Peter McKibbin
[email protected]
My Life Today
I live 20 miles east of Portland Oregon, in the beautiful, but often windy, Columbia River Gorge.
I have 2 great kids, a son (21) and daughter (20) attending Seattle University. A single dad for 7 years, I married again in 1998 - my wife has a daughter (23), a grad student at Marylhurst University.
A Short History of the last 30 Years
Prior to moving to Oregon in 1982, I made 'stops' in Santa Barbara (graduated UCSB 1975), and a short stint outside Sacramento.
Like all parents and their teenage kids, we 'had our days', but I had a great time growing up with them. From high school itself, to their activities in drama, softball, football & golf, we were always able to stay more than a little active. And, while they were growing up, we had the good fortune of being able to travel quite a bit together - I suspect the enticement of the next travel destination probably made those teenage years a little more palatable than they might have been. Bribery can have its place...
Far quicker than their dad ever did at that age, though, they both have grown to be very responsible - their work in high school paid off when they learned they had both received partial 'rides' to university. (Although kids in school today may not be too different than in our day - my daughter spent part of last summer at Trinity College in Dublin studying 'Creative Writing', returning to tell me she had learned to overcome writer's block, 'pub crawling'...
In 1986, I had the good fortune of meeting a guy whose family, many years ago, founded an Oregon manufacturing company. Over the years, he went out of his way to make certain I worked a wide variety of positions, from fee-land acquisition and management, to finance, to product manufacturing, and sales & marketing. Over a 12-year period, he became a friend, and mentor, challenging and pushing at every moment (his company paid for my MBA).
On a 1999 business trip 3 of us were on, his many years of 70+ hours a week caught up to him - under a haze of jet lag, shock and a rugged 48 hours of 'necessary arrangements', we learned on a long distance phone call (for the first time) from the owner's family, and Board, that he had named the 2 of us in his Succession Plan Document.
During the many years the 3 of us had worked together, the owner had apparently never quite found that 'right moment' to include us in this piece of key information - frankly, both our lives' changed quite a bit that trip....
Today, I am Senior Vice President of Operations for the Contact Lumber Companies, with corporate offices in downtown Portland. The company's primary manufacturing facility is located in Central Oregon's high desert, with joint ventures overseas. Products we manufacture are ultimately assembled into some brand name products you might recognize - Thomasville and Henredon Furniture, Andersen and Pella Windows, and private labeled to the Home Depot.
I still play a little hockey (over 40, 'no hit league', these days), make the time to regularly swing my clubs, attend East Hill Foursquare Church, and all too infrequently slip out early Saturday mornings to float my drift boat in search of sanity in the form of spring chinook, or winter run steelhead.
Future Plans
Aside from the fact my 401K needs serious CPR, I still have a little more 'Type A' that has yet to be 'burned off'. While others talk of early retirement, at this juncture, although I enjoy both, neither golf nor steelhead completely 'cut it'.
Getting closer to 50, the renewal of my employment contract, and our kids almost out of school, my wife and I hint at a 'next career'. Certainly, whatever that 'next career' might be, it will be a smaller endeavor, located somewhere on the Northwest coastline, and 'ours'. No more Board of Directors, for me....
What I've Learned the last 30 years
After 49 years of experience, nothing should surprise me - but much still does.
Message to My Classmates
Working for a privately owned company has allowed me to take advantage of a 'non taxable event' - company paid business travel. Working with a group of well-traveled Euros (a society that places great emphasis on vacations), our family has reaped the benefit of others experiences.
In no particular order (they were all fun), if you run out of places to go, here are a few of our overseas, and Northwest, favorites: