James Mastropole:  

<updated December 24, 2023> After I graduated from Johns Hopkins University with an Engineering degree, our family moved from the Fardale section of Mahwah to Denison Drive in Saddle River. I was moonlighting as a bass-guitarist in several rock bands and was one of the owners of the MacBeth nightclub at the intersection of East Crescent Ave. and route 17 in Ramsey (now Houlihan's). In the late 70's I lived one year in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and one year in Riverside CA where I spent time in the Amazon region and the Mojave desert setting up Satellite communication stations while employed by ITT in Ramsey. In 1980 ITT moved to Raleigh, so I set off on my own to became a free-lance engineering consultant. In that capacity I played a prominent role at COMSAT Laboratories in Maryland and eventually relocated to nearby Great Falls, Virginia ... a suburb of Washington DC. Great falls is an upscale, mostly-rural "census designated place" about the size of Mahwah. I was especially happy with the rolling hills, multi-acre minimum zoning, lack of public utilities or street lighting and only three traffic lights. It was designated as a "dark skies" area (much to the delight of star gazers) and includes a beautiful waterfall national park on the Potomac River. I was pleased to have found a place to live which reminded me of my home towns of Mahwah and Saddle River ... meeting my rule never to live further South than the Southern-most point in New Jersey. I remained single until 1983 and married Dr. Mary Beth Martin, a noted breast cancer research scientist at the Lombardi Cancer Center in Washington DC. She is also Professor of Biochemistry at the Georgetown University Medical School. Mary Beth grew up in New Milford NJ and attended Immaculate Heart Academy in Washington Township. She received her PhD from what is now Rutgers Medical School. Last year we were surprised to learn that she is irrefutably a direct descendant of Susannah Martin who was a famous defendant in the Salem witch trials. After getting married, we moved half a mile up the road to a more spacious house with a larger lot and used my bachelor house for rental income. Having grown up owning/riding horses I was planning to go all-out equestrian with the new property until I learned that several neighbors were looking for someone to help keep their horses exercised. Without a stable and corral to occupy space, we now have about three football fields of lawn to mow ... still a lot less work and responsibility compared to the alternative. We have two single millennial daughters ... Kristen and Dana. Both are adventurous globe trekkers preferring to explore jungle archaeological sites and water-filled caverns instead of participating in mundane urban tourist activities. They are experienced scuba divers and have been active in volunteer efforts for re-seeding the coral reefs between Cuba and Florida. Kristen graduated from Georgetown University majoring in Biology and Physics. She also has a Masters degree in Professional Sciences and Oceanography from the University of Miami. She began her adventurous life style travelling the oceans on research ships. Looking for a more rewarding future, her next adventure was a year of teaching advanced math and science at an English-speaking school in mainland China followed by another year managing a private school in Hong Kong. During that time, she was able to enjoy solo hiking trips in mainland China (once with her sister) and throughout southeast Asia. She now owns/manages a college prep academy with about 25 instructors serving Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia . Our younger daughter Dana graduated from Georgetown University with honors in Physics. She also studied at the University of New South Wales in Australia and has a Masters degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is a veteran of several Arctic research expeditions (one of which both daughters participated) while working at The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. She is now a senior machine-learning engineer and data scientist with notable contributions in the field of artificial intelligence. In her spare time she serves as Flotilla Commander of a Coast Guard auxiliary in the Los Angeles area. After five years working as a consultant, I became Vice President of Engineering and one of four founders of a new micro-electronics company initially funded by the National Security Agency ... unfortunately, it involved an hour-long commute. Th...Expand for more