Short Version - - I've been married one time to the woman of my dreams. We have three adult children. Two are natural born and one was a foster child. We have seven grandchildren.

We live in Bartlett, Tennessee which is near Memphis and are members of Bellevue Baptist church and I'm a Hospice volunteer.

My hobbies include nature watching, painting and surfing the net. While writing this, I enjoyed watching cardinals feeding their young outside my window.

My employer is Aleris International. My current responsibilities include Quality systems at three manufacturing sites and Six Sigma projects at sites in Texas, Tennessee and Michigan.

My previous employers have been: U.S. Steel, Mueller Co., LRTS, Wheland Foundry and Southern Pride Custom Cabinets. I also owned and operated an Alphagraphics design, copy and print franchise.

Some of my job titles have been: Foreman, General Foreman, Senior Designer, Engineer, Manager, Consultant, Lead Auditor, Vice President and Owner Operator.

I received a BS in Industrial Engineering from Auburn University, ASQC Certified Quality Engineer, Quality Auditor, RAB Lead Auditor and Toastmasters ATM

I owe a lot of gratitude to my Parents, Neighbors, Teachers, Boy Scout Leaders, High School Principle, Coaches, Navy, Pastors, Toastmasters, Dale Carnage, ASQC, Employees, Employers and Especially to my partner in life, Sammie.

Long Version

Early Life - My life started in rural North Alabama on a plateau named Sand Mountain. My great grandfather Joseph "Hicks" Robinson had been attracted to Sand Mountain by former neighbors and the claim of easy plowing in the sandy soil.

I was born to share cropper parents. That term has a negative stigma attached to it that it doesn't always deserve. Young married people just starting out farming usually can't afford to buy land. So what do they do? They share crop with a land owner until they've saved enough for a down payment and developed some credit history. That's what my parents did.

That's where I was born and my first memories were on that farm where my parents were share croppers. There were two houses on the farm. My older brother Benny, my parents and I lived in the painted house. My Uncle Harvey and Aunt Joe moved into the unpainted house.

What is your first memory as a child? How old were you? My first memories are of events that occurred on that farm. Some events that my parents thought I should remember, I don't.

One memory involves playing hide and seek with my brother Benny. There was a hook on the wall above the sewing machine with clothes hanging on it. Daddy stood me on top Of the sewing machine and I hid behind the clothes.

Another memory is of me riding a tricycle and Benny with one knee in the Radio Flyer red wagon and one foot on the ground pushing as we went around the yard. Country people didn't have grass in their yard. The yard was hard packed sandy dirt packed by people walking and playing. Today with deep thatched lawns, a child can't ride a tricycle or wagon in the yard like we did.

In another early memory, I was in the garden with Aunt Joe. She was picking pepper and I saw a granddaddy spider which gave me a terrible scare.

Events that I should have remembered, I don't. We had two mules. A red roan mule named Granny and a young black one. I was riding in the wagon while my parents pulled corn. One of them missed the wagon and hit the young mule. They ran away with me in the wagon. They eventually came to an inside corner of a pasture fence and stopped without any harm to me, them or the wagon. That surely was an exciting ride, but I don't remember it.

I always remember my Daddy as a slow careful driver, but he wasn't always so careful. He over turned his Red 1936 V8 Ford and my head broke the windshield. I remember what the car looked like because it stayed in the yard for years afterward, but I don't remember the accident.

Those memories occurred before my third birthday. I know this because we moved from the share cropper farm to a small plot adjacent to Lattiwood School where my parents build a small grocery/service station. We lived in the back rooms of the store.

We moved in before the backdoor was installed. Mother hung a blanket over the door. I was afraid that wolves would get in the house. There were no wolves on Sand Mountain, but I didn't believe that.

As a youngster I attempted to raise wild creatures such as rabbits, mink, skunks and kestrels. We also nurtured farm animals such as chickens, ducks, goats, pigs and calves. During one cold winter we kept a litter of pigs in the house for several nights.

