Richard P. Lorenz        66-427pigiron@live.com

Aeronautical Engineering        Boeing

Update 12/21/2016: Retired a couple years back (well, sort of....still have a small consulting gig with Mitsubishi). Retirement is good so far. First year was spent restoring a car (see attached). I do not recommend restoration as an economically viable business. Also painted the house. Probably the last time I'll be that high on a ladder...or on the roof... Pruning my apple trees was the fall agenda. I can just feel the neurons atrophy....

Original post 2008: I'm not sure when I left RPI that I ever envisioned being nostalgic about the place. But time (and distance) dulls most pain. I do have vivid memories of many places and times from those days

Ice "skull caps" after taking a shower in the Gym, and having the water freeze on your head while walking back to the dorms.

The oppressive heat of the handball courts, even in winter.

The worn steps in Ricketts and Eaton.

Walking to the rink in the cold to play late night intramural games, and trying not to hyperventilate from the excitement. Walking to work past the fraternities on my way from 12th street, to work at freshman dining hall in the wee hours of the morning, and seeing the fraternity signs as the only illumination on the street. Learning to run on a cast after breaking a leg. The sheer boredom of the freshman dorms when all others had gone home for the weekend. The coldest I have EVER been one night, running out of gas on a motorcycle, between RPI and a hockey game in North Adams. Attending the lost cause of RPI hockey games. Some professors that you could talk to and reason with. Others with an Ego as big as the sky, to whom you might as well have been invisible. "Duffy Sucks" on the bleachers. And finding out all too clearly what that meant in later years. The Polish butterfly. Dismantling a VW engine in the living room of the apartment. Susan Raila's incomparable beauty...

But those are stories for reunions.

What have I done since.

Married in '77. Three kids, now 27, 24, and 21, in Wichita, Dallas, and UND respectively. Empty nest syndrome. Taking up Skiing and returned to motorcycles. Coaching hockey and baseball, canoeing and hiking in the Northwest. Tech Fellowship at Boeing in their Propulsion department worked on 747-400, 767, 737, 777, and various other minor roles and projects.

All in all It's been a good ride, which will likely end in 5 years or so.

A bit scary looking back on my 3rd grade math and science scores, and realizing that this last 50 years started with those scores, and a realization that I might be good in Math and Science.

And that stepping away from this current job will mean stepping off that path completely...into another world.

Wife Marcia and daughter Kate at her Texas A&M graduation

On business in Amiens France and the Somme below.