Some activity to report this issue. Kirk Hiles sent in a picture of his three soldiers modeling with an MGM Studios character. Looks like Paul (15), Dan (13) and Steve (3.5) have a bit more maneuverability than the plastic army guy. Especially Steve.

Pete Hoffman sent along an update. He and Kim are in Detroit and have now lived there longer than any other homestead. Pete is still engineering networks for Airtouch Cellular and Kim is substitute teaching for two days each week. A tad behind the Hiles' boys in the race to being teenagers are their sons Tim (12), Josh (10) and Tyler (5). Talk about being adventurous, to celebrate the millennium the family chartered a 52' sailboat to sail around the Virgin Islands. Looks like someone was paying attention during swab summer dinghy sailing!

In the mail today came a nice change of command invitation. Matt Bliven is the new CO of Naval Engineering Support Unit Alameda. Way to goMatt - if any one needs some CSMPs corrected, give Matt a call. Given Matt's location near Silicon Valley, rumor has it that Matt will be the first NESU to move to NESU.com. If you call Matt now, you can get in on the friends and family option of the IPO.

Did you fill out your census on time? If not, bet you never thought that an 83er may be putting a lock on your email till you sent the form in. Becky (Smith) Dyche is now with the Census Bureau and takes care of all the computers that are tracking down the census forms. Way cool - an 83er as the cyber census czarist. Becky & Kirk got married on Valentine's Day. Congratulations to you both! Brittany (4) enjoys their new home in Charlotte. As for classmates, Becky ran into Nick Guerrero in Charlotte and relayed that Kristy Plourde has moved from Alameda, CA to Elizabeth City. NC.

Speaking of Nick, he recently contributed to the ability of the CGA Mechanical Engineering Solar Powered Boat to retain its ranking as the team to beat in the nation's only Solar Powered Boat Competition that will be held in New Orleans the second week of June. When a cadet came up to me in lab, covered in transmission oil and asked, "Sir, any clew where we could get some oil for the boat's gear box?" I immediately called Nick and he hooked us up with the right stuff. Nick, who is with the combined company Shell/Texaco (called Motiva Enterprises) asked a few questions and identified the optimum oil to have the least viscous drag yet optimum lubrication. It doesn't get any better than that. I promised Nick he could have the back of the boat for a Shell ad for his contributions to the cadet success.

You may have forgotten, but Charlie Jager has a great class web page going at http://www.mindspring.com/~cjager/cga83/cga83.html. You can also get to the home page off the CGAAA homepage. In addition to these notes, a class locator, and a place to buy/sell/rent your house (no kidding - very ingenious too). Charlie also has built a web community where 83ers can keep in contact. The instructions to register and log on are easy and posted on the site, so it only takes a minute to get connected. Charlie sent along a reminder to 83ers to update their Class Locator information since people may have some new info to post. Just send an email to Mary or Charlie at cjager@mindspring.com with the updated information.

In an e-note, Charlie reported that they are moving back to their home in Maryland. Mary is off to working G-MOA (Investigations and Analysis) where her focus will be to develop an international near-miss reporting system for the maritime community. Charlie will be in G-MRI (Information Resources) as Chief of the Systems Development Division to oversee the IRM initiatives within the Marine Safety Program. Looks like the CG has made some pretty wise assignments. On the family side, their daughter now has a learner's permit to drive and is hoping to get some driving time during the family's cross-country move. I feel old. Both young Jagers are lacrosse players (must be the 83 child thing to do, we've got a couple ourselves, but they're only driving Jean & I crazy), so they are looking to move to an area of the country where lacrosse is big. Their son mentioned he'd like to go to Johns Hopkins, although playing a club sport at CGA would be easier on the pocketbook.

After logging into Charlie's 83-on-line-community, I sent out an e-call for news and got a good response. From Nick & Jackie Stagliano, "Hi! Geoff and Kara Merrell visited us in April. They were in town for a family wedding and to thaw out from the long Valdez, AK winter. Their daughter, Olivia (18 months), is a beautiful little girl. She had a great time running through the foreign green substance behind the house -- grass! Geoff is an Operations and Maintenance Supervisor in the Marine Department for the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company. The Merrell's are doing well in Valdez. We are pretty much settled in at the new house in Tacoma. Except for a few stragglers haphazardly strewn around the house, the moving boxes are unpacked and we're looking forward to our assignment in Seattle for the next several years."

From Jeff Baldwin, "Thanks to Charlie for doing the web page. I check it every now and then to see what news may be there from our classmates. I went to work at Texas Instruments in Dallas when I got out of the Coast Guard in 1988, and after a few corporate divestitures we now are owned by a semiconductor company called TriQuint (still in Dallas). I'm a designer for telecom-related chips. I got married to Sandy, who I met here in Dallas, in 1991. We have three boys, Evan age 7, Chad age 5, and Alexander age 2. I've been able to keep in touch with Terry Gilbreath, Stan Carson, Steve Sweyko, Dave Gordner, Tom Cullen and Todd Gentile off and on over the years, it's always great to hear from them and find out how they and their families are doing. I can't believe our class is CDRs!!, and that so much time has gone by!" Jeff even sent along an e-pic - looks like Texas is treating the Baldwin's royally.



The Baldwin Family

For human news, the New London 83 crowd got together for lunch last week. Those present (yours truly, the editor, Pat Knowles (the organizer), Kyle Moore (CGA planner), Mark Higgins (Law Chief), Simone Albano (R&D Center Comptroller)) all told great lies about those who couldn't make it: Jim Sweet (Head Nautical Science Dude), Jack Jennings (who was sailing back from Antigua), Karl Calvo (Head of CGA Facilities), John Odell (off at Judge School) Ed Seebald(King of NYC & NL OPSAIL, thanks to his role as King of the Auxiliary) and Chris Hopper (who's company has the contract to help renovate Saterlee Hall). In the midst of computing retirement benefits and discussion on how to get employed in three years, we all agreed to do more of the same in the future. As like any 83 gathering, it was great fun to just talk with classmates.

As for myself, I had a great time this year with a super class of ME cadets in the class of 2000. While 83 was the best of the last millennium, 2000 will probably be the best of the next millennium. The cadet story on the robot project, including some of the fun and details, is at http://www.cga.edu/acd/eng/ME/first/new_london_whalers.htm. In addition to that group, we had a team design and install the CG's first Fuel Cell (i.e., mix hydrogen and oxygen to get water and electricity) and a third group that refined a solar powered boat that is ranked number one in the U.S. Great fun to be paid to do things like this. The "modern" cadets really are performing at levels that can't compare with other classes.

Many thanks to helicopter pilot Jennifer Lay, who helped our 83 derivative (first order, Timmy Wilczynski) learn all about CG helicopters. To have a picture of a helicopter pilot that you know, is really cool according to Timmy.

So that's all folks. More to report next issue including a discussion of internet based educational entrepreneur enterprise (e3 is the buzzword we're creating) that will be launched by then, as well as a full report on the Seeb's conquest of NL Harbor for OPSAIL. How do like them apples? More leaders for change in the near future. Stay connected.