Tony Ortiz:  

During High School, I met Sandra Varela who I ended up marrying and having two beautiful children -- Lynndsey & Ashley. Although we didn't last but 3 years married, I appreciate her role in my life providing me the opportunity to learn from mistakes and better myself as a human being, and be grateful for bringing two beautiful girls into the world. Wish her the very best. After my divorce from Sandy, I joined the Navy during Desert Storm. As soon as I got out of boot camp, I married Gayle (1991) and settled down in Mountain View/Sunnyvale during my enlistment. I got out of the Navy in 1995 and started working for ALZA Corporation, a pharmaceutical that was based out of Palo Alto, CA. Gayle and I moved to San Jose eventually where we began the foster-adoption process. Early 1999, we received a phone call from our social worker asking us if we'd like to come and see a little girl. We visited and immediately fell in love with our little Hannah. Just five (5) days after finalizing our little girl some 2 years later, we received a phone call from our social worker saying that Hannah's brother was born and was available, and if we'd like to consider seeing him. We agreed, and as soon as we saw him, we fell in love with him, too. We got him at 2 months old and that was that. We finalized another 2 years after that after their case was escalated to the State Supreme Court. In December 1999, my wife and I decided to move back to the San Joaquin Valley having been gone now some 8 plus years. I took a job at the Merced Superior Court and eventually became their Information Technologies Manager. I stayed there for over 5 years. We made our home in Merced during that time. In January of 2005, I decided to accep...Expand for more