Robin Goodno:
CLASS OF 1969
Bakersfield High SchoolClass of 1969
Bakersfield, CA
Robin's Story
Frankly, I did not like high school at all, except for Mrs. Robesky who taught modern dance. There was one English teacher, whose name now escapes me, who I thought taught me a lot. And he endured a nasty little whispering campaign in my senior year suggesting that he might be gay since he was not yet married (horror or horrors), which I have no reason to believe was true and did not make any difference to me at the time anyway. How things have changed in this country since 1969--for the best I would say.
I see that my half-brother, Dr. Rey Conard from the class of 1962, left a small profile so I am leaving a profile doubting that anyone will ever read it. That is fine with me since I sort of like being just a number.
I actually liked my undergraduate years in college very much, especially UCLA where I received an undergraduate degree in 1973. Unlike high school, the college professors were enthusiastic about what they taught and that in turn inspired me. The text books were also much better. I did not have to endure any 1940's era French books when I studied French in college.
Of course, during high school I had read a lot of books--just not the ones my teachers assigned to me to read. My half brother, Rey, was in junior college and I found his books and the ones on my Mother's bookshelves much more interesting. My Mom's book collection turned me on to reading a lot of books by Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe. They sure beat the ancient fables assigned by one of my early English teachers. Thanks Mom.
My half brother was reading books by writers such as Dr. Eric Fromm, a famous psychologist of the day. AND, I read his text by Machiavelli, which was to prove an insight into how corporate America works some years later. More interesting than my brother's text books, however, were the few lectures at the community college that my half-brother and Mom took me too. They stimulated my mind. Thanks Rey.
From UCLA, I graduated into the bad recession of 1973, the oil crisis caused by a Middle East embargo; and the Watergate scandal. I weathered all of these events while still living in Los Angeles.
While at UCLA, it seemed natural that one would just matriculate and end up driving a Porsche around since they were so prevalent in that wealthy area. But, after graduating, I realized that even with an undergraduate degree, nice, middle-class girls could end up down and out in L.A., financially speaking.
Even after getting a job in downtown L.A. for a large savings and loan association, I became anemic because I was trying to rely primarily on this lunch one could buy at the company for $5 per month. During that early 1970's time period, I went to U.C.L.A. for some medical tests. Attempting to appear sympathetic, a nurse observed that she appreciated the plight of the "working poor.". "Wake up call!!!" Those were some real learning years.
I had wanted to go to law school but around the time I applied, UCLA was only accepting about 7% of the women who applied. Alas, I was not one of the chosen few. So, since I was struggling out in the real world, I eventually went to the UCLA Extension program for paralegals and graduated to see if I would really like the practice of law.
I joined my then boyfriend in Northern California but we eventually broke up, thank God. We remain friends today but were ill suited to get married to each other. I fear it would have been a disaster. He was way too controlling but he is one of the most enthusiastic people about the experiences of life I have ever met. He is a true existentialist who engrosses himself in the experience of the moment--and without any training in Zen!!
If one can just stand to turn oneself over to him, he finds the greatest restaurants and fun things to do. I had a blast with him traveling all over Los Angeles on the weekends when we lived in L.A. He was a great teacher of how to enjoy life, even without a lot of money. It is just that at other times we squabbled a lot because he wanted me to think and act just like he did, and sometimes he was simply wrong. Blind loyalty is just not my thing-I am way too analytical and logical to be able to fulfill that role but I am grateful to him for all he taught me and for the good friend he is.
While in Northern California I, of course, needed to get a job. I had to pitch the value to senior lawyer of hiring a paralegal who would work over a period of years verses my main competitors, law students, who would only be around for a period of months generally. Paralegals were still a relatively new phenomena in those days.
I was eventually successful in getting a job. That too was a period of real learning.
After my boyfriend and I broke up, I moved to Orange County to work for the Legal Department of the Irvine Company in Newport Beach, California. Newport Beach was beautiful in those days because it was not yet as developed as it is today. I was 27 and gave myself two years to either make progress in the corporate world or pursue my original desire to go to law school. Thanks to some help from my Mom, I was able to buy a little condo (albeit with orange shag carpeting).
