Bruce Lee:
CLASS OF 1970
Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake High SchoolClass of 1970
Burnt hills, NY
Rochester Institute of TechnologyClass of 1975
Rochester, NY
Bruce's Story
Life
From BHBL I ended up with a Bachelors degree in Business at RIT. Went into retailing and worked my way into computers holding various positions from programming (ATM's, POS Systems then credit cards processing) to Director of Technical Systems (Fortune 200 company). I invented a processing system which was called BLISS (Bruce Lee International Switching System) which routed 75% of all credit/debit card transactions in the US at the time. It was installed in 3 locations in the US, and one each in the UK, Australia and Hong Kong. It won awards from VISA for fastest processor and highest reliability. It ran for 30 years and was finally replaced in 2022. Retired in June 2007. Actually semi retired since I am now major owner and CFO for UP Aerospace Inc, the company that launched "Scotty" from Star Trek, ashes to space in April 2007. We do flights to space (sub-orbital) at Spaceport America in New Mexico. The last 30 years have been too much fun, I was featured on "Extreme Machines" with a 30 foot tall 1/3 scale Mercury Redstone and we got Alan Shepard's daughter to push the launch button. Rocket expert on "Junk Yard Wars," was featured again on "Rocketry Challenge" with the flying Porta-Poty (real porta-poty made into a rocket, first one on Discovery Channel), world tallest model rocket, 54 feet tall and several other projects. In total I was on 14 Discovery Channel shows and one National Geographic. 2005 I was on the short lived series, "Master Blasters" where we built a rocket powered Mini Cooper car to launch off a ramp and over a football goal post (Rocket Car Football). 2004 I was a major player and RSO on the first amateur team to put a rocket into space, CSXT (CSXTflight.com) beating Burt Rutan as the first amateurs to space. I also crewed on pro Nitro NHRA Top Fuel Dragster team Mr Magoo (Don Sosenka) and TNT Motorsports team (crew member and sponsor) with Terry Totten when I was in Omaha (th...Expand for more
e 8000 HP stuff at the time). Burt Rutan invited me to attend the launch of Space Ship One first non government team to put a man into space, launch in 2004 (at the second launch where Rutan won the X Prize, I met Elon Musk (we rent some SpaceX facilities at Spaceport America), Sir Richard Branson (who started Virgin Galactic which flies tourists to space at Spaceport America), Buzz Aldrin (he's a cool guy), Dennis Tito (first space tourist on ISS) and of course Burt Rutan, they all wanted to talk about the CSXT flight to space). I moved to Denver in late 2006 and joined UP Aerospace. On the hobby side I set the world record in 2021 for the most rocket motors on one rocket at 299 motors (298 Estes C6-0's and one Hybrid J360). In Denver, my wife Cathy (Bruce and Cathy Lee the famous family!) and I bought a ranch in the foothills and currently have 2 horses (16.1 hands Quarter horse and the biggest Mustang horse anyone has seen at 16 hands and 1200 pounds we got from the BLM horse relocation plan). Still doing model rockets and the project for 2024 is to fly a life size IRON MAN with rocket motors in the hands and feet. During the pandemic I learned how to tumble rocks and make jewelry which I sell at craft shows (my wife does jewelry, cards and other crafts) and on Etsy (ChristyRidgeCrafts).
School
I had bad grades because I was to busy doing other things, other things that built a better overall person. I was smart enough to get by without having to study much, but the school counselor thought I was to dumb to go to college, fooled you. Not only did I go to college I immediately ended up on the deans list. Studying and homework are not the most important things, being well rounded is better. I was in the band and was the drum major (also orchestra). Outside school I ran several small businesses, sailed competitively, was an expert skier and had my own dark room which I am selling pictures from today.
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