Stephen Cramer:  

I believe it's time to update this thing since it's been a few years and I have nothing better to do. Let me begin with what I did after graduation. I can't remember what day we graduated but seems to me it was like a Tuesday in the later part of May. I had to hurry and get off work and clean up and get down to SMU for graduation. I had already moved out of my parent's house and was living in what I call the "commune" since four of us were living in one bedroom efficiency. I had this so called great job working in a paint and body shop making almost $5.00 an hour. That evening a few of my friends and I went down to the Hyatt Regency and had a few drinks and then headed home. I woke up the day after graduating and reality sunk in very quickly as I was lying in bed before heading to work. That cool high school job was now my career and the fun carefree times were over. I remember that bad feeling like it happened yesterday. I didn't have a plan what I was going to do and I knew at that point I wasn't college bound. You know that silly saying about "Today is the first day of the rest of your life" well I was living it the day after graduation. I like to think that has been my motivation since then. 1981-1992 I either got wise or really stupid and quit my job on the spot at Miracle Paint and Body in September 1981 and got lucky finding an entry level position with manufacturing company in Richardson. As time went on I gained more skills and enrolled in school. I attended Richland College (University of Richland at Abrams) for many years and was promoted at age twenty two to production supervisor responsible for a large factory and a lot of employees. I worked for this company eleven years rising to the rank of Manufacturing and Planning Manager. I'm guessing around 1983 I saw this really cool thing called a computer and more specifically an ERP System. I didn't have a clue how this would impact my life later on. During this time I managed to do something really dumb and married someone I really didn't know all that well. Well needless to say this ended in a divorce. I did remarry later on to a really great lady, however we divorced years later. I was very fortunate to have had the opportunity to help raise a wonderful step daughter who graduated from UNT and just recently married great man. May 11, 1988 was almost my last day on earth. I was at lunch in my office and I heard someone scream fire and ran to check it out. A large container of naphtha was on fire and during the evacuation it was knocked over and two of us were trapped and on fire. It was nothing short of a miracle a few people returned from lunch and managed to get the flames down with fire extinguishers. This allowed us to see a path out of the building. That is the only reason I am alive today. I spent weeks in rehab and made a full recovery and yes it was very painful lesson well learned. 1993-2008 As I said this ERP thing turned out to be my calling in life. I worked f...Expand for more