It wasn't all that warm in the house at night. My brothers and I slept in a room that had been the back porch. The porch was closed in without insulation. A linoleum rug was put on the floor that covered the cracks between the floor boards. When the north wind blew, the rug lifted up and the cold air came howling in. One winter morning a carton of cokes in our bedroom froze solid. We had so many quilts on us at night that it was difficult to turnover.

I wanted a horse, but Daddy wouldn't allow it so as an adult we bought two mares for the girls and raised several folds.

Activities while growing up were centered on church, school Friday night Boy Scout meetings or working on the farm. There was no Little League or any of the organized sports that kids enjoy today.

Lattiwood School was closed two years before I started to school, so I attended Highview a six room school which was four miles away. Highview had outdoor toilets and raised a hog in a pen at the lower edge of the playground. Lunchroom scraps were fed to the hog.

In the second grade, I received an "unsatisfactory" grade on conduct. I erased the "U" on my report card and added an "S". Of coarse I made such a mess on the report card that it wouldn't fool anyone. I didn't want my parents to know about the poor conduct because I would be in more trouble. I didn't think about the fact that Mrs. Scott, my teacher would notice the change even if my parents didn't discover it.

I rode the first bus and in the fifth and sixth grades built fires in the morning. There was a large cast iron coal fired stove in each room. We used half pint milk boxes from the lunchroom trash as kindling to start the fires. One morning while starting the fire in the forth grade room I burned my finger and used a four letter word. One of the Davis twins told on me, but I denied it.

Our small church couldn't afford a fulltime pastor so we shared one with Highpoint. The pastor preached at Mount Olive, where I attended, on the second and forth Sundays each month. On the other Sundays, we just had Sunday school.

Our pastor used the hell fire and brimstone style of preaching. He started out wearing a suit and tie. When he began to get inspired, he removed his jacket first. Then off came the tie. During the height of his preaching, his shirt would be soaking wet with sweat.

Sometime after my twelfth birthday, I began to listen to his sermons. He thought the music and shaking style of Elvis was from hell and Elvis was leading the young people to hell. During one of his sermons I became convicted, went to the alter and prayed. Several church members prayed with me. I ask Jesus to forgive me of my sins and to be the guide of my life.

Baptist use the term, "Saved" or "Born Again" to describe my experience on the second Sunday in March, 1955. At a young age I had puffed cigarettes, lifted candy from the store and lied when confronted. I was changed after that Sunday. I sought to be honest, truthful, hardworking on the farm and obedient to my parents and teachers.

Although I don't see life and the world today as I did then, most of the values that I developed as a youngster are still with me.

After the sixth grade you had to leave Highview School and attend Douglas or Albertville. I attended Albertville from the seventh through the twelfth grades.

Albertville was a real shock to me. Some of my former classmates also attended Albertville so it wasn't that I had to find all new friends. It was in the largest town in our county and I suppose the largest school in our county.

Economically I fit in more with the kids from the Mill Village than the more affluent town's people, but the language and behavior of some of the Mill Village kids kept me from associating with them.

When I was in junior high, school let out for three weeks during October. Many farm kids also attended Albertville and the local economy was largely dependant on cotton. My parents stopped growing cotton before I was in the third grade. I hired out to pick cotton for neighbors during the three week recess and on Saturdays when I wasn't helping Daddy on his Peddling Truck. Most of my school cloths were bought form my cotton picking earnings. The pay rate was from $2.00 to $2.50 per hundred pounds picked.

Several neighbors wanted me to pick cotton for them. I worked hard and enjoyed it. At weigh up time, everyone's pick sack had to be emptied. Emptying all of the sacks of cotton in the wagon was strenuous work. They didn't pay you for emptying sacks, but I always volunteered. I didn't realize until many years later that I was sought after more for my willingness to empty the sacks than for the amount of cotton that I picked.

