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Today's Featured Biography

 
Renee Jolivette

After high school, I attended UofA, earning a B.S. in Agricultural Engineering. Not a big market for Ag. Engineers during the 1979 recession. I spent my junior and senior years pestering the university's recruiting office staff. My persistence and pitiable demeanor paid off, garnering screening interviews for civil, mechanical and industrial engineering positions. I was ultimately hired by Pacific Gas and Electric Company in Northern California.

I'd dreamed of life in chic, scenic San Francisco. Instead, I was consigned to small, rural Chico, in the North Sacramento Valley. After a series of promotions to positions in Santa Maria, Oakland, and San Jose, I finally landed a job in San Francisco. By then, Chico had evolved into a nice little burg while the SF Bay Area had deteriorated.

At this point in my career, I'd become an expert in the gas and electric utility business but was unemployable in any other capacity. So I hung on at PG&E, surviving multiple reorganizations and retiring as a middle manager responsible for the consistent implementation of customer-facing regulations. The best and most memorable part of my job was working with so many wonderful people. I got to know roughly one-fourth of the 20,000 men and women employed at PG&E. My favorite of whom is my husband of 32 years, Skip Hendricks.

After retirement, we moved from the Bay Area to Grass Valley, a rural community in the Sierra Nevada Foothills. Unlike my younger self, I am content living in a small town. And after spending 46 years in NorCal, I can now pass as a native.

Skip and I share our 2.5 acre wooded property with all manner of local wildlife and with our small but authoritative dog, Rascal. We enjoy travel, gardening, fishing, classic car events and 4-wheeling. I am an active member of St. Patrick's Church, where I serve as a lector.

Retirement has also given me time to hone my creative writing skills. I earned a Fiction Writing Certificate through the UCLA Extension Writers' Program. I've had modest success, with my essays and short stories appearing in a variety of publications including Current, Flora Fiction Online, Microfiction Monday, The Writing Disorder, Bronco Driver, and Portage Magazine.

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