Dan Stubblefield:  

Hard to believe that 45 years have gone by. This is really the first reunion year that I have thought much about the good old high school days and friends from Royal Oak. I'm retired and living in Ashland which is in the warm, dry, sunny southern part of Oregon. Still married to my first wife, now going on 41 years. We have one son who is married, living in Chicago and Director of Production at the Court Theater. I spent most of my working career with Corning doing business development. I found that I really enjoyed start-ups and was involved in the early years as the technical leader or market leader and in the later years as the overall business leader in multiple new businesses. Worked in the early days of catalytic converters for cars, fiber optics and flat glass for LCD displays. Those were the successes. I was also involved in businesses that didn't make it such as fiber optic sensors, high precision space optics, particulate filters for power plants and a joint venture with Time Warner in the health care media area. One of the fun parts of the job was being in a new industry, with new people and living in new places every 4 or 5 years or so. I received a BSChE from Michigan in 68 and went to work for Alcoa in St. Louis for 2 years. I found that I wasn¿t a good cultural or values fit with Alcoa and decided to go back to school and received an MS in Materials Science in 71 from Washington. We then spent 3 years in Mexico with the Ford Foundation working on materials for low cost housing, living in Cuernavaca for 3 months of total immersion Spanish, and then in Monterrey and Mexico City doing project work. Quite by chance I ended up working for Corning and we lived in Corning, N.Y. three different times. In between we lived in Hickory and Chapel Hill, N.C. and Encino and Orange, CA. Almost moved to Tokyo at one point and Bemidji, MN at another. I regret not making the Tokyo move but think we dodged a bullet in the Bemidji case. Retired in 2001 and moved here. We chose Ashland based on its weather and abundance of cultural activities (for my wife) and outdoor activities for me. Summer highs are often around 90 but with very low humidity and winter lows are typically above freezing. We only get 19" inches of rain a year, all of it in the winter. We live on the upside of town at the urban forest interface at about 2,500'. Nearby mountains go to 7,500' and several 9,000' to 14,000' peaks are within an hour's drive. My days are now spent doing the N.Y. Times crossword in the morning, walking with the dog and sometimes a neighbor on the forest trails and fire roads above town befor...Expand for more