Michael Brubaker:
CLASS OF 1967
Norte Del Rio High SchoolClass of 1967
Sacramento, CA
Michael's Story
1967 does seem like a while back. I live in Kennewick Washington now, been here about 17 yrs. So here is a shot at a quick update on what and where I've been doing since the summer of 1967. - Went to Sac State with Al Ghilarduci and John T after graduation. Over the next few years I got my AA but mostly just putzes around doing this and that for far too long. I started my working career in Oregon in 1974 working for Bechtel on the construction of a Nuc plant. I was up here until 76, then back to Sacto were I worked on a job fabricating a power plant for Alaska and did maintenance work on underground communication lines. In 1978 I got a job in Saudi Arabia. Work over seas for four years with a nine month job in Wyoming in the middle working on installing a100 mile water line. In Saudi I worked for 2 yrs for a Swiss company running construction personnel housing camps in & the oil fields and 2 yrs working for a German / US company supporting McDonnell Douglas on the F-15 Fighter Plane Project. On both jobs I worked on teams running construction personnel and family housing camps for US ex-pats & other workers from all of the world. I worked and lived with other Americans, Arabs, British, Europeans, Africans & Asian & pretty much worked all over the country.
While in Saudi I had the opportunity to travel a lot. All around the UK, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Greece, Istanbul, Casablanca, Egypt, Beirut, Bahrain, Sir Lanka, Bombay, Kathmandu, Thailand, Bali, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macao and Kenya - It was a great time - single, no kids & no bills. After I got back to the states I took about a year or more off. Just about the time the money ran out I got a job as a Construction Contracts Manager in Tonopah, NV. It was a joint DOE / DOD construction job in the middle of nowhere Nevada - Back to living in construction camps. I got married for the first time while living in Tonopah, a woman I know from Sacramento. We moved into the town of Tonopah. I was 38. In January of 1989 I got transferred to Las Vegas to work at the Nevada Test Site. The US was still testing underground nuc bombs at that time & I was still working construction contracts. My first child, a boy arrived in...Expand for more
1989, I was 40. I lived in Las Vegas & work an hour or so out of town at the DOE site for 9 yrs. I adopted my wife's son when he was 7 and we had another boy in 1991.
The government stop doing nuc testing in the early 90s and moved from construction work to drilling, demolition
& environmental clean-up contracting. I was in management most of the time but still spent a lot of time in the field and traveling around the country. Things started to slow up at work in 96 or so I took a job with Fluor at the Hanford Site in Richland, Washington. My family and I moved to Kennewick in 1998. At the time it was the most hazardous DOE site in the county. The government had produced a lot of nasty stuff there since the Manhattan Project during the WWII thru the cold war. It was then, still is and will be for years a DOE hazardous clean up site. I was 49. I worked at the site for 15+ yrs, the last 5 yrs as the Vice President of Contracts & Procurement for a hazardous waste treatment company. I got a divorce in 2007, which was an extremely happy day in my life. My oldest son was on his own and married with kids (that might be a contradiction). My other 2 sons came to live with me after the divorce. I retired October of 2013 - for 6 months.
In April of 2014 I went to work for a small business called Indian Eyes as a Consultant / Contracts Manager. I've known the owners for several years and really enjoy working there. Sometimes I work part time / sometimes I work overtime - sometimes I do this and sometimes I do that - But that's the way it is with small businesses doing work with the government. I got married again in 2009 to very wonderful woman named Hati & life is good. My 3 sons & 4 grand-kids (another due 1//5/2015) all live with in a few miles of each other. On the days i don't work I like to fish, golf, do nothing and do road trips. My wife and I like to cook together, go out to dance, go to concerts. I still see some old friends - Joe Sullivan & I go fishing a couple times each year and visit regularly. I also see or talk regularly with Randy Turner, Billy Simon, Kenny McKowen & Al Ghilarducci. Plan to work a year or two more then really pull the plug and travel.
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