Richard Van Kirk:  

Life Dick Van Kirk's Bio: After West High I attended and graduated from the California Institute of Technology in 1958. Later I got a Master of Business Economics degree from Claremont Graduate University. I worked for Procter & Gamble for 5 years, then a couple of other jobs and spent most of my career as a management consultant with Ernst & Young, a large accounting firm. After taking early retirement from Ernst & Young, I worked for five years as President and CEO of Special Olympics Southern California. Also, in 1984, I was Vice-President, Technology, for the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, where I was responsible for television operations, computers, results, telecommunications and overseeing about 8,000 people who worked in these areas. At Caltech, I was a classmate of Larry (Sonny) Nelson of West High. While there, I played football (QB), basketball and ran track & field. In football, my senior year I led the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in total offense (hard to believe if you remember what a scrawny runt I was my first two years of high school!). I still hold the Caltech school record in the long jump after 58 years. After college I jumped for the Southern California Striders, who were National AAU team champions each of the three years I was on the team. I managed to be ranked in the top five jumpers in the country at one time, and was on the world list for two years. After graduating from Caltech, I met Janet Labory, who was a student at Occidental College and from the Los Angeles area. In 7 weeks I proposed, and were married 56 years. We have three married children, ages56, 53, and 50, and six grandchildren. Janet was a wonderful wife, companion, mother and grandmother. I am very lucky to have found her. Janet died of a brain tumor in September of 2015, and I miss her greatly I have been involved in some charitable work, also. I was for a while the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Woodbury University in Los Angeles, and am on the Board of Directors of a major hospital in southern California as well as Special Olympics Southern California. I was also President of the Caltech Alumni Association. My brothers Mike and Chris, and their families all still live in the Valley of the Sun. I am now retired from paid work, and we spend our time enjoying life and our families. We count our blessings and are very grateful for our families and our full and happy lives. We are very proud of our children. All three are married and each has two children. Rick is 56 and works in the wireless industry as President and CEO at Pro-Dex in Irvine, CA. He is a former college basketball player and a five time Ironman Triathlon finisher in Hawaii. Karen is 53 and has a double major degree in math and english from UC Berkeley, as well as a Masters in Management from the Sloan School at MIT. She is Vice President of customer support for Hulu.. In high school she was on a national record-setting 4 x 1500 meter girls relay team in track. She founded Team Survivor California in 1999 and ran it for five years. Team Survivor provides free exercise programs for women cancer survivors (Karen is a survivor). Doug is 50 and a former all-...Expand for more