Me, N4GM, with some of my Amateur Radio equipment.
Me, N4GM, with some of my Amateur Radio equipment.
Hello Everyone,
I was the guy from California with long sideburns and the yellow Ford convertible that Mr. Hettler was always chasing thru the hallways at Simpson HS!! I also formed a Hot Rod car club called the "Injectors" and we wore purple jackets with white leather sleeves to school....a real "car nut". I was also a very good dancer...(more later).
My Dad was an oil company engineer and we moved around a lot, however I did manage to go to school at St.Hughs (1 year), St.Pats (2 years), Toaz Jr. High (1 year) and R.L. Simpson (Junior & Senior) in the Huntington area so our paths may have crossed at more than one school.
After HS I joined the Army and after boot camp was stationed at the Lloyd Neck US Army NIKE Missile Base on Long Island. About a year laterI married my HS sweetheart and started married life (I was so close to home, when not on duty, I could leave the base and stay at home in the evenings and weekends). Six months after marriage, I was shipped out to South Korea for a 14 month tour of duty and when I returned my wife had left. So much for my first marriage.
Started working as a technician
(fancy name for auto mechanic) with Ford Motor Company in Plainview,
LI and met and married my present wife, Peg Reynolds about a year later.
That old car nut stuff kicked in again and for the next several years
I built and raced cars at the three race tracks on LI and also along
the east coast. I remember meeting some of you at the race tracks from
time to time. All of this
racing / building was done on weekends and evenings as I still had that full
time technician job. From 1966 - 1968 I was the Technical Director for the
brand new racetrack, New York National Speedway, built out on the Island and
if you lived on Long Island during those years I am sure you remember the radio
ads that National Speedway put out (SUNDAY, THIS SUNDAY!).
After several years of successful
car racing (over 600 first place trophies / monies) in 1969 I gave up
the car racing to raise my then growing family (3 girls). As my family
grew, I had to get larger housing....so over the next several years we
moved further east on the Island and just settled in raising our girls.
Remember the "good dancer" stuff ....well it wasn't long before
I needed something to fill that void left by my racing days, sooooo....I
picked up my dancing shoes and before long I was a dance instructor for
a local dance studio. I soon became the lead ballroom dance instructor
for Arthur Murray Dance Studios on the Island and began doing some shows
at local night clubs. Again, I remember meeting some of you at the dance
clubs on LI during that time. I took the "stage name" Grant
Mitchell (actually my REAL
MIDDLE NAME and it's still in use today) and was now doing shows on weekends,
teaching dancing on weeknights, and working as that technician during the day!
In 1980, Peg and I decided to
move to Florida and we packed up a U-Haul, 1 dog, 2 daughters (eldest
daughter stayed on the Island) and off we went on a new venture. I secured
a technician job at a local Ford dealer, however, about 3 months after
our move, I accepted a position as a service manager at the local Rolls
Royce dealership (during my years on the Island I had acquired an AS
Degree in Business Management at Suffolk Community College so had the
business sense AND my cousin was a partner in the dealership). In 1983,
on a whim, I answered an ad for a night instructor in auto mechanics
at a local school and was accepted.
As soon as I got in front of a class to teach I knew "THIS WAS FOR ME"!!
Don't know why it took me so long to find out my true career.... if only Hettler
could see me now...teaching!! Within a year I was the Automotive Department
Chairman for APEX Technical School in Ft.Lauderdale, Florida with eleven instructors
under me and I loved every minute of it. In 1990, Apex was purchased by ATI,
a Texas company, and it was time to move on. I took a position as a night instructor
at a local technical center and about a year later I was the full time automotive
instructor doing what I loved....teaching.
In 1995, the Broward County School
Board and DaimlerChrysler Corporation (Chrysler Corporation before November
1998) approached me with a proposal to start up a program called CAP
(Chrysler DealerApprenticeship Program) at the Sheridan Technical Center
in Hollywood, Florida. CAP is a Chrysler sponsored program in which students
get formal automotive training, work in Chrysler Dealerships and go to
college (2 year AS Degree) all at the same time. I started the program
in late 1995 as CAP school #19 and in 2000 I had the largest CAP school in
the USA based on student enrollment (the CAP program had now grown to 34 schools
nationwide).
After 18 (plus) wonderful years
as an educator, I just retired from the school system in January 2002
and looking forward to traveling the USA with Peg very soon. We have
6 grand's, 4 boys, 2 girls and two of our daughters still live very close
to us here in Sunrise, Florida. Our eldest daughter, Tina, still lives
on the Island in Farmingville and we visit her often. Hobbies are: Amateur
Radio (since 1979), Fishing, Cycling, Bowling, Photography and Computers....which
I build my own. The bio from Phil Holcomb was interesting as even though
I have not visited many of the places he mentioned, I have talked to
many people in those different lands via Amateur Radio. Lots of other details
about me (including a vacation home on the island of Antigua in the Caribbean)
but this is long enough for now.
It's really great to see the names of so many friends I went to school with and read what they have been doing all these past years. I hope to see most of you at the reunion in 2006 and maybe some of you if there is a mini-reunion here in Florida next year.
Regards to all,
Grant Mitchell (St.Hilaire)
Sunrise, Florida
mitchell_g@popmail.firn.edu
N4GM@arrl.net