Farmers complemented me for my work ethic and the complements were more important to me than the money. One day my brother said, "Jimmy don't you understand why they are bragging on you? They just want you to work harder". He was too smart for them, but I just kept working as fast as I could.

During high school I was just a name on their rolls. I stayed out of trouble and kept a low profile. Living six miles from school with only the school bus for transportation, I didn't get involved in any extra circular activities until the spring of my junior year.

During my junior year in High school our football coach also was a phys ed teacher. He started training in tumbling. I took to tumbling like a rabbet in a briar patch. One student said to me, "Competing with you in tumbling with you is like competing with a Navaho in basket weaving." I've never researched the Navaho people's skill at basket weaving, but I understood that they were highly skill basket weavers and he thought that I was skilled at tumbling.

I'm not sure that I possessed any skill, but I did enthusticly enjoy tumbling. Some pads were acquired from somewhere and I practiced for hours in a vacant room of the old Lattiwood school house.

Our tumbling team performed during half time a home basketball games.

Our football coach was also my American History teacher. I've always enjoyed history; so, I got to know the football coach doing two things that I loved. This gave him the impression that I was a better student and athlete than I actually was.

He asked me to go out for football during spring practice. I went home and announced to my parents that I was going out for football. I expected some resistance from them, but they didn't object. It was made clear that it was my responsibility to get back and forth between football practice and home.

One of my neighbors was a volunteer assistant coach and I often rode home with him. Sometimes the coaches would stay together in the office for hours after practice was over. This caused me to get home after my normal bedtime. So I started hitch hiking home. During this time I acquired a book by Dale Carnage. This book made a huge impression on me. It made me understand that many people were just like me with the craving for recognition and complements.

The first example of me applying what I was learning from Dale Carnage was while hitch hiking. Someone that I had never met gave me a ride, but he was only going about two miles. He had a nice car and I realized from his comment that he was extremely proud of that car.

My brother Benny was a car nut, but I didn't share this love of cars. It wasn't my normal nature to pay much attention to cars and I don't think I had ever complemented someone's car.

I told the fellow that gave me a ride, what a beautiful color his car was. I mentioned the nice upholstery and a few other positive features of his car. He decided that he wasn't in a hurry, so he took me all the way home. Everything I said about the car was true. The complements made the owner feel good and as a result, I got a ride home.

"How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnage is as relevant applicable today as it was when written more than seventy years ago. I just wish that I applied more of his advice in my daily life. If you've never read this book, you owe it to yourself and those you associate with to get a copy, read it and apply his advice. That copy is still one of the books in my office today.

Back to school days - At 5'7" and 145 pounds, football was difficult for me. Football was also a great confidence builder I became noticed by people that didn't know that I existed before. I became an end. In touch football, had been a good pass rusher and could catch a few balls. I told the coach that I wanted to play end and he agreed because he didn't have much depth at that position.

I was on the "B" team until mid-season when one of the experienced ends was injured. During one of the most exciting games that we played all year, I caught a hail Mary pass in the end zone for a touchdown. It was a broken play, our quarterback had to scramble and saw me in the end zone.

He should have thrown the ball away because there were three defensive players near me. How I managed to catch the ball between them, I don't know. They knocked me out or rung my bell as some would say. I didn't know that I had caught the ball until team mates pulled me out of the pile and congratulated me.

That lucky touchdown caught the eye of the Principle. He pulled my record and wanted to meet me. The next week I was asked to go to the Principle's office. I was a senior, but we had never met and he didn't know who I was until I was lucky to catch a pass in an almost impossible situation.

He asked about my plans after graduation. As I mentioned previously, I enjoyed history. The thought of visiting sites of ancient Greek and Bible events appealed to me and I thought being in the Navy would give me the opportunity to visit the maturation sites where history took place.

Our Principle informed me of the Naval Reserve Officers Training Core (NROTC) scholarship program. I took the written and physical test and again didn't make the first team, but was placed on a waiting list.

