Hello everyone!  I too have been procrastinating like many others in getting my bio together.  I'll try to be brief in describing the last 30 years of my life....

After High School I married Nick Jackson, didn't work out, divorced in 2 years, then I ran off and joined the military (Air National Guard) in 1976 - who would have thought???  Most people who knew me thought I had literally lost my mind..and I certainly wondered for a while!  I wasn't the kind of person to take orders from anyone but..the military has such a kind way of teaching you how to give and receive...orders and push-ups that is.

After basic training, I was hired full time as a civil service technician, left Ames and moved to Des Moines.  While in training in Gulfport, MS met my current husband of almost 25 years who was also full-time military (federal civil service).  We have traveled around the world, had 2 wonderful children and have both retired last year from military life.  After 27 years of military duty, I retired as a Major, most recently the commander of a 'Services' unit dedicated to food service, lodging, and mortuary affairs.  After 34 years of service, my husband retired as a Colonel after commanding various units at the 132d Fighter Wing, Des Moines (F-16 aircraft).

While my husband was full-time military in the Guard, I stayed part-time for most of my career.  This allowed me to have a full-time civilian job, go to college and raise a family, all while traveling part time.  After my kids were born, I went back to ISU and received my BBA in Management of Information Systems.  Since then I have worked in various IT areas for Insurance companies in Des Moines as well as an active duty stint at the Pentagon.  While there (1989) I was lucky enough to design and build the first 'imaging' system for the Office of the Secretary of Defense.  Great fun!

After working on several more imaging systems in Des Moines (Principal Financial, Continental Western, and WR Berkley Corp),  I am now heading up the technical services area at Continental Western. This includes PCs, networks, servers, operations, printing, help desk, email, database development and environment support.  After 9/11 I was called to active duty to work in the 'war room' in Washington making decisions on activating units nationwide preparing for the war in Afghanistan.  Learned a lot about countries you can't pronounce and places you didn't know existed on the map. (I kept thinking I should have paid more attention to Geography in High School.)

My oldest son Joe (22) and his wife are also in the Air National Guard here in Des Moines.  They were married in Cancun this summer and we planned and self-catered the wedding reception last weekend.  It was great fun but thank God it is over!

My daughter Jessica (19) attends the College of the Art Institute in Chicago and lives downtown one block off Michigan Avenue above the Borders book store - lucky girl!  She is a wonderful artist (painting, drawing, 2d, video, photography) and is just getting started in 3d animation.  She will be a sophomore this year and is loving it (and hating Des Moines being home this summer!).

Husband Mike works as a private consultant for the military in helping Guard/Reserve units train for inspections, developing and testing their wartime capabilities.

I guess that pretty much sums it up - looking forward to seeing some old friends and reminiscing about the awful things we did in High School (toilet fires?? smoking?? drinking?? were there drugs involved??)

BACK

Louise (Lyman) McILhon