Dave joined the Burlington Northern back in March of 1982 as a Patrolman for their Police department. He had graduated with a degree in Criminal Justice and joined St Louis County Police after graduating from the Police Academy. While he was at "County" he made a life long friendship with Jerry and the dispatcher Diane, who would later marry Jerry; Dave was their Best Man. Jerry joined the Burlington Northern and told Dave about the job opportunities and the rest they say is history... (On a side note Jerry is retiring right after Dave!)
Dave began his work career with the Railroad in Chicago and then took a lateral move to St Louis which is where we met in 1985. A week after we were married, he was promoted and began working as a Special Agent in Lincoln, Nebraska. We lived in Lincoln for four years and Laura and Charlie were born there.
Life in Lincoln...1986-1990
Our son Charlie was born right before we moved to Colorado...
When Charlie was two weeks old, Dave had once again been promoted, this time to an "On Line Special Agent" position in Trinidad, Colorado. In one sense, the town of Trinidad was a very difficult place for me to live, it wasn't an ideal setting for raising a family, we did however get to do a lot of camping as a family and since we love the mountains, it was a great fit in that regard.
In the April of 1993 we traded in our little single wide mobile home for a much larger double wide home. Just four months later we once again moved, this time to the Dallas/Ft Worth area and Dave became a Manager in the Resource Protection Department. We knew when we made the decision to purchase a double wide that moving was always a possibility but then there were definite benefits of moving our home with us.We found a nice Mobile Home Park in Denton and have made a life here for the past 23 years.
Over the many years of Dave's work career we've seen a lot of changes in our family...marriages, grandchildren have been born, loss of parents and siblings, my auto-immune disease, Dave's 2x battle with prostate cancer...happy times and sad times. We survived a merger with the Santa Fe Railroad and Dave is retiring as the Field Director for LARS (Load and Ride Solutions). In these many years of his long work career some of his additional responsibilities has included conducting grade crossing investigation courses, Operation LifeSaver, has been a Firearms Instructor and just last year was the Chairman of the Association of American Railroads, to name a few...When Dave and I married I was a divorced Mom with two little girls and then we added two more children into our family. Until recently, now that all the children have left the nest, for the first time, it's just us...
We made sacrifices along the way to achieve the prize that is nearly here. Living more frugally, making the choice to have a mobile home rather than being bogged down with house payments and high taxes has left us in the position to not only have our dream but to have it completely debt free. So yes, I am eager to see how the next chapter in our story unfolds...
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