During the summer after high school graduation, I worked for the Agriculture Stabilization and Conservation Department (ASC). That was a good job for someone my age. It kept me outdoors and was enjoyable except for the time farmers became angry with me because I wouldn't break the rules or look the other way when they broke the rules.

Three weeks before the start of fall quarter at Auburn, my first choice of schools with an NROTC scholarship program, the Navy notified me that I had receive a scholarship. Luck was still with me.

Auburn was an exciting place. The culture there that they called, "The Auburn Spirit" created a wonderful feeling in me. There were so many exciting and challenging activities and events to participate in.

There was hardly enough time for studying or the Navy. After two years of just getting by, I was suspended from school, lost my scholarship and had to get a job.

There weren't many opportunities for employment on Sand Mountain at that time, but Benny did help me get a job working in a chicken processing plant. The work was low paying ($1.25/hr.), fast paced and physically demanding. The first two weeks were worse that two a day football practices.

My fingers were swollen to two time their normal size, while pulling craws. Craw Pullers also needed to swap out with the Neck Cutters, but my hands hurt so that I couldn't cut necks. Benny was hanging chickens out of the chiller and was having sore throat a lot due to the constant cold at the chiller.

We were allowed to swap jobs which worked out well for everyone. I could hang chickens with the best of them. Lifting a three pound chicken from a conveyor below waist line to overhead hooks might not sound like weight lifting, but it developed well defined muscles. Hanging the chickens twelve to fifteen thousand times with each hand each day for five days a week did make me look good on the beach. I met my friend Tommy 's cousin Sammie that year

I struggled between work and school for the next three years, but did graduate college with a BS in Industrial Engineering.

Before graduating from college, I had measured land, been on Navy cruses, processed chickens, mixed mortar, drove a milk truck, drove an ambulance, worked in hospital emergency, construction labor and delivered dry cleaning among other things.

My first professional job was as a foreman in a steel mill. You needed all the skills of Dale Carnage to succeed with management and the union at that steel mill. I had always worked hard, but had no experience of supervising others. The company did have an extensive Management Training Program which was helpful, but didn't prepare me for what was ahead.

I had an on and off relationship with Sammie for two years while in college. By relationship I don't mean a relationship as it is defined today. I visited her at her parent's house, at church or at Tommy's house. We were rarely alone together before my last quarter in college. She had written me a Dear John letter the year before and we didn't communicate or see each other for several months.

I had moved from a boarding house to a room in the school infirmary where I worked in exchange for room and board. A boarder at the boarding house brought me a letter that arrived from Sammie. She wanted to renew our relationship. Her previous letter had cut deep so I was hesitant to contact her again. My hesitation was not from a lack of caring, it was because I did care deeply and didn't want to risk more hurt.

Sammie was the only girl that I had ever met that I thought about marrying, so after a time of internal struggle, I wrote her a letter and we planned a date. After one date, I was as hooked as ever and dated her as often as we could during my last quarter in school.

I bought a car, TV and moved into an apartment during my last quarter, but by graduation time I was so broke that my brother David made my car payment. Graduation exercises were two weeks after classes ended. I took a job immediately in Birmingham obtained a cash advance to make a deposit on a room that included a sofa bed, gas stove and refrigerator. I asked Auburn to mail my diploma and skipped graduation exercises.

Having lived with my parents or in boarding houses for most of my life, I was shocked to learn about the cost of living in Birmingham. I could barely afford a one room efficiency and make car payments.

It didn't cost much to drive my Volkswagen so I drove back to Sand Mountain to see Sammie every weekend. She is the only girl that I took to meet my parents. During the first weekend in February 1967, I borrowed Daddy's car, went to Sammie's parents house on Saturday afternoon. Although Sammie was the girl of my dreams and I did want to marry her, I didn't have marriage planned at that time due to my dire financial situation.

