, I’d quit my job because of all the traveling. Kind of felt bad the company promoted me and just about doubled my salary as I was now promoted to management as my wedding present. I thanked them by hand in my resignation. L was in an accounting job, so I thought, hell might as well do real estate, it worked in California. Started first selling lots 60 miles from Las Vegas with a firm in Vancouver. They would bring in about 30 people a night feed them a chicken dinner and show a movie on why that area outside Las Vegas, was about to grow. When the movie was over one of us ...Expand for more