Rob Avery:
CLASS OF 1961
Palmdale High SchoolClass of 1961
Palmdale, CA
Rob's Story
After high school, I went to USC and SIU, Carbondale and earned a degree in fine arts.
Following graduation, I married my wife, Lynda, and we both took jobs at an Illinois state facility for developmentally disabled children in Centralia, IL--my wife's family's home town. I began as a special educator and left nine years later as training director. In the interim, we had a son, Scott. We visit Centralia every year to see relatives and old friends--who's numbers are thinning as the years go by.
In 1980 I accepted a two-year contract as an instructional developer at King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It was a life-changing experience for all of us. We came to understand the US from a much larger perspective, and we learned to better comprehend different cultural perspectives. We traveled on leaves to Greece, Sri Lanka, Cyprus, Spain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, England, Italy, Austria, and a number of smaller European countries as well as short visits to Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The travel was a tremendous educational experience for Scott. Also of great significance during this time was the birth of our daughter, Lindsey, at King Faisal.
When we returned, the US job market was in the dumpster. I finally found a training and development position at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, MO, but by the end of the year, I accepted another contract with King Faisal, and we all returned to Riyadh.
Following that contract, we returned to the St. Louis area, and I was employed by the St. Louis Community College Center for Business, Industry and Labor, where I worked under contracts with Ford, General Motors, and McDonnel Douglas for a little over five years. During that time, I earned my Master's Degree in instructional technology from SIU, Edwardsville. My last big project was a computer-based training program on artificial intelligence at McDonnel Douglas.
In 1990, I joined Microsoft as a CBT specialist, and we moved to Redmond, WA. During my eight years at Microsoft, I worked on Help and tutoials for Excel, Project, and Publisher. In my last two years, I worked with the Executive and Management Development Gro...Expand for more
up, where I developed and managed a management coaching system. In 1998, I retired from Microsoft.
My retirement lasted around three years. During that time, we had a home in Issaquah, WA, and a winter place and sailboat at Burnt Store Marina, FL. Most of our sailing was local day trips, but we made one week-long trip to Key West. Among the crew were our daughter, Lindsey, and her boyfriend, Jonathan, who has since become Lindsey's husband. We usually drove between the Seattle and Burnt Store Marina rather than flying so that we could enjoy the places along the way.
In 2000, I began working as a group program manager for a start-up company, vJungle, that was developing a small business Web platform. Within a year, the company went from fast ramp-up to former dot com.
For several years, I worked under contract creating eLearning programs for Microsoft and Washington Mutual Bank (now bankrupt).
Then, I took a permanent position with BECU (formerly the Boeing Employee's Credit Union). Within a year, though, I accepted a new position with GenSpring Family Offices in Florida, a small wealth management company, where I now work as director of eLearning. GenSpring allowed us to relocate to Plano, TX, where I now work mainly from our home. This put us within easy flying distance of both Seattle, where the kids live, and Palm Beach Gardens, where GenSpring's headquarters is located.
Our son, Scott, worked in Laos for a year as an English instructor. Among his students, was a special one--Manivanh Sounaphon--who became his wife. They were married in our Seattle home and settled nearby, but right now, Manivanh and their two children-- Nicole, 5 and Andrew, 2--are living with us in Plano while Scott works with a Washington State University program at the University of Kabul in Afghanistan. His years living overseas apparently kindled a strong interest in foreign cultures and desire to help others.
Our daughter, Lindsey, lives in Kent, WA, with her husband, Jonathan, and their son, Avery. Jonathan is a Web developer, and Lindsey was briefly in real estate but is now a full-time mother. They are expecting another little person next year.
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