Sammie ask, "Where are we going?". I said, "Let go to Trenton, Georgia and get married." She said, "OK, Let's go." I was so in love with her that I did want to get married, I did think about it, but I considered it out of the question because I didn't have the money to support a wife. I follow up by saying, "We can't get married on Saturday, we'll have to wait until next week."

Trenton, Georgia was where people eloped to get married. You could get the required blood test, license and get married all on the same day.

Later that evening we went to my brother Benny's house and Sammie asked my sister in law Brenda and Benny to go with us to Trenton the next week because we were eloping to get married. They said OK, we'll go and be your witnesses.

We made the trip to Trenton, Georgia on a snowy morning, February 10, 1967 and were married that same day.

Sammie's memory is that we had talked about getting married and that she wanted to set a date and plan a wedding, but I didn't want a formal wedding and wouldn't set a date.

After Sammie asked Benny and Brenda to go with us, I couldn't back out or postpone marriage any longer.

I thought that I was mature, but I was unprepared for marriage. We went through some rough times that first year and a few since, but that was the happiest day of my life. I've never regretted eloping to get married, but I do regret the hurt we caused her parents by not having a wedding that included them.

Sammie wanted to have two children and we agreed on that. She also wanted to have children while she was young so now she's a young grandmother.

Todd was born during the fourteenth month of our marriage. He was about three weeks past due and Sammie had a long and difficult delivery. From an early age, Todd seemed to attract trouble. When trouble was in the neighborhood, it always seemed to stop by to visit Todd.

Sammie wanted a little girl to dress in pretty clothes and Ginger arrived in December of 1970. She was a pretty little girl that loved her mother, but she didn't seem to fit the frilly style of dress that Sammie had imagined.

At the steel mills, my first line responsibility was the Cold Reduction Cleaning Lines. I was 24 years old at the time and my least senior crew member was 45 years old with 20 years seniority with the company. I was so green that they could have put anything past me and they may have.

During my second year as a foreman in the mill they were installing a new hot strip mill and my responsibility was to manage about fifteen acres of outside storage of hot rolled steel coils. This inventory was added to supply the cold rolling mills during the hot strip mill replacement.

Todd was just a few months old. He was sick. I caught the flue and Sammie had the flue also. I phoned and reported off from work. About two hours later, my boss phoned and asked me to come to work. He asked me to come to work and stay as long as I could because he didn't have anyone else that understood the inventory system. I went to work and stayed until mid-afternoon. The next day I called off sick. My boss phoned back and again asked me to come to work. The third day, I didn't phone in, I just went to work sick.

All of the people that I supervised were on various incentive pay plans. The Mill Crews and Line Crews all had to pull together to earn their pay and they usually did. The support crews as well as the trade and craft people created the most conflicts.

A Pipe Fitter or Electrician might hide out at night and sleep most of the time, while others in that support roll did all of the work.

One evening shift while I was Pickle Line Foreman, No. 3 Pickle Line lost their hydraulic pressure causing the line to stop. During line stoppages, the Line Crew had to get the steel strip up out of the acid. This was physically difficult and some what dangerous.

The Crew notified me of the stoppage by sounding an air horn. They used various combinations of long and short horn blast to call for various support groups. The mechanic woke up and came to the line. He emerged from the basement after a few minutes to inform us that a hydraulic pipe had broken. He was a mechanic and not permitted to work on pipes so I would need to contact a pipe fitter. The Pipe Fitter Shop was out of horn signal range so I went to the Office and phoned the Pipe Shop.

A few minutes later a Pipe Fitter arrived at the line. After several minutes in the basement he exited and informed me that it would take him about four hours to replace the broken pipe. He said that the pipe could be repaired in a few minutes by welding and he recommended that the broken pipe be repaired by welding. Naturally he was a Pipe Fitter, not a Welder so I would need to contact the Iron Workers.

