Wow, I didn't realize how many of you know how to read! Will wonders never cease? I really appreciate everybody checking in on me. I've had an amazing life, and I was incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunities to pursue my dreams.

I was born to my loving parents Marilyn and Henry Frankel and raised in the Maryland suburb of White Oak, along with my darling siblings, beeg seester Laurie and big brother Stuart, as well as a variety of furry and scaly pets. I attended Jackson Road Elementary School, White Oak Junior High School, and Springbrook High School, all of them top-notch schools. Summers were spent at wonderful YMCA Camp Letts in Edgemwater, where I fell in love with the Chesapeake Bay, sailing, gaga (the sport), camping, and archery. During the Spring and Fall I volunteered at the Silver Spring YMCA, helping challenged individuals in pool and gym. I also received my lifeguard training there. In Junior High I discovered the joys of theater life, working behind the scenes on set construction and lighting, finally working my way up to lead the lighting crew during my senior year at Springbrook. It was a magical experience helping to produce Oklahoma (rubber chicken!) and The Wizard of Oz, with my little cairn terrier Pooh Bear in the star role as Toto. I worked with some of the most wonderful people in the world, the casts, crews, orchestras, and the teachers who oversaw everthing. Those were the best years of my life.

I began working towards my Bachelor in Electronics Engineering degree at Stevens Institute of Technology in beautiful Hoboken, New Jersey. After 2-1/2 years there I transferred to the University of Maryland, graduating with my BSEE in 1983. After teen jobs as dishwasher, cook, and boathouse attendant at Camp Letts, ice cream scooper, lifeguard/pool operator, and security guard, I started my career with Harry Diamond Laboratory, which later became part of the Army Research Laboratories, where I worked on projects for the defense of this great nation, including mortar fuzing, automatic target recognition, infrared imaging, radar, acoustic/magnetic/seismic target tracking, remote demolitions, and laser radar. I found the projects to be challenging yet rewarding, and I felt that these were vital to the neverending task of protecting our troops.

My hobbies included motorcycling, skydiving, scuba diving, flying helicopters, and restoring antique stage light equipment. I was a lifelong blood donor, eventually reaching the sixteen gallon mark. My biggest love of all is cats, of which I have been the proud hoomin to many.

I am so very grateful for the people in my life, for the teachers that filled my head with Knowlege, for the artists, authors, and actors who create the Worthwhile Things in life, for the medical professionals that patched me up when I broke, and most of all for the friends and family that came to my rescue, without whom I could not have lived. And I am forever in debt to Number Six, who taught me most of what I knew.

I love you all. Take care,

Ron