I was born in Dodgeville, Wis. April 18, 1945 as my father Lavern was in the Army in South Carolina & my mother was staying at the home farm near Montfort. I grew up in Grant County, Wis. most of the time on a farm near Mt. Hope & Montfort. Graduated from Iowa-Grant H.S. & went to college for a year at Platteville. I decided to go to work in Madison, Wis. as a laborer & then on a four year apprenticeship with Gisholt Machine Company. I spent 2 years in the various manufacturing areas & the other 2 years in all aspects of machine design. After graduation, I worked in the machine design for a year or so before deciding to look for another job. At this time my wife Linda & I have two young daughters & we moved to Livingston, Wis. so I could commute to work at John Deere in Dubuque, Iowa.

I started as a Tool Designer, worked into processing machine feeds & speeds, and got into some computer analysis using the Deere computer software. After 17 years in JD Dubuque, I was asked to go to Deere & Company in Moline, Illinois to work as a software designer. I helped design software for Deere, led projects for software implementation at various Deere Units, & assumed various other duties before retiring in Nov. 1999. After retirement, Linda & I moved back to Wis. & our old neighborhoods near Dodgeville.

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