This resulted in another trip to the office to phone the Iron Workers. A Welder did arrive from the Iron Worker shop, string welding cables from the first floor to the basement, return and informed me that the welder was unplugged so I would need to get an Electrician to plug the welder into the electrical outlet. The Electricians were within range of the horn so the Crew signaled for an Electrician.

After the Electrician connected the welder, the Welder notices some oil spilt on the basement floor. Being a safety minded Welder, he couldn't weld unless the oil was cleaned up and removed. Foremen were not permitted by Union agreement to perform any work that was normally performed by a bargaining unit (Union) member.

Line Crews and Trade and Craft workers didn't perform clean up task. Clean up had to be performed by a Laborer. We didn't have a Laborer on the evening shift. The Welder did agree that if I contacted the Fire Department and they came to the Line with fire fighting equipment, he would weld the pipe.

After another trip to the office, to contact the Fire Department, I returned to the Line and we all waited for the Firemen to arrive. The Firemen came to the Line, the weld was made with out a fire. Hydraulic pressure was back on the Line, but there wasn't enough time for the crew to lower the strip back into the acid before their work shift ended.

Four hours had passed between the time the Line lost hydraulic pressure and the temporary repair was completed.

Having grown up in a farming community where everyone was expected to work hard and help out no matter what the task, I struggled with abiding by the work rules and union contract at that Steel Mill.

Unions existed and gained power with the workers due to poor management practices. Together they strangled the American steel industry. There were 15,000 people working in the steel plant when I was first employed. Almost every year that I worked there, production of some product was halted, workers were laid off and building were abandoned because users could and did buy foreign steel products that were better and less expensive than American made products. First to go were nails, then barbwire, then woven fence wire, then plate etc, etc.

I don't feel like a quitter, but after twelve years in the steel mills, I gave up and returned to Sand Mountain. Sammie and I with the help of many family members built a two story house on a hill in the middle of a twelve acre soy bean field.

We dug the foundation by hand with shovels. Remember the sandy soil on Sand Mountain made this project easy. The foundation was poured and leveled with the help of Sammie's great aunt who came over with her garden hoe. The foundation blocks were laid with the help of Sammie's brother RG.

We lived in a small trailer next to our building site during construction of the house. I took an evening job, as a foreman, in a foundry that had recently relocated from California to Sand Mountain. I'm a morning person and since the Forman's job didn't require much physical work, working on the house in the morning and in the foundry in the evening was not to difficult.

We were building the house without hired help and after a few months I transferred from the foundry to the Engineering Dept. and started working long hours as an Engineer developing the processes for a new product line. This slowed down the progress on the house. From ground breaking to move in was fifteen months. When we moved in many items were not completed. The acreage and house were owned without a mortgage.

Some of the items were only completed fifteen years later, after we decided to sell our home and leave Sand Mountain once again.

Jackie became a part of our family during the third year after our return to Sand Mountain. For more about Jackie choose the link below.

• Super Concentrated Sunshine

After almost two years in the engineering Dept. my original assignments were being concluded, the Site Manager stopped by my office and informed me that the Quality Supervisor had resigned. He asked me to go and spend three days with him before he left and learn all I could because he wanted me to fill in until he found a replacement.

After two or three weeks, he again stopped by to see me in the Quality office. He informed me that he had received a lot of applications; however, they wanted a lot of money. Since I worked cheap, he asked me to become the Quality Supervisor.

The Quality Department of a 500 employee site consisted of one me and ten inspectors. I had been in charge of the Quality Department for only two months when I jumped from a falling ladder while building a shed/barn at home and broke my ankle. My ankle bone was severed and it was repaired with two metal screws.

I broke my leg while building a place to keep a horse for Ginger. I had wanted a horse when I was young, but Daddy wouldn't allow it. So as an adult we bought two mares for the girls and raised several folds. Other than the flue one time, I hadn't been sick very often and didn't miss work. With both short time and long time disability insurance, I expected to spend several weeks at home.

