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Today's Featured Biography

Alan Campbell

1956-60: After graduation in 1956, Jerry McDill and I drove to California in his Rambler. That didn't pan out; we returned to Independence in time for me to enroll at K-State, where I was an electrical engineering (EE) student from 1956 to '60. In 1959 I met a young woman who was interested in ideas (a new experience for me in Kansas in the 1950s), and realized immediately that she was the love of my life. Patsy and I married in September 1959. Marrying Patsy improved both my sex life and my grades.

1960-61: After graduation we moved to NJ where I worked for RCA. I hated the eastern US. Our first daughter, Heather, was born in Philadelphia in 1961.

1961-65: In September we moved to Lincoln, NE, where I pursued an MS in EE while teaching. I received my MS in 1964, and began an MA in philosophy. Within a year I had half an MA and also the realization that philosophy in 1965 was not for me. Patsy received her BA in English Lit. Our second daughter, Meg, was born in 1963.

1965-69: We moved to Livermore, CA in September, where I worked at Sandia Labs.

1969-75: In October I transferred to Sandia in Albuquerque to pursue a PhD in EE at the Univ. of NM. Patsy received her MA in English in 1972, her PhD in 1975. I finished my PhD in 1974, but we walked across the stage together to get our degrees. I received my degree just before she received hers- I tarried on the stage until she caught up with me, and gave her a big kiss right there in front of everybody. At that point we were a true paradox (get it?).

1975-77: In 1975 we moved to Fresno, CA, so that I could teach at Cal State Fresno. Patsy taught at Reedley. In 1977 I realized that I didn't enjoy teaching.

1977-2001: Patsy and I decided that we wanted to live in San Diego. I applied for and got a job, and we moved in the summer. We have been here ever since. Our graduate school and teaching must have marked our daughters-- each earned a PhD, and both are tenured professors, Heather at Arizona State, Meg at Colorado.

Moving to the place we wanted instead of finding the best job did produce the best place, but not the best work. Patsy and I worked at various jobs for various companies in San Diego, with me doing engineering, management, and marketing, and Patsy doing technical writing and marketing and management. We retired in 2001, the year Mom died in Norfolk, NE. Dad is still there, living alone and doing well, and he is now 95. My sister, Joan, and I visit him four times per year; she goes at the solstices, I go at the equinoxes. Joan is married to Dale Bowersock. They live in Los Altos, CA. Joan and Dale have two daughters and four grandchildren, two boys and two girls.

2001-05: I can't imagine a better life for somebody like me than the one I live now, and I feel extremely lucky to be in this situation, and extremely grateful for all the people who made this possible, from Gutenberg to Newton to Jefferson to Lincoln to Roosevelt (both of them) to Steinmetz and Maxwell and Reagan, to the servicemen and women who are serving in Afghanistan and Iraq and so many other places, and to many more than can be named. I am tempted to modify something said by Newton: If I have lived comfortably, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

So what kind of life is it? A low-key kind of life. We live in a tract house built in 1958 and we have two old cars: Patsy has a 2000 Toyota, I have a red 1984 Dodge convertible! We don't watch TV. My hobbies are cooking, eating, and reading; also walking, boogie-boarding, cuddling with Patsy, running on the beach, bicycling, and expeditions, local and foreign. This summer Patsy and I went to England, and last year we rented a villa in Tuscany, where we were met by our daughters and their families-- each daughter has a husband and two children: Heather has two daughters, Meg has two sons. We are planning more such trips.

Now I hope other members of the Class of '56 will please bring me up to date with YOUR lives!

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