MICHAEL SCHNEIDER

The AXE house - there are too many memories to recount, from the support you all gave me when my father died to teaching me how to drape a drunken brother over the urinal after he ran his car into a post box – did he drink before or after? Only his bartender knows. I am glad to find the proprietor of the famous Pickens General Store; there is this pair of socks with a lifetime warranty…. The years I spent at the AXE house ruined my later life: too much pool, bridge and the loss of being an undergraduate in a house filled with grad students, except for the old Buckaroo. All kidding aside, the time spent with brothers at the AXE house are years I will never forget.

After U of I, I went to Durham England, where I obtained a Ph.D. under Geof Coates of organometallic fame. After being a professional postdoc for five years, I saw the light, bid adieu to chemistry and entered computer science, first as an Assistant Professor at the University of San Francisco then Florida Atlantic University. Forgoing the academic life, I shifted to Sperry where I headed software and human factors research, then became head of systems research at ITT. I was the VP for technology research at Manufactures Hanover Bank, then entered consulting as a VP with the Gartner Group.

In 1986 I married Barbara Klein; we had a son in 1989. After few years as a CTO of a software company I became a consultant specializing in technology management and long-term planning upon the passing of my wife in 2001.

Now, I am starting a new profession in the political arena by bringing candidates and volunteers together via the Internet. Yes, sometimes my son’s school calls me to sub in high school chemistry – my Ph.D. did not go to waste.