An electric wheelchair was rented for me at work and a coworker drove me back and forth from home to work each day. I only missed six days from work and most of that time, I was in the hospital.

After Jackie left, I joined ASQC (ASC today) becoming an active leader in the club. I served as Treasure, Vice chairman and Chairman. Our section conducted training classes that I attended. I became a Certified Quality Engineer and a Certified Quality Auditor.

Participating in ASQC activities prompted me to become an accomplished speaker, and leader at my job to implement plant wide quality and SPC training and lead us through the ISO 9000 certification process. My work helped me to become recognized in my company, community and state. This would not have happened without the experience gained at Toastmasters.

I was invited to join Lloyd's Register Technical Services and accepted a position as Quality Consultant and also became a Lead Auditor. At that time I was the only person in Lloyd's North American organizations that had led an organization through the ISO certification/registration process.

I was placed in charge of our Pittsburgh office and qualified as a QS 9000 lead Auditor. Due to the AIAG decision to not allow automotive registrar's to also perform consulting services as well as other financial reasons, a decision was made to close the Pittsburgh office.

I had joined Lloyd's with the desire to be a consultant assisting other companies through the difficult ISO 9000 certification process. I took a pay cut, but thought the experience gained as well as the training and national exposure available to Lloyd's employees would more that compensate for the reduced pay. They relocated us to Pennsylvania and I enjoyed the experience and time in Pennsylvania, buy with the pay cut, increase in cost of living and extra travel expense to visit family, it wasn't a prosperous move.

I had imagined that not for profit organizations that had a huge cash reserve wouldn't be profit driven. I was wrong. A new manager placed in charge of North America, went on a cost cutting drive and used some methods that were not aligned with my values. I was told to get in line and support the program or get out. I chose to get out.

I had solicited consulting work from the Quality Director of an automotive parts supplier that I knew in Chattanooga. He wanted a fulltime in house person to help implement the requirements of QS 9000. We reached an agreement so Sammie and I moved from Beaver County, Pennsylvania to Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Pennsylvania taxes were extremely high compared to where we had lived previously and that is one reason that we lived in beaver County instead of Pittsburgh. A bit of information that helped me make the decision to move to Tennessee came to my attention while we had a booth at the National Design Engineering Trade Show and Conference in Chicago, IL.

As a speaker at the Conference, I was given booth space at no cost. One of the booths next to ours was a group from the Tri-Cities of Tennessee encouraging people to consider Tennessee and the Tri-Cities area for business relocations and expansions. One of their selling points was the low tax structure and Tennessee doesn't have an income tax.

Chattanooga was a good experience overall. We lived north of Chattanooga near Hamilton Place Mall just off of I-75 and I greatly enjoyed our house, the church we attended and the natural beauty of the area plus it was less than a two hour drive to visit our daughter and most of out relatives.

The drive from Chattanooga down I-59 to Fort Payne or down Hwy. 72 to Huntsville while the red bud and dogwood trees are blooming in the springtime is as beautiful a drive as anywhere I've been. The mountains on each side of the highway and the lakes along the Tennessee River add splendor to the area's beauty.

After a few months with my employer, I realize that the management style of my new employer wasn't what I wanted to be associated with so I started looking for alternative sources of income. I attended some meetings with franchisors looking for new franchisees.

I didn't pursue any of the companies that I initially met with, but it did cause me to seriously look at becoming a franchisee. I thought that I had a broad enough business experience to successfully operate my own business, but the difficulty with implementing a Quality System led me to think that buying a franchise with a fully developed business system was the best way to go.`

We visited franchisors in Dallas and Tucson. Sammie was reluctant to invest in a business. She commented that, if we owned a business, she would never get to see her grandchildren. I said, if we opened our business in Huntsville, Alabama, how would you feel about it? We didn't have any grandchildren in Huntsville at that time, but our daughter Ginger lived there. Sammie was hoping for Ginger to have children. She reluctantly agreed.

