Ken Mehan
Ken
and Janet Sue Mehan
Ken
Mehan, wife Janet Sue, and sons Tim and Ryan
Wow!! Fifty years briefly. It's been fun.
I went to Swarthmore College and graduated in 1962 with a major in Economics after a two-year break for the Army (became a Second Lieutenant Infantry Platoon Leader after graduating from Officer Candidate School at Ft. Benning, Georgia) and a trip hitchhikinging from Pennsylvania to Los Angeles and up to Portland, Oregon, and back.
The first summer after college I worked as part of a survey team for Bethlehem Steel in Minot, North Dakota, helping build Minuteman Missile silos. I left there in time to see the end of the World's Fair in Seattle and fell in love with Seattle during the week that I was there. However, I returned to the East Coast and a job with DuPont in Wilmington, Delaware.
While there I met my future wife, Janet Sue, at my brother Bob's wedding—I was best man and she was a bridesmaid (my brother's wife and Janet Sue were nurses who worked together at Presbyterian Hospital in Philadelphia). I left DuPont a few years later to go to graduate school at the University of Washington in Seattle, where I received a Master of Business Administration degree. Janet Sue and I were married in 1967, and I went to work in Seattle for the Boeing Company as a Procurement Specialist and had the opportunity to work on such programs as the Lunar Rover Vehicle and Cruise Missile. Our older son, Timothy, was born in 1969 and our younger son, Ryan, was born in 1973. While in Seattle we were fortunate to have a lakefront home with a spectacular view of Mt. Rainier across the lake.
In 1975 we decided to move back east to be closer to relatives and bought a home in Reston, Virginia, where I began work in the Pentagon. A couple of years later I transferred to the U. S. Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C. I retired in 2002 as Director of Materials Management Service. My wife, Janet Sue, retired at the same time after 15 years as an Occupational Health Nurse at one of the Pentagon's satellite clinics. We both missed living in Seattle, so we bought a small houseboat on Lake Union (which is located between downtown Seattle and the University of Washington) and we alternate, a month or six weeks at a time, between Seattle and Virginia. This year has been unusual, however, in that we have been living full time in Seattle because our son, Ryan, who also lives in Seattle, has had his son, Nikolaus (age 13) living with him for the school year. Unfortunately, Niko will be returning to Austria at the end of June to live with his mom.
My Mom is now 90 and still living on her own in her own home.
Both Janet Sue and I have been fortunate to enjoy good health and to be able to travel in Europe for a month each of the past three summers.
We will celebrate our 39th wedding anniversary in September.