Denise Lau:
CLASS OF 1973
Sacramento High SchoolClass of 1973
Sacramento, CA
University of California - Electrical EngineeringClass of 1981
Berkeley, CA
Kit Carson Middle SchoolClass of 1970
Sacramento, CA
Theodore Judah Elementary SchoolClass of 1967
Sacramento, CA
Denise's Story
Life
After graduating from Sac Hi, I worked for the state for four years. Then I went to UC Berkeley where I studied Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences. In 1980, I married an Encina grad whom I met at Cal. Graduating in 1981 with a BS, I worked for Hewlett-Packard as a software engineer and then as a marketing engineer; I finally settled into a career as a technical writer. I quit HP in 1991, worked for Intuit (maker of Quicken personal finance software) as a contract tech writer for a year, and then joined the company as a staff writer for two more years. I left Intuit just before I turned 40 ("retired in my 30s!") to stay home with the kids. My daughter, who's 32, graduated UC Berkeley and is a sales engineer at Salesforce in Atlanta; my 29-year-old son is an NYU grad working as trainer with Salesforce in San Francisco. My husband and I are both retired now and living in the East Bay ('burbs between Oakland and San Jose). I go to a lot of SF Giants baseball games as a season ticket holder, dance hula, and travel whenever I can. I'm totally into earning miles and points to pay for our travels--it's like free money!
My sisters and I inherited the house in which I grew up in East Sac, and I visit Sacto ev...Expand for more
ery month. I haven't seen Sac Hi since I graduated, and I hear the new building is kind of ugly, but not as bad as the new Kit Carson!
In October 2000, along with six other roller-coaster fans, I set a new Guinness world record for the greatest number of different coasters ridden in a continuous 24-hour period. The original record, set in 1999, was 29 coasters, and my team shattered it by riding 40 coasters in San Francisco Bay and Los Angeles area amusement parks. The attempt was filmed for a one-hour special on the Discovery Channel and was aired on Memorial Day weekend of 2001. You can also find me in the 2002 Guinness Book on page 164. (Our record was broken nine months later by a corporate-sponsored, east coast team that used helicopters to travel between parks. They rode 75 coasters!)
If you had music class at Sac Hi with Mr Kahne in the early 70s, you might be interested to know he's now a Grammy-winning producer who has worked with artists ranging from Tony Bennett to Paul McCartney to Cher to Sublime. I visited him at his recording studio in NYC in 2011, and we chatted about the old Sac Hi days...the man is a consummate story teller. Google "David Kahne" to see what he's been doing these past few decades.
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