[email protected]
Bill Lowe
8472 South Ault Lane
Morrison, CO 80465
(303) 697-0543
Photos - 1969 & 2000
Information - 1999
High School Activities - None listed in yearbook
I left Maple Heights High thinking I was going to stay in the world of construction for the rest of my life. How very little did I know. I had established a position with a custom design lighting firm (NL lighting) in Maple Heights while still in school doing blue print work for their design department thanks to my Industrial Arts teachers back at school. I began "design" lighting fixtures for them and moved to full time as soon as I left school. However, I also had my first experience with a boss who was very protective of his job. I was lucky enough to see the situation for just exactly what it was. I began looking for another opportunity within months. I found a very nice position with Wigand Woodwork, a millwork firm that specialized in bars, restaurants and bank interiors. To be honest, I had a ball. I liked the management, I liked the people I worked with, I loved what I was doing. In no time I was working on the interior design of the Cleveland (and Columbus) Marriott Hotel. The two were identical but mirror images of each other. My projects only got better.
However, late in 1970, the US Army had other plans for me. My draft lottery number was 24. I originally thought I had at least until February of 1971. My draft letter came on January 12, 1971. I was part of the military by January 24. I can tell you that my luck did get better, although every three people in my field artillary AIT unit were assigned to a tour "in country". I was one of the lucky ones that avoided Vietnam by nothing more than the luck of the draw. I spent most of my service time in Kansas. However, I was assigned to REFORGER 1971 which is a NATO war game in Germany. I spent the time traveling southern Germany in the "field" coming within 5 clicks (KM) of the Czechoslovakian border. One of the benefits of living in Kansas (there are very few) is the ability to vacation in Colorado, more on that later.
I applied to Kent State University and received an "early out" that shortened my tour of duty to 1 year and 11 months. I entered Kent in the Winter Quarter of 1973. I met my first wife, Cynthia, at Kent in 1973, my daughter, Cinnamon, was born in 1974, and I worked full-time while I completed my degree in Secondary Education with a major in Industrial Arts and a minor in Vocational Education in DCT. I graduated in June of 1976 (yes, less than 4 years, I was not much into the party thing...). I spent the summer with some friends of our family and found a position in a small high school near Cambridge, Ohio. In about 1979 I became involved with the Ohio Industrial Arts Association and by 1981 I was nominated to and became a member of the OIAA Executive Board. As a benefit I was listed in Who is Who. (My 15 seconds of fame ... I know it should have been 15 minutes, however ...). In 1984, I was invited by an Ohio Industrial Arts Association contact to move to Northern Illinois University to do some research in curriculum development and work on my masters. Concurrent with the decision to go through with the move, Cynthia and I decided that we were growing in opposite directions and we agreed to split. Almost as soon as I moved to Illinois my contact at Northern took a position with Wisconsin University, although he invited be to go along, I declined. By then I had "discovered" that I could double my income by moving over to industry. I took a position with another millwork firm in downtown Chicago. In 1985 my first nice assignment was the Ameritech Midwest Headquarters in Chicago. While working as the team millwork designer and doing a lot of onsite coordination of the installation, I became a friend with the architect on the job. By the end of the project I had an offer to join the firm to come on board with them and with yet another very nice increase in my personal inicome.
In 1986, I started with my first project as the MCI Midwest Headquarters in Chicago (phone companies were doing very well then). However, my real break came from a combination of my interest in computers way back in 1980 and with that background I was launched into a secondary position as the CAD manager at the architecture firm. Starting with an IBM AT (I am laughing at the thought), my first "off the board" project was the new headquarters building for the Quaker Oats Corporation in downtown Chicago. With that success behind me, my income moved up nicely. By 1987 my significant other, Kathy Evan, and I decided to buy the vacant land next to our house in northwest suburban Chicago so that we could conceive, design and built a home. Yes, that is do the drawings, buy the meterials and bang the nails. We completed the house and moved in, selling our "other" house at a handsome profit. We were both making tons of money, I was commuting into Chicago every day on the Northwest Train, my commute time on the train was nipping just below 3 hours round trip. If I had the courage to drive (which I did when I needed a car downtown), the commute would never be below 5 hours round trip and went as high as 7 hours on two occasions.
By this time, we were "vacationing" by returning to Colorado every chance we could find. Airfares at that time were so cheap that we found ourselves flying out for three-day weekends. On one of those trips, sitting in the mountains of Colorado, Kathy said, "You know, we could just quit our jobs and move here." We returned to work and outlined a plan that put us in Colorado in June of 1989. We moved without jobs but had a prime piece of land in the mountains with our newly designed foundation (we did the foundation over spring break) for our home in place waiting for us to return to banging nails. Our schedule was to build the house in six months and we moved in on January 3, 1990. Our home is in the mountains just southwest of Denver near a small town of Conifer. I have never looked back. Through a series of events, I opened my own business doing construction consulting and I love every moment of life here in the mountains of Colorado.
In June of 1997 my daughter, Cinnamon, graduated from Northern Colorado University and is living here in Denver working as a graphic designer for a cable network service provider.
I enjoy downhill skiing (we have season passes), I love to hike and camp in the mountains, I play racquetball and tennis, I roller skate (indoors) and roller blade (outdoors) and I really enjoy long distance biking. I will not be able to attend the reunion because I am doing a 460-mile ride called Bicycle Tour of Colorado that goes over five mountain passes and climbs 27,000 feet in the six day ride through Southwest Colorado. I will miss the chance to see you but the view on the ride here in Colorado will be very tough to miss.
I would like to hear from any of you.
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