Ron Burtnick:
CLASS OF 1964
Franklin High SchoolClass of 1964
Somerset, NJ
Irvington-Frank H. Morrell High SchoolClass of 1964
Irvington, NJ
Myrtle Avenue Junior High SchoolClass of 1961
Irvington, NJ
Geneva Junior High SchoolClass of 1961
Geneva, NY
Madison Elementary SchoolClass of 1957
Newark, NJ
Ron's Story
Life
-1964 SaveRite (Grocery clerk)
-1966 US Army (Vietnam)
-1968 Middlesex County College (AAS 70)
-1970 Montclair State University (BA 72)
-1972 Montclair State University (MA 73)
-1973 Kean University (Administration)
-1975 Rutgers(Faculty & Student)(EdS 82)
-1975 Married: Alice Galofaro
-1979 Adelphi University (Administration)
-1979 First born: Katherine
-1980 Lipton (Management Trainer)
-1982 Second born: Megan
-1983 Deloitte & Touche (Manager)
-1984 Third born: Michael
-1988 Reuters (Training Manager)
-1989 Financial & Technical Sales & Consulting
-1990 Raritan Valley CC (Adjunct)
-1990 Northampton CC (Adjunct)
-1994 Hertz (Training Manager)
-1996 TALX Corporation (Sales Engineer)
-1998 SAP America (Consultant)
-2002 North Brunswick Township High School (Business & Broadcast Technology Teacher, Past Director of Alternative School)
-October 1, 2011 - Retired
Colleges
-1968 Middlesex County College (AAS 70) After Vietnam I started college. I was a Marketing major. I met the first gal I ever wanted to marry. She dumped me.
-1970 Montclair State University (BA 72) I transfered to Montclair. I didn't apply to Rutgers. I was intimidated. Studied Business Administration. Finished degree in 3 semesters. I met the second gal I wanted to marry. She dumped me.
-1972 Montclair State University (MA 73) Studied Student personnel/counseling. Planned to work in college student activities. Internship at MSU student center. Promised a job at student center but stupidly left for a grant funded job at Kean.
-1973 Kean University (Administration) I worked at Kean as an administrator but I also took a counseling course and taught a course about Vietnam Vets and another course on community resources for counselors. I met the third gal I thought I wanted to marry. She dumped me. The second gal I wanted to marry came back. We got married and still are married.
-1975 Rutgers (Faculty & Student) (EdS 82) Completed all courses and passed comprehensive exam for the doctorate but never wrote the dissertation. (EdS is essentially an A.B.D. degree.)
-1982 Teachers College, Columbia University. Took courses in the doctoral program. My company reneged on it's promise to pay for the doctorate and I dropped out. I must say the courses I took there were among the best courses I ever took.
-2004 TCNJ. School Law and Ed Finance courses requirements for principal certification. Despite the moving goal posts, receive CE for Principal Certification.
Workplace
1964 SaveRite (Grocery clerk)
1966 US Army (Vietnam)
1972 Montclair State(Student Center)
1973 Kean University (Director, Veteran Education Corps)
1975 Rutgers U. (Associate Director, Center for Adult Development)
1979 Adelphi U. (Director, Management Institute)
1980 Lipton (Management Trainer)
1983 Deloitte & Touche (Manager)
1988 Reuters (Training Manager)
1989 Financial/Tech Sales & Consulting
1990 KBI, Systems (Director, Education & Training Technology)
1990 Raritan Valley CC (Adjunct Faculty)
1990 Northampton CC (Adjunct Faculty)
1995 Hertz (Training Manager)
1996 TALX Corporation (Sales Engineer)
1998 SAP America (Application Consultant)
2002 North Brunswick High School (Business Teacher)
2011 Retired October 1
Military
- I was drafted in 1966
- Bootcamp at Fort Dix, NJ
- Radio School at Fort Dix. I flunked Morse code and got to choose another school. I selected clerk-typist school. 8 weeks of typing 8 hours per day (interrupted by a stay in the Army Hospital for URI ... upper respiratory infection)
- Ft Dix. Waiting for orders. Got to see lots of guys ship out. I correctly calculated that only 7 of our class would go to Vietnam.
- Trip to R...Expand for more
VN. I didn't expect to be one of the 7 who went to Vietnam. I stayed in San Francisco for a few days before checking in at Oakland. The Pan Am flight was long. We stopped at Hawaii and (I think) Guam for about an hour each. The wall of heat when we walked off the plane in Cam Rahn Bay was a memory as fresh as if it were yesterday. Another crystal clear memory: First nights in Vietnam getting used to the heat included the warm San Miguel beer. Only the showers and the shaves were cold.
- Qui Nhon. I drew an assignment in the Safety office at the Headquarters of the First Logistics Command. Lots of Officers and daily inspections. Workday was 7 am to 7 pm, seven day week. We had to build the officers showers then got to build ours. Then they got refrigeration. By then I drank more vodka cokes than beer. Many each night. I would sometimes go downtown and shop and meet the local ladies. Later this was more than discouraged.
- Bangkok Thailand R&R.
- Tet 1968. I spent the night on guard wondering who was shooting at me. Rumors that the next compound was overrun kept us awake. Sent up to the mountains on a reactionary force. It wasn't in-country R&R up there anymore. Later we had a memorial for our lost buddies. I have blanked out all of their names except Ken Boyd from California. We visited Ken in the Hospital. He was very upset about losing his leg. Wouldn't you be? (Years later I visited Jack Ortegren in Kearny Nebraska. He has a lovely family. He has since stopped communicating with me. His wife told me he doesn't much care to keep going over those days.)
- Ft Dix Stockade. I had over 3 months left so I was assigned as a "counselor" for prisoners at the Ft. Dix stockage when I returned in March. Most notably, almost no one in the stockade had been drafted. They all were AWOL cases and all had joined.
- A couple of idiots I'll never forget were the First Sergeant and the C.O. (Major) who refused to let me reschedule my Charge of Quarters duty the night before my SAT exam. If you are still alive, where-ever you are, you two (1SG and MAJ of SPD, Fort Dix, March-July of 1968) are still idiots.
- July 1968 Separated. (Honorable Discharge came in the mail years later) Straight to college in September.
Perspective: My dad served in the US Army during WWII. I served in Vietnam. My son was a US Marine.
(2009 Post-script: Mike has been out of the Marines for a couple of years now. During his tour with the 24th Marine Expedition he touched down in Afghanistan and in Iraq.)
- I was born in Germany. My mom was a war bride. (I'm not only a boomer, I'm a war baby.) My grandfather (Mom's dad) died in a Russian prison camp during the war. He was a Luftwaffe pilot. Before the war he was a high school teacher. Until I retired I was a high school teacher (business technology and broadcast technology - Radio). (My wife is special education teacher and a Zumba teacher, my daughter is an elementary school music & voice teacher. My other daughter Meg met her husband Jeff when they were both working at a radio station. Now Jeff is a Radio teacher in a high school too. Katie met Steve playing in bands in the music department at Montclair. So Kate and Steve, Alice and I, have all met at Montclair. Megan and Jeff met at NJ101.5 Radio but both had common friends from TCNJ.
Kate and Steve brought us the next generation of our family. You might imagine we dote on this wonderful boy born on April 2 2010. (2013 update: Since the above was crafted Megan and Jeff added our delightful new granddaughter born on April 2, 2012 and Katie and Steve's boy has an extraordinary new brother born June 30, 2012.)
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