Corporate America was still pretty dismissive of women, especially in conservative Orange County in the late 1970's so I eventually left. Yet, from a work standpoint, I got to do some very interesting work as a paralegal for this major, wealthy Orange County company.
I was making around $17,000 but I realized I did not have enough money to live on in this expensive area and started looking for something to cut. I decided to cut out driving my car (which was getting older) to work and started catching a bus to work from a bus stop at a local church, whose parking lot became my own personal park and ride lot. Surprisingly, this cutback in my standard of living turned out to be great because the bus rode past the beach in Newport Beach on the way to the Irvine Company corporate offices. Those views of the beach and ocean in the early morning were just breathtakingly beautiful and relaxing. That was the most soothing, glorious commute I was ever to experience.
In 1980, I left to go to law school at the University of California at Davis. I chose that school because of its relatively high ranking and because I figured I could probably afford to live there (unlike at law schools in Los Angeles and San Francisco where I had also been accepted). I became anemic again when I tried to cut out almost all meat due to the expense, but I survived with a lot of encouragement from my Mom during the hard times. Thanks Mom.
Regrettably, I was not that fond of law school but I had found a temporary safe haven during yet another major recession while doing something significant to try to improve my future earning ability and find something interesting to do. I graduated in 1983 with hope of making a better living and getting to be in charge of the negotiations this time around. My hopes were fulfilled.
I have worked primarily as a real estate attorney and sometime business attorney since 1983. With the economic downturn of 2008, I have also been drawn kicking and screaming in protest into litigation, which I find rather annoying at this late point in my career. But, that's life.
Since commercial real estate is so cyclical, I have weathered the many up and down cycles of this practice. I graduated into the "go-go" days of President Ronald Reagan's accelerated tax write-offs and the cottage industry of private real estate syndications that arose as a result of it and some case law that created an opening for what was known as delayed tax deferred exchanges of real property.
I enjoyed ...Expand for more
catching the economic wave up to the top of these two phenomena. But, it was a steep, dizzying ride crashing down with that wave to the bottom when the commercial real estate bubble of the late 1980's burst. This was coupled with the growing monster in the form of the "Savings & Loan Crisis" caused by excessive Congressional deregulation and by some Congressional legislative malpractice during this same time period.
In 1986, Congress passed a major tax act that sought to unwind some of the excesses that had arisen out of the accelerated tax write offs and the delayed exchanges. But, instead of using a scalpel, Congress instead used a guillotine. This, coupled with the other problems of that era, caused an unnecessary amount of economic dislocation for people nationwide. But what was to come in 2008 would be worse.
I overheard a secretary saying outside my office at a law firm where I was working at the time that she had learned that some of the lawyers at a big firm she had worked for previously were only able to bill 1 or 2 hours per day because of the slow down in work. Having been around the block a few times by that point in my career, I knew this was a bad omen of things to come and I was right.
Also, because my Mom was getting sicker and sicker (probably caused in part by the adverse affects she suffered from my Father's second hand smoke), I left private practice so I could devote more time to helping my Mom and sought refuge with the Federal Government. As a federal lawyers, I handled the acquisition of land for new federal buildings (see Las Vegas and to some extent Oakland), major leases and eminent domain actions. So, again I found a good learning experience to occupy my time during what has since been characterized as a depression for commercial real estate. Whew!
I lost my Mother in 1994, which was a great loss to me personally and psychologically as I was later to find. But, it was her time to go to hopefully a kinder, gentler place. She had made a positive difference in a number of people's lives in her years here on earth. Like Maya Angelou, although my story is not as dramatic, I think my mother was a better mother to a young adult woman than she was to me when I was a kid. But, as a mother to a young adult woman, she was a source of great encouragement and wisdom. Unfortunately, she could not help me navigate my way through the brave new world of the increased opportunities for women in business that arose because of the women's movement of the late 1960's and 1970's. I had to learn to do that on my own.
