Michael Baron:
CLASS OF 1977
Joliet East High SchoolClass of 1977
Joliet, IL
Michael's Story
Hello old friends!!! I hope all of you are well and living your life with the same extreme enthusiasm as when you walked the halls of Joliet East. What a colorful collection of characters, I believe that if everyone has applied just a small percentage of their youthful self to how you have lived, it would be a best-selling novel. As the decades seem to roll by I have never seen a group of people that could party in a marathon fashion like our comrades at East! The young folks now just would not be able to hang. I still live in Will County and always will maintain a home here, I married my love Terri (East Grad.) and we have a daughter that thank god she looks like Terri but is just like me (God help us all, not another one) joking aside I am very proud of her. After we graduated my plan was to continue school, the best laid plans however sometimes don'Ât work out, based on my parents evaluation of what could be construed as a turbulent youth, they recommended "ÂGet A Job", with help from my family network I was able to land a couple of cool adventures that helped me with my work ethic, and the foundation of knowledge I would need to better myself. I decided early on that I would disregard many of my teachers recommendations to enter a lifelong career in the ditch digging science and alcohol processing industries. I eventually landed a job with our local energy utility and decided after a few years of training that like my father all things nuclear would be my life'Âs calling. Because once I decide I want to do something, especially when the odds are against me, I become obsessed with making whatever it is happen, that ...Expand for more
seems to have worked for me. Since I did not go straight to college after East, I attended multiple schools after a full day of work, either corporate certified or in the Chicagoland area, after the inception of the internet and online schooling I was able to attend some pretty reputable higher learning establishments. Twenty years later and less than the daily allowance of recommended sleep, I find myself with a few sheepskins. I even screwed up and got myself on some government lists as a consultant in my focus area. In 2013 I was able to retire with 35 years of service from Exelon. My second career finds me as an international energy consultant. In the last couple of decades I have traveled all over the world and would highly recommend it, you look at things differently when you are exposed to things outside the US and different cultures. As long as I am physically able I will never completely retire. Recently I experienced some life changing health issues, I was blessed with some great Doctors who fixed me up and I am on the mend! I like a Chinese saying and try to live by it "If you don'Ât stop running death can'Ât catch you". I can tell you when everything is almost taken away, and you make a comeback, the sky is bluer and the grass is greener, don'Ât procrastinate do the things you have always wanted to do, we are not getting any younger. Knowing all of you has made me better, I believe I am a composite of everyone I meet, I still see some of our running buddies and talk to a few on a regular basis, take care of yourselves, and enjoy wherever your travels bring you! Maybe our paths will cross again.
M.B.
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