Jayne Gerlach:  

In 1977, I convinced my folks that taking a year off between high school and college would be a good thing and took a job at the new McDonald's in Los Alamos. In 1978, shortly before I was to head off to UNM, I took my boyfriend, Tom, to meet my parents and told them that I was not going to school. Instead, I was moving to northern Michigan with Tom. They were, needless to say, not happy. I went anyway and Tom and I were married in December of 1978. I continued on the McDonald's career path, moving into management and moving to a new McDonald's when we later moved to Ann Arbor, MI. When McDonald's didn't become the career of my dreams, I took a data entry position at the University of Michigan. Later, we moved to Gallup, NM for Tom's job - that was an eye-opener even for someone from NM! We moved again, to Las Cruces and I worked at a few places, including my old standby McDonald's. I finally got a data processing position at the Citizen's Bank of Las Cruces and moved into a supervisory position. Both our boys were born while we were in Las Cruces. In 1988, we moved back to northern Michigan so Tom could return to school. Then in 1989, we returned to Ann Arbor and I did data processing for a organization that provided draft processing services for several credit unions. That year my brother, Bill, was killed in a drunk driving crash. For a few years after that, Tom and I spent quite a bit of time volunteering for Mothers Against Drunk Drivers and speaking on victim impact panels. I finally realized that I would never make much money doing data processing in the banking industry and decided to go to school in the evenings for an associate's degree in Microcomputer Business Technology. In 1993, my mother was diagnosed with myelodysplasia, a pre-leukemic syndrome, and passed away within 5 months. My sister, Alice, and I leaned heavily on each other and our renewed closeness is one of the best gifts in my life. My boss, however, was not very und...Expand for more