Diane Price - 1963
BIO
Diane Price Foster - 2003-10-09
To All My Classmates:
I sincerely regret I have been unable to attend our 40th Class Reunion. Unfortunately, the timing has not worked out for me—I’m in the process of selling my house in California and moving to Colorado Springs, Colorado, and the team that supports my work from Denver is less one very important person who is on maternity leave, making it difficult for me to take time off. I’ve decided to write this letter in place of a more formal “bio”.
Most of you probably know from our last reunion that I married in 1964 and had three children over the next few years. That marriage lasted 25 years, but terminated in 1989, and I am still single (and plan to stay that way!). We parted on rather good terms and still remain in touch occasionally through our children and their life events.
Over the years, I have moved back and forth between Missouri and California and between Colorado and California. A couple of months ago, I bought a 104-year-old Victorian house in Colorado Springs in the historic district, and, as I mentioned, am once again on the move. It seems that once I have any house “fixed up” the way I want it, I get bored and move on. As of the first week in November I will be back in Colorado Springs but my e-mail addresses will remain the same.
More later about the company for which I work, but suffice it to say that over the last 10 years, they’ve allowed me to work remotely. Otherwise, I couldn’t move back and forth. My Mother, who is now living in a senior facility close to my house, probably wishes these moves weren’t possible, because she now has to move to Colorado with me as well. At 87, she’s not fond of moving, and when I moved her from Missouri to California, she found it difficult. But she’s excited about her new facility. A couple of days on the road with my Mother, a dog, and a bird should be interesting! All I’ll need is for it to snow over the mountain passes.
My children are well and seem to
be happy—a bit about them (actually more than a bit, I’m pretty proud of
them):
• Dana is 36 now (much to her chagrin…and
mine). She lives about three miles away from my current home, and
I see her several times a week. When she started watching the Cagney
and Lacey television series way back when, she told me she wanted to be
a policeman. So…that’s what she does. She joined the San Bernardino
County Sheriff’s Department over ten years ago and loves every minute.
She’s been fortunate—she has been promoted several times and has gotten
quite a bit of special training. She is now on special assignment
with the U.S. Marshals’ Special Fugitive Task Force and flies around the
country getting “the bad guys”. She just attended a two-week special
operations training course (as in SWAT) in Louisiana (the state).
It’s always amazing to me that little 5’2” Dana does what she does.
But I don’t worry too much, because she’s really good at what she does.
She is not married…says it doesn’t fit with what she does. And she
keeps me in stitches about half the time talking about what happened on
the job.
• Susan just turned 32, has two
sons, and just went through a divorce. She was married to a policeman,
so law enforcement seems to run in the family. She also worked for
the Sheriff’s Department at the local station, but is now working as an
Escrow Agent. Her oldest, Trevor, just turned 10 and entered middle
school this year. The second son, Zachary, just turned 3. Suffice
it to say, she has her hands full now, but she’s happier than she had been
for some time. She also lives in Rancho Cucamonga, so I get to see
both Susan and my grandsons several times a week, as well. Seems
like Dana, Susan, and I are always at one another’s houses.
• David just turned 31 and lives
with his family in Denver, but is moving to Colorado Springs, too.
He is married to a Colorado native, Megan (who just got a job managing
a small chain of Executive Tanning Spas being built in Colorado Springs
and Aspen), has two sons—Devon, 8, and Dawson, 5. Although I’ll miss
my California grandsons, I am looking forward to spending time with the
Colorado grandsons…they have big plans for “Grandma”. David is the
child most like me, I think…we like each other’s company and have to remember
to not exclude Megan. David is also doing what he likes; he owns
and operates a high-end cabinetry company and is doing very well.
The move to Colorado Springs won’t affect him much because Denver is only
45 minutes away.
Now, you might see why I keep moving back and forth between Colorado and California. I spend a couple of years in each place, and before anybody gets too tired of me, I move. Keeps things happy!! And because I can use my computer and phone any place I am, I get to spend long vacations with the other children and grandchildren in between those moves.
Over the years, I’ve had a number of jobs…most of which I’ve liked. Those jobs have varied pretty much…I worked for Alpine Electronics of America, for a Los Angeles CPA firm, for Fujitsu Electronics of America, and, when my children were small, from home. My husband and I also opened three small consumer electronics stores in St. Louis (Audio Magic) for a period of time… before we sold out and again moved back to California. In 1993, when I moved to Denver (with my son, David), I went to work for a small object-oriented geographic information systems software developer, Smallworld Systems, who was based out of Cambridge, England, but opening an Americas office in Denver…and I’ve been working for them ever since (which is pretty unbelievable for me because I get bored of jobs, too). A couple of years after I helped set up the office systems in Denver, the company went public and its shares started trading on NASDAQ. As we grew globally (there are offices around the globe), General Electric acquired us, so I am now working for GE. That’s been an interesting evolution, and right now I work for GE Energy Management Services, Inc. (doing business as Network Reliability Services), which is a subsidiary of GE Power Systems. Although I’ve held several positions over the past 10 years, for the past several years, I’ve managed the Contracts Department. Not quite sure how I ended up doing contracts (because I have no real legal background), but right now I prepare and negotiate contracts around the globe and manage the global contracts personnel. Because those personnel are scattered around the globe, GE has had no problem with me working from wherever I happen to live at the moment. All I need is a couple of telephones, a good Internet connection, and a really good computer. Smallworld and GE have been very, very good to me, and I consider myself lucky. I work very long hours due to the different time zones (60-70 hours a week is about average) and complexity of our contracts (we license our software to utility and telecommunications companies), and I have to travel a bit (I don’t like to fly), but on the whole, it’s a wonderful job. I’ll probably stay with GE until I get to try for my dream—opening my own home design store. I figure if I open a store that I can continually change around, I won’t need to move so much to satisfy my creative side.
Now you know more about me than you probably ever wanted to know, but it’s been a long time since I talked to any of you—I hope all of you are as “wordy”. I haven’t sent a picture, because I don’t have a current one (other than the one on my passport in which I look like an overweight criminal), but suffice it to say that I’m showing my years, and I’m not the same size I was when I graduated from high school.
I hope our next reunion takes place soon and I get to attend!! Somebody have a glass of wine for me. Have a great time!!
Diane