Rafael Viscasillas

Graduated June 1968, awaited orders, got assigned as a missile launch officer at Grand Forks AFB, North Dakota. Not a bad assignment for a kid with a pre-med bio degree, who had never been west of New Jersey. I had no idea what I was in for. Lost the name Ralph at the tollbooth on the George Washington bridge, and took back my childhood name of Rafe.  Spent 4 years at Grand Forks, got my M.S. in Industrial management, married Valerie Corbett, who a number of you guys know, bought and raced a Formula V in Sports Car Club of America national races, spun out only once, best finish was a second place on an airport course on an RCAF base in Gimli Manitoba. Val had her RN from Roosevelt Hospital In NYC, and she got a job in the local hospital ER room riding the am-bulances etc? She learned a lot about nursing, and we both learned a lot about living in arctic like climates.

Next assignment was to be a combat crew commander in the instructor shop at Minot AFB, North Dakota, you see I owed then an additional 4 years for my Masters. Thank god they had decided they had to many regu-lar Captains, and I was offered and dove at an "early out". Spent 4 years and 26 days in Grand Forks, and we never looked back as we drove out the gate. Although a number of times over the next 10 years or so I regretted getting out. It was a neat life.

We headed to Iowa, where I was hired as the Ass't Hospital Administra-tor for a small rural hospital and nursing home. 2200 people in this town, way too small, and, I discovered I had a difficult time working with the Docs who wanted to also manage the operation. So 7 months later I landed a Job In NYC as a Federal background investigator. It took Val and I only 6 months to realize that after a total of nearly 5 years in the Midwest, we could never adapt to New York. So, back to the Midwest.

We moved to Minneapolis in 1974, I moved into the Human Resources area, and Val went after a psychology degree and moved into the Chemical De-pendency Therapy field. I used my VA benefits to get my flying license, and took it all the way to instructor, taught two people to fly, and decided I wasn't being paid enough to have some fool try and kill me.

We started a family. Our daughter, Stephanie was born in 1978, just graduated from Boston University, and is working as an editorial assis-tant for CIO magazine, in Framingham, Mass. Our son Matt was born in 1981, and he just started as a freshman at St. Mary's University in Minnesota, a Christian Brothers school, where he should do real well, since with him they are starting with a lot better material than they did with me. He is a varsity cross-country skier, and is majoring in bio-physics, although we don't know why.

I've worked for 6 federal agencies in managerial HR positions, moving into local government in 1985, and took a three-year stint in Tucson, Arizona, before returning to Minneapolis 6 years ago to my current job as HR Director for Hennepin County. Val works as a nurse therapist for a CD clinic. We have a summer home in Cape Cod, which we hope to retire to someday. I gave up racing and flying, took up rum and cigars, more dangerous, but more fun.

Life is pretty good.