Dan Franks:  

About 3 months after graduation I bought a small house a few blocks north of Lakota JH where I lived until 1984. I met my wife (a 1974 graduate of Stadium HS across Commencement Bay in Tacoma) in early 1981 and got married in Feb 1982. She then moved into that small house where we lived for a couple more years until we moved to a larger home late '84 in south King County. Rented the small house for a couple more years before selling it. Continued full time working at Wigwam in FW until late '77 and finally completed two programs at GRCC in 1980 (an AA Pre-Professional Degree in Accounting and a Bookkeeping Certificate). Went to work for Carter Volkswagen in Ballard in March 1978 so I've marked a 32-year career doing automotive accounting work. A few years later I transferred to Carter Subaru in north Seattle (yes, same owner) as the office manager until 1991. I then located work much closer to home at Younker Nissan in Renton to balance the needs of a wife and young family. I spent about a year doing consulting work as their controller which led to my uncovering 6-digit embezzlement by my predecessor, an 18-year trusted employee of the dealership! After putting together a solidly documented case, the person was charged civilly and criminally and that has been, more or less, one of my claims to fame in my career! I then did more consulting work at Grey Chevrolet in Port Orchard (reverse commute!) as their controller, cleaning up a lot of factory receivables and other things to improve cash flow. Moving to a job closer to home again, I worked for Friendly Chevrolet in Tacoma for a few years before taking on a short-term assignment for Puget Sound Chrysler Plymouth in Renton with accounting office "clean-up" work as a CPA-firm referral. They had their internal turmoil and closed up the business a few years after I was already on to another better job opportunity. Over ten years ago, I began working for Walker's Renton Subaru Mazda (formerly Subaru-Mitsubishi) as the controller. It's probably where I'll retire! As of the time I'm composing this, my oldest is my son who is almost 25. My #2 is my 21-year old daughter who is a freshman at an Oregon college. My youngest is an 11th grader in the Fife School District. The oldest two graduated from Fife HS, even though we're in the FW school district. Both my wife and I had our 10-year class reunions on the same day so, after some agonizing, we agreed to go to mine with the stipulation we had to go to hers next time, if there was a conflict. The 20 year reunion came and, gues...Expand for more