Mike Haas
 
After graduation I went full time at Hamady Bros. With the introduction to Jean Kosier by her cousin Bill Spooner, we dated and married in July of 1961. Within a few years we had our family of 4 sons. After 13 years on Dearborn Street .in Flint we decided to move to the west side of Flushing. Those were all busy years with the boys in sports. In 1969 I went to work for RGIS Inventory service as Manager of the Flint office and continued until retirement in 1997. The work involved travel as I covered the state of Michigan. Our sons are all married and we have 6 grand children. Our oldest, Pete has two grown sons, Pete is Dir. of Product Engineering at Callaway Golf. Second born Joe is a Senior Environmental Analyst for the State of Michigan and he has 7 year old boy-girl twins. Joe lives in Flushing. The 3rd son Michael J. lives in Glendale, AZ. and is the Supervisor for The Wall Co.... Our youngest son Kirk. E. is Manager of Stamping Systems at Chrysler in Auburn Hills. Kirk lives in Clarkston and has a 7 yr. old son and 4 yr. old daughter. We have been fortunate to enjoy traveling to see our grandchildren and families through these years. My parents are still around and need attention and require high maintenance since they cannot drive any more. That keeps us busy. We plan to attend the reunion at IItalia Gardens. Thanks for all of your efforts to make this happen. Mike and Jean

Tom Cady

I left Flint for Dearborn within minutes of the graduation ceremony. Never went back except for a few short visits in 58, 66, and I think 2003. Spent 35 years working for the Army in and out of uniform. Took an early retirement in 1995 and have not worked a day since. I do spend a lot of time playing poker but it is not really a job. Have had some success and it helps supplement my retirement pay. Have 4 children and four grandchildren. Married twice but nobody now. Lived in many places over the years besides Mich. Ind, Ky, Minn, Tx, Az and up and down Cal as well as Ger, Iran and Saudi Arabia before finally settling in Las Vegas, Nevada about 9 years ago. There have been many hi lites and adventures over the years. The one that stands out the most might be Oct 3 1993 when I survived a skydiving accident. The chute failed to open all the way and it was a miracle I lived. Landing just a fraction of an inch differently would have killed or paralyzed me. Was in bad shape for a long time but now after 14 years, only an artificial hip remains as a reminder. This barely touches the surface, but hope it helps. See you in a few months. Tom Cady

Rita Basso Lord

The photo that I am e-mailing is from our 40th Wedding Anniversary in Innsbrook, Austria. I am doing well...after graduation I married Ron 1960 and moved to Farmington Hills. We had a son in 1961, another son in 1962 and another son in 1963...then we adopted our daughter in 1969...They are Steve, Mike, David and Pamela. We have ten grandchildren. Ron graduated from GMI (Kettering now) and worked for G.M. for awhile then started his own business. In 1980 I graduated from Oakland University in Rochester. I worked as a Counselor in the Probation Dept. at the 48th District Court for a few years. Since 1989, I have been a Forensic Document Examiner/Expert Witness in Court on Forgery Cases...I authenticate someone's signature, identify Bomb Threats, Suicide Notes, Bank Notes, etc...I am self-employed... American Document Examiners, Inc. I truly love my work and feel that I am helping people and the community at large. I have an office here in West Bloomfield and one in North Palm Beach, Florida. That's about it...I have a Web Page: www.americandocumentexaminers.com See you before we know it...Sincerely, Rita Lord 4838 Cliffside Drive West Bloomfield, MI 48323

Ernie's Last Half Century

After graduation I attended Flint Junior College and after 2 years Bob Cupal and I took the Air Force entrance tests for Pilot or Navigator Training Programs. After passing we were informed that the Pilot Training Program was full but the Navigation Program would accept us. Bob had already made the choice that he would only go if he could drive. I wrote the Air Force and said I would continue my education and reapply later. I took a job as a draftsman at Universal Electric in Owosso, Michigan. For a while I worked for a young engineer who encouraged me to return to school and become an engineer. So I retuned to Flint Junior College for two years. Transferred to the University of Michigan and then again to U of M in Dearborn to co-op with the Ford Motor Car Company. I graduated as an engineer and worked for Ford for 35 years until January 1999. I worked in Quality Control for 30 years and Manufacturing Engineering for the last five years. I enjoyed the work and I liked to travel. The travel was restricted to the states at first until the American Auto Industry was challenged by Japan in 1979. Then the travel became more global. Carol and I met at the lake in Gladwin, Michigan where both our parents had cottages when we were 21. We married in 1964 and settled in Allen Park, MI where Carol was teaching. We moved to three locations in Allen Park in 30 years and raised two daughters. In 1971 we purchased the cottage next to her parents in Gladwin. In 2002 we removed the cottage and built a house in its place. Then in October 2002 we purchased a Villa in The Villages which is located in central Florida. The "home" is in Gladwin and we winter in The Villages. Our passion upon retirement was to be travel. We haven't done too well in only claiming one major trip to China since retirement. But we had no idea that retiree's were so busy! Golf, Bocce, Pickle Ball, socializing and reading competes for my time, with golf claiming the lions share for now. We enjoy the three grandsons 8, 5 and 2 at the lake and when they visit in Florida. I am looking forward to seeing everyone in July and having an opportunity to visit some for the first time in 50 years. Regards, Ernie

