Memoires of Rosemary

I'm going to do something for the next week or two that I have needed to do for a while. I know it may be a bit boring for some of you so I give you permission to skip the next few blogs if you don't want to read them. I've always wanted to write my autobiography but I just don't have time. For over a year now the Easters in Rosemary have been encouraging Lisa and I to contribute to a history of Rosemary that they are preparing so as a way to get started on my own autobiography I thought I would start with Rosemary. After all, that is a major part of my life and it is where 4 of my 6 kids were born. I've been accused of remembering history a little different that the rest of the world (mostly my wife) so I do reserve the right to make mistakes that may require corrections later. I'll especially need help getting names correct so if you recognize someone who's name I've omitted or gotten wrong please correct me. In fact, I will welcome any contributions I can get. Roselynn, this is for you.
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In the spring of 1983 I was preparing for graduation from the University of Alberta. I was graduating as a metallurgical engineer and in Alberta that usually meant you would be working in the oil patch probably doing welding processes. Unfortunately, unlike 2008, 1983 was a bad time for the oil patch with prices very low no one could get a job anywhere. I sent out at least a hundred resumes and had gone on a few job interviews but with not much success. As graduation approached I became more and more anxious about what I was going to do. During my third summer and then through my fourth year I had been working with a professor doing research work and he told me that he would keep me throughout the summer but he couldn't go beyond that. One day I was riding the elevator with one of my professors and he very casually said to me, "how would you like to live in Bassano?" I asked where Bassano was, figuring it must be some foreign country. Who would have thought it would be in Alberta. As it turned out, Bassano was a small town on highway 1 just west of Brooks. Through a very strange turn of events, there was a company in Bassano called Global Thermoelectric Power Systems Ltd. Global manufactured thermoelectric generators and sold them throughout the world. Global was formed by a group of people who left the 3M company. 3M made the generators that went to the moon with all of the Apollo missions. They first got into thermoelectrics in the 50's when everyone expected thermoelectrics to become a major source of power but once reality set in and they realized that thermoelectrics were not going to be more than 10% efficient they decided that thermoelectrics didn't really fit into their image of a tape company and shut the division down. Many of the employees working on thermoelectrics decided they could make a business of this and started their own company. The main product made at 3M was a 120 watt generator used for cathodic protection of pipelines and so Alberta was a major customer. The salesman responsible for Alberta had become good friends with a prominent farmer in Bassano and used to go pheasant hunting in the area. The Alberta government also had extra money and tax breaks for companies starting in rural areas and so with an investment from the farmer (name?), tax breaks and pheasant hunting, Global Thermoelectric was born.

Global wasn't actually looking to hire anyone but I followed the prompting of the spirit and made a trip down there anyway. They interviewed me and were interested since they didn't have any materials specialists and were just following recipe's to make their semiconductors. I was eventually turned down but again, following the spirit I persisted, never giving up. After several trips and many prayers they finally hired me on at $25,000 a year. I thought I was going to have money coming out of my ears. Reality hit very quickly. In my entire graduating class I was the only one to get a job right out of college.

During one of the job interviews I decided to go for a tour of Rosemary. There was no ward in Bassano and they all met in Rosemary which was about 25 miles east of Bassano (about 1,000 people). If I thought Bassano was small imagine my surprise when I first drove into Rosemary (about 300 people). Bassano at least had paved streets. The Bishop of Rosemary was Don Gibb and I found out that one of his councilors was Mark Watson. I believe Bill Easter was the other councilor. It turned out that Mark Watson lived in town so I looked up the address and talked to his wife Valerie. They lived in this tiny little house on a corner lot and I remember standing at the back door under this huge willow tree. It was a beautiful day and I remember thinking how lovely this place was. It was a little house but a huge lot and it had a huge garden in the back. I loved the town and I felt good about everything.