I haven't attended previous reunions, but the 50th is special and different, so I decided it was time to make a contribution to Grey Whipple's great web site.

By way of background, my family moved to Burlingame from Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1947, and I attended Hoover School from 5th through 8th grade. At BHS I recall having been involved in a myriad of activities, including (after I realized I wasn't good enough to play varsity) student-managing three sports, acting in a couple of plays, serving on the student counsel and a bunch of other clubs and commissions.

My favorite teacher was Anne Marie Kohler, who produced and directed some really serious drama and also taught Latin. I believe it was Bill Knorp who said we all probably took BHS for granted. How right he is! Having paid some hefty private high school tuition for my daughter and son and now step-daughter, I realize what a great educational opportunity we had at BHS for free!

After graduation I didn't go far - just down the road to Stanford. Stanford then was rather laid back and I had a great four years and did not have to work too hard. I earned my room and board by working as a "hasher" in a student-dining hall and in my senior year serving as a dormitory counselor. Several of our classmates attended Stanford with me, including Sally Wolfe, Nancy Jensen and the late Nancy Hirschberg. As a freshman, I roomed next door to Stephen Breyer, who also later joined me at Harvard Law School. Steve is now a Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

At Stanford, one of the basketball coaches found out about my student-manager experience and recruited me to be a manager in the basketball program. I stuck with it for four years, and was the head manager my senior year; which meant I traveled with the varsity to all away games and was the official scorer at all home games. I probably watched 250 games from the sidelines and frankly burned out on basketball. I was never able to get interested in the NBA. However, I have enjoyed recently following the rebuilt basketball program at Stanford under Coach Montgomery.

Looking back, I realize that Stanford in the 1950s probably was too conducive to having a good time. I graduated with some big gaps in my education which I have spent the last 45 years filling. As an ROTC graduate, I was commissioned in the military police corps of the Army and spent six months following my graduation from Stanford on active duty and seven and one-half years in the reserves. I just managed to "retire" as a first lieutenant before Vietnam heated up. My army "career" was quiet and uneventful, as there wasn't much shooting going on between Korea and Vietnam.

I got lucky when I took the Law School Aptitude Test, which made up for some mediocre grades, and I was accepted at Harvard Law School. Law school was really hard, but stimulating, and I liked Boston and city living. I also met up with BHS classmate Dexter Walcott who was in my law school class. Sadly Dexter passed away not long after graduating. I had some other interesting classmates, including Janet Reno, later Attorney General of the United States.

When I graduated from Harvard, I decided to return to the Bay Area and make my home in San Francisco. My first legal job in 1964 was as a law clerk to California Supreme Court Justice Stanley Mosk, who hired me as his first law clerk the year he was appointed to the Court. I did not realize that he would go on to set the record for length of service on the Court and become a legal giant, although it came as no surprise. He was a superb legal writer, and he taught me how to write, which has served me extremely well for the rest of my legal career.

In 1964 I married my first wife and we had two children, Sara in 1966, and Charles in 1970. Sara (Hansen) Wilson is now a partner in a law firm in San Francisco, and Charles is a screenwriter in Hollywood. I have two grandchildren, Ian Wilson, age 8, and Claire Wilson, age 5. (Picture enclosed.)

Upon completing my judicial clerkship and after a brief stint as an associate in a law firm, I decided to strike out on my own; opening my own law firm in 1967, specializing in bankruptcy law. I managed over the next 21 years to build up a nice small firm. In the 1980s bankruptcy became a big-time practice area, and I merged my firm with a large San Francisco law firm (then known as Thelen, Marrin, Johnson & Bridges) which wanted to be a player in the bankruptcy field. That firm encountered some problems in the recession of the early 1990s, so I moved my practice to the San Francisco office of Nossaman, Guthner, Knox & Elliott, LLP, where I have been since 1992.

Nossaman is a 135-lawyer firm with offices in both Northern and Southern California. I am currently a partner and co-chair of the firm's bankruptcy practice. It looks like I'll be here for a while, as the firm has no mandatory retirement age, and I enjoy what I am doing.

Further, as my new wife (see below) will be working for the foreseeable future, I don't have a great desire to retire as a house-husband. My practice consists of representing clients involved in chapter 11 corporate reorganization cases. From 2001 to 2004, the bankruptcy of Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Grey Whipple's former employer, occupied a lot of my time. I also was kept very busy when Orange County filed bankruptcy in 1994, because our firm's largest client, the toll road agency in Orange County, had big stake in the case. For a couple of years, I commuted weekly to Orange County. I also represent clients in civil litigation and occasionally mediate disputes. One of the nicest aspects of my practice is the view from my 34th floor office - Coit Tower, Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge.

In 1999 I obtained a divorce and married my current wife, Holland Jordan Hansen. Holland has a 15-year-old daughter, Jocelyn, who lives with us. (Picture of the three of us below) As a Southern Californian, Holland found San Francisco too cold for her taste, so we bought a home in Castro Valley, where we have lived since 1999. After living in the middle of San Francisco for over 30 years, this is quite a change for me.

However, Castro Valley is one of the Bay Area's hidden treasures. It is a large (50,000+) unincorporated community that has the feel of a small town. (In 2002, the residents voted down becoming a city by over 3 to 1.) In some ways I have come full circle, as I lived in the unincorporated Burlingame Hills while growing up. Castro Valley has great weather and is an easy commute to San Francisco via BART.

This year (May 2004) my wife, Holland, graduated with honors from the University of California, Berkeley, earning the B.A. degree she was never quite able to get while going to school part-time during her 13-year Army career. (She is a staff sergeant in the inactive reserve.) For the last three years she has worked as a case manager in the Healthy Start program at one of Castro Valley's middle schools. She is responsible for tracking, counseling and assisting about 40 students having academic problems; hoping to get as many of them as possible straightened out before they start high school. I get the impression she is sort of a beloved drill sergeant. Her ultimate goal is to establish her own nonprofit organization to provide programs to keep underprivileged children in school, off drugs and out of jail.

I am looking forward to the 50th reunion, with the expectation that we will have a big turnout. I am really impressed by the website that Grey has created, and I hope that most of us will send updated biographies and pictures. The pictures sure will help us recognize each other when we get together, especially those of us who have moved away from Burlingame.

.