Leonard  Grantner
 
As many of my former classmates may already know, I finished a couple of years at Flint JC after graduation, and went on to study at Michigan State University for Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering. If that wasn’t enough, I decided to pursue a doctorate in EE, and wound up at Columbia University in New York City, studying half time, and working at a Navy laboratory to pay my bills, upstate in Dobbs Ferry, NY on the Hudson River. The lab was connected with Columbia University in a tenuous way (handling pay checks and other details), and I found that the EE department wouldn’t consider a thesis topic based on the work there. (The lab worked on underwater acoustics and anti-submarine warfare.) On top of that, the professor who had agreed to be my thesis advisor retired a year after I enrolled at Columbia, so I had to change horses in midstream, so to speak. While I was at Columbia, I met my wife Jeanette on one of my trips back to Michigan. We corresponded a lot, and we dated on my travels to Michigan. We married about a year and a half later, and Jeanette helped financially as a registered nurse. (My stipend as a doctoral student with a research assistantship was pretty paltry.) We lived for our first year of married life in Yonkers, NY and then moved to an apartment in Fort Lee, NJ. Since all work and no play doesn’t do well for the spirit, we enjoyed some camping and hiking in the hills of upstate NY. During my stint at Columbia, we had an interesting event involving the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) led by a Mark Rudd, in which buildings at the university campus were occupied. One result of the confrontation was the closure of the lab, but I continued the work as an employee of a small company formed by some of the scientists and engineers from there. I stayed on with the company after getting my doctorate, since the work was pretty interesting. One effort in which I was predominantly involved was measuring the ambient noise levels in New York City at the street level, and creating noise contours for the entire city. It was quite an undertaking. I even had the opportunity to work with high explosives in a task for the Navy. I didn’t appreciate the risk involved until those watching us disappeared when we started to arm the explosive charges!  Soon after I was awarded my degree, we bought our first home in Yorktown Heights, NY. It was a beautiful area, away from the Big City, with trees overhanging the roads. A place called Turkey Mountain was only about a mile a way, and on a clear day, we could see New York City from the top. As you may guess, we continued to explore NY and the northeastern states. (The leaves in the fall were just breathtaking!) We were unable to have children ourselves, and had been involved in an adoption effort for some time. After many years, we were able to adopt our oldest son, Mike, from Korea. It was a momentous occasion when he arrived at Kennedy Airport! (Mike used to kid his friends that he didn’t arrive by stork, but on a Boeing 707!) It was nice to have a family finally, and Mike soon became a camper, too. Eventually, though, the small company seemed more and more to be sitting on its laurels, so we decided it was time to move on, even though we enjoyed the Westchester County countryside, and had lived in our home for a number of years. I accepted an engineering position with RCA in New Jersey, and we moved there in 1979 and bought our second home. Shortly afterward, our next gift from Korea arrived at Kennedy in the form of a baby girl, our daughter Annie. A couple of years later we welcomed our second son Paul at Kennedy Airport. Over the years, RCA was bought by General Electric (GE), and my division was.  So I have been employed by four corporations without leaving my desk, in a matter of speaking. Most of my efforts over those years have been focused on the design and analysis of weapon and >combat system for Aegis ships, which exist primarily to protect the carriers and other capital ships of the US Navy. My oldest son Mike is a Civil Engineer working for a company in Philadelphia, doing contract work for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. Annie has been working for a number of years in the home mortgage industry, but more recently has been involved with hotel management. Paul has always liked the outdoors (he loved to push a toy lawnmower as a child), and has been in the landscaping business for some time. As for me, I finally decided to retire, and gave Lockheed Martin a year’s notice in 2005, so they could find a replacement. I retired at the end of last July, and we moved to Colorado last December. It’s a beautiful area, and we live in the foothills of the Rockies, at a 6000-ft altitude. The town of Cañon City lies below about 1000 ft, and the top of Pike’s Peak can be seen in the distance. Behind us are the Greenhorn Mountains of the Rockies. Cañon City seems to avoid most of the nasty weather that strikes the nearby cities of Colorado Springs and Pueblo. We have just begun to see the sights in Colorado, not even to mention the other nearby states. Driving through the mountains is quite and exhilarating experience, especially since Colorado doesn’t have many guard rails on the mountain roads!  Lockheed Martin still wants me to come back as a consultant, and since the work was interesting, I said I would. If and when the paperwork is completed, I may be shuttling back and forth between Denver and Philadelphia for a week or so a month. I’ll have to see whether I like that much traveling.  Sincerely, Len  


                                                 
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                                             Janet Trudeau Bernal

          Janet and myself have had a great life in 1960 we started with a party plan selling cookware by 1970 we earn 5 promotions  transfer from Flint to Jackson Mi and then to Chicago for 2 years . 1970 to California we took a small group of sales people we build in up to1600 salesmen  in sales of 18 million dollars  a year , we were working 6 and some weeks 7 days it paid  very well .    We just bought last summer a 2009 motor home class A .  We retired from cookware in 1981 Janet went to work the IRS only one year , from there to Coit Co. and 3 years she became a general manager of  the company 23 years later she retired again . Did not work but for 2 years  did voluntary at a hospital ,she then at 65 years of age apply for the Fresno County . She got the job in Accounting Department 5 years later retired for the third time very happy .  Bill she really did not have to work but wanted to be some one then just a house wife , this girl is a  perfections , humble , great personality and very powerful person when it come to business . 21 years in the cookware business we won over 225 trophy set 15 records in sales in the USA and travel 16 times to Bahamas and many other country's .  Our family 3 girls and one son all in thier business 4 grand kids and 2 great grand kids , we are very blessed family we thank our Lord for been so good to us . Janet and i always  said  God was to good to us  and we know thier is a plan for us and we are really .  God Bless all .