I returned to practicing for a law firm in 1999, which unfortunately coincided with the burst of the tech bubble shortly thereafter in 2000. Many start-ups had been leasing large areas of space but after the stock market dropped 400 points in one day, it was like someone threw a switch to the off position for all of those venture capitalists. The work was drying up at the law firm where I worked in San Francisco, the likely consequences of which I had already seen happen in the late 1980's.
Just as I was wrapping up my years with the Federal Government, I became aware of a new type of financing for real estate that came from Wall Street. It was called securitized financing. Highly respected attorneys whose seminars I attended expressed concern that the structure of this complicated new form of real estate financing would lead to a terrible crash with the next downturn in the commercial real estate cycle. Nine years later, they would prove to be right although the precipitating cause of the downturn came from residential real estate first.
This new type of financing involved issuing what were essentially real estate or mortgage backed securities, but at the end of the day there was no-one left in charge to negotiate a workout if a borrower got into economic trouble. All of the focus of the Wall Street boys were on getting these package deals put together up front and not on what would happen during the term of the loans until paid off.
And the multiple layers of securities holders in a single security offering had conflicting incentives if the loan went into foreclosure. Some would only make their money if the loan were paid off while others were not so tied to the ultimate success of the loan. This would lead to a crippling failure to act later on.
Following the high tech boom, I turned to getting a job back in the public sector if I could. I got a job at a large county counsel's office handling their real estate transactions. That was the only matriarchy style work environment I ever worked in and I did not particularly like it. It had a lot more to do with kissing up to the right people and was less about getting results. So, I left along with a number of male lawyers to pursue opportunities elsewhere.
I am not saying that a matriarchy could not work but that one did not work for me.
After a few decent years in the early part of the first decade of the 21st century, the nation began to get into trouble because of the tsunami of global funds investing in the high tech boom that shifted suddenly to the real estate boom. This created an appetite for new deals that could not be quenched with only the economically viable opportunities. In an excess of greed, companies started creating badly underwritten residential loans so they could then "pool" those loans into packages of mortgage backed securities.
This time around I did not find a safe haven in the workplace. Life happens. At this late stage of my career, I have worked in my own practice, primarily on what I consider to be white collar crime in the real estate industry. I have not vanquished them, unfortunately. since I am out-gunned and underfunded. But, I have been able to thwart many of their more offensive moves against my clients thanks to our appellate courts.
Nothing has been easy in my life so far but I have had some greater accomplishments and joys than I would have thought possible in 1969. This has come at a steep price to my private life but I played my cards as I thought best at the time. I am disinclined to wonder, "What if." I don't find second-guessing myself to be a useful exercise.
I have not gotten rich, regrettably, and never got that Porsche but it has been a good ride so far. I wish I could have had some kids but an infertility condition and a busy life just got in the way. I would prefer never to have had children than to think I had children and then let them down somehow.
Well, I am usually disinclined to look in the rear view mirror of life so I will return to looking forward now. Needless to say. my brother Rey wrote much less.
Susan Kinney and Kathy Van Zandt, if you ever happen upon this tome, I hope that you and your families are well and happy. I was never able to track you down online. I am still friends with Betty Warne, although we don't see each other much. She lives in Sacramento and works as a scientist for U.S. Fish and Game. I used to envy her ability to absorb Biology, seemingly through osmosis by just putting her fingertips on the book. (Actually, that was not true but it seemed like it was to me since science was more of a struggle for me.)
My own primary memories of Biology were the "SNAKE" who used to like to slither up the table leg in the lab near where I sat and the Tarantula that kept crawling to the top of its cage in an effort to get out. He would then fall, thud, back down to the bottom of the cage just to repeat his quest again. Is that a metaphor for life? Maybe not for humans since we get to travel down many different roads along the way.
Best wishes to the Class of 1969.
Robin Goodno Calder '69
June 9, 2013
Register for Free to view all details!
Yearbooks
Register for Free to view all yearbooks!
Reunions
Register for Free to view all events!