On January 2nd of this year Lois and I packed up my car and left Detroit for New York - just ahead of the biggest snowstorm to hit Detroit in many years.  Had that one timed just right.  We had been living in Metro Detroit (Grosse Pointe Farms) for nearly thirteen years.  After serving as Dean of Engineering at Wayne State University for nearly 10 years, I spent three years as Director of the National Science Foundation Engineering Education "Greenfield" Coalition, a coalition of 5 engineering schools, six corporations, a professional society and a civil rights organization.  I moved my office from the campus to one of the world's most modern machining and manufacturing plants in the nation.  For a civil engineer it was a fantastic experience working in the manufacturing world.

Lois and I were settled in Detroit and thinking about the day we would retire - considering just staying there since our son lives in Ann Arbor.  [Our daughter moved to New Orleans in the summer of '98.]  Well, a phone call came from a search firm looking for someone to take on a challenge in NYC and would not take no for an answer when he asked if I would be interested.  When I said I would at least look at the materials he had on the position I was hooked.  The headhunter was right, the situation presented some of the biggest challenges I have seen for a university.  In a weak moment I said "yes."  And assumed the presidency of New York City Technical College on the 4th of January.  City Tech is a senior college within the City University of New York.  We have an enrollment of some 11,000 students with another 10,000 taking courses through our continuing education division.   As I write this brief note I am looking out the window of my office at the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge, watching the thousands of cars take the bridge to Manhattan.  City

New York City is an exciting place, but the living is different.  The people of Brooklyn are nice and we are settling in nicely.  Just moved into a new apartment (have two floors of a brownstone built in the mid to late 1800's.  It is a ten-minute walk from the house to the office.  I must tell you that NYC is the most parochial town I have ever lived in and politics seem to control the day.  One should never be bored in NYC.

Hope to get down for the reunion.

Beau