Our son Todd had two children at that time, but he lived in Fredrick, Maryland. We didn't get to see them more often than once a year.

We paid approximately $50,000 for an Alphagraphics printing franchise and another $35,000 upgrading a leased building before any equipment was purchased or leased. I obtained a small business loan to obtain the necessary design and business computers, camera, printing press and other necessary equipment.

I took approximately $5,000 from our savings almost every month for two years to support the business. Our sales peaked at $93,000 one month. Our landlord and employees thought we were making a bundle of money, but even during the best months, we discounted our prices so much that we rarely broke even.

Those two years in the printing business seemed much longer. It was an extremely stressful time. One month our sales dropped to $20,000 which didn't come close to paying expenses. We decided to close shop and take our losses and move on with our lives.

I gave our account records to another printer in town and worked for them for a short time introducing them to our customers. The owner asked me to work for him as a salesperson, but I was tired of the printing business and his offer didn't interest me.

I spent three months looking for work, received several job offers requiring relocation, so I accepted an offer to operate a local Cabinet Shop. This was just one of the many newspaper job ads that I responded to. When the HR representative contacted me, I told Sammie that there was no way that I was going to accept the job, but the owner was someone so well known in the area that I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to meet him.

We met at a local Burger King on two Sunday afternoons. He told me what he was looking for and I told him what I wanted. We agreed on terms and met the following Sunday to complete our agreement.

Thee and one half years were spent at the cabinet shop. The shop had focused primarily on cabinets for new homes. We changed our focus to commercial jobs and grew the business significantly, but never achieved what we hoped to achieve. After 9/11/2001 our commercial work dwindled to a trickle. Our new home business continued, but cabinets for home builders weren't as profitable as commercial jobs. I felt guilty about accepting my paycheck and by 2002 started looking for other opportunities.

We lived in a condo in a lake community that we greatly enjoyed. We were active in a local church and we had two grandchildren in Huntsville by that time so I wanted to find other employment without relocating.

One day while reviewing job openings on Monster.com, I came across an opening listing experience in approximately twenty areas. I had experience in all but one or two items. A job interview was scheduled at a location in Tennessee about two hours drive away.

Sammie went with me the night before and we stayed in a local motel. I didn't have a phone number for the site of the interview, only an address. Neither Sammie nor I had mobile phones at that time so she had no way to contact me. The interview was scheduled for 9:00 AM so Sammie was expecting me back at the motel by 11:00 AM.

I finally left the interview at 7:30 PM that evening. It was thoughtless of me not to phone Sammie to let her know that I was OK. They kept me busy all day going from one office to another giving several people the opportunity to size me up and drill me with questions. I wasn't offered lunch or any compensation for my expenses.

Sammie thought that I had been mugged or in some kind of accident. She couldn't imagine that I was still at the interview. By the time I returned to the motel, she was extremely upset. She was glad that I was back unharmed, but upset at me for not phoning her.

They offered me the job offer and I accepted. They wanted me to relocate to the Memphis area which was about a three and one half hour drive from Huntsville. We relocated and of this writing I'm still with the organization. For a company that seemed so cheap during the interview process, they have been extremely generous.

Currently I have Quality responsibilities at three locations and continuous improvement and six sigma projects at four sites in Texas, Tennessee and Michigan.

We live in a bedroom community a few miles from Memphis. Our back yard has a lot of flowers, trees and shrubs. There is something in constantly in bloom during spring summer and fall. There is a pond, water falls, fountain and garden shed. Sparrows, mocking birds, cardinals, brown thrashers, robins, doves, chick-a-dees, and chip monks nest and raise their young in our back yard.

Blue jays, cow birds, rabbits, hummingbirds and a marsh hawk feed in our yard. The marsh hawk catches some birds which I don't like, but I don't interfere because it only catches the weak and sick which is part of the balance of nature.

We are not a business, but some ads may be displayed on this site to help with expenses.