Early Retirement

I would have titled this "I'm stopping work due to a terminal disability" but they wouldn't allow that many characters in the Title. Plus "Early Retirement" just has a better ring to it.

Growing up, many of us had dreams of making our first million by the age of 30 and then comfortably retiring at the age of 40. Well, 4 kids later, I accomplished neither, but along the way realized how hollow those dreams really were.

Some of the goals that I did achieve as well as memories and highlights of my worklife are shared below:

Schroeder-Dent Printing
Starting my career at age 13 working at my grandfathers print shop. I worked my butt off, but they paid me $5/hour (in 1978) and grandma made me lunch (she even separated and peeled my pomegranate for me).

Sequoyah Country Club
At the age of 15 I started as a dishwasher at Sequoyah Country Club. I couldn't drive so my dad use to take me and pick me up, sometimes as late as 3:00 a.m. (where were the child labor laws back then when we needed them).

For the next 7 years, through high school and college, I performed almost every job at the club including: prep cook, line cook, busboy, waiter, bartender, maitre'd, lifeguard, and golf pro (thought I'd throw that in for those who know my golf game).

More importantly, however, this is where I met my closest friends that, 27 years later, are still so near and dear to my heart. And even more important than that, this is where I met my beautiful wife Debbie. Man, if the walls of Sequoyah Country Club could talk.

This is also where I gained my tremendous commitment to customer service, because the stuffy, old money members demanded it!

Bay Area Kenworth
When I graduated from CAL (GO Bears!) I took the easy path. A member at the Country Club(one of the cool young unstuffy ones) offered to take me under his wing and work in Sales at his Kenworth Truck Dealership. While it wasn't a glamorous industry, it turned out to be a great first job (out of college). I learned what relationship selling was all about, from the master of relationship selling - Tom Buran.

ExecuTrain
When that industry softened, the technology boom was upon us. I took a sales job opening up a brand new SF office for ExecuTrain. Through hard work and the guidance of another incredible mentor, Rich Karakis, we built a formidable, highly successful software training business. More importantly, I also developed many more lifelong friendships along the way.

MShow.com
With the Internet boom came the lure big stock options. A well funded startup by the name of MShow.com came calling. Web-Conferencing was in it's infancy and with a little luck and better execution it may have been MShow rather than WebEx that got bought by Cisco for $3 Billion.

One of the things I'm most proud of in my career was leading the dwindling Mshow salesforce
through Chapter 11 Bankruptcy and actually continuing to grow sales during that time! Holding the pieces together allowed us the opportunity for a "White Knight" to come along and purchase us. That "White Knight" turned out to be InterCall.

InterCall
While InterCall may not have been the ideal company to climb the proverbial career ladder, it turned out to be a true blessing in disguise. The incredible friendships I have developed and cherish so much are worth their weight in gold. The support and outpouring of love as I battle this disease has been overwhelming.

But the most important thing that InterCall provided was flexibility and understanding that family is the priority. This flexibility allowed me to pursue a part time career coaching my kids baseball, basketball and soccer teams. The network of friends and supporters that I developed while coaching is also playing a huge role in helping me through these challenging times.

Recap
So... In nearly 30 years with 6 employers, I'm very proud of the fact that I've never been fired, laid-off, gotten a negative performance review, rarely had to call in sick, or had a single day without a job since I was 13. It's a good thing I got this crazy disease... I'm ready to retire!

Crab Feed Extravaganza!

WOW! What a truly amazing, special Event. Personally it was very empowering yet humbling for me.

I was able to see and chat briefly with nearly 400 people, some of whom I hadn't seen for nearly 20 years. Many of those people I may never have been able to see again if it weren't for this Event.

When I got up to say a few words and thank everyone for their support, my already weak legs almost buckled when the crowd rose in unison to give me a standing ovation. It will be a moment etched in my memory forever.

This incredible fundraiser couldn't have happened without the contributions of so many people:

- First and foremost my sister Kelli and her husband David who coordinated and procured goods for the entire Event (No jarred sauce for this Event, Kelli made all the sauce herself)
- Father Leo and The Corpus Christi Church men's club who provided the facility, prepared all of the food and organized the wait staff.
- My incredible kids, nieces, nephews and all of their friends who did such a professional job serving the guests.
- Tim Ports of Ports Seafood who donated all of the incredibly fresh, delicious crab
- Southern Wine and Spirits with the help of Bob Klatt and Steven Burroughs who donated all of the wine.
- My old water polo buddy Pete Rogers who donated all of the very yummy Drakes Beer.
- David Conti of Le Boulanger who donated all of the bread.
- One of the most respected baseball coaches in the East Bay, Paul Damhesel, who donated all of the salad fixins.
- Cheryl Lew of Montclair Baking and all of our volunteer bakers for their wonderful cookies.
- To Je-to-the-fe and Mojo Deluxe Band. I wish that we could have kept to our time schedule and gotten this incredible band on sooner. There would have been some great dancing going on.
- And everyone that helped setup, cleanup, run around, etc. I know I've missed some specific names of people that dedicated their time and resources toward the success of this Event.

Thank you for everything!

Next month... an update on HGH.

Cheers!

DD
Retired