Ron Olson

Web Master Supreme

Ron was born in the small farming community of Dickinson, North Dakota; but his family headed west when he was five, settling in the area near the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington State. His dad worked as a mechanic on the farms around Moses Lake as Ron grew up a typical boy playing Little League. When he was a sophomore his family moved to the smaller town of Othello. With a total town population of 4,000 he says it wasn’t hard for him to make the varsity baseball team as a first baseman and sometime outfielder. He even pitched a few games. He remembers one time when the coach came out to talk to him on the mound. The coach suggested it would be a good idea to throw his fastball. “I thought that was what I had been throwing!” Ron now insists.

He had the usual summer farm jobs such as loading 100 pound potato sacks and pitching bales of hay. One summer he was able to work inside one day a week doing the books. Realizing he preferred to work with his head rather than his back, he was convinced college was the answer.

He attended Washington State University in Pullman. He concentrated on academics and graduated in 1967 with an electrical engineering degree. Later in life he obtained his Master’s Degree from Stanford University.

After graduating from WSU he blew his savings on a brand new Pontiac GTO and migrated to California. He started a 30 year career with a defense contractor, Sylvania Electronics. He began as a hardware engineer, moved to software, and then systems engineering. Ron then began managing projects and engineering departments, retiring as the Director of Engineering with over a hundred engineers working under him.

A few months after starting work he was at a co-worker’s pool party when he was introduced to a San Francisco secretary for Crocker Bank who had come to visit her friend. He was smitten and asked Judy out to a drive-in movie for their first date. It was so exciting she fell asleep in the middle of the movie. Fortunately she didn’t give up on him and they were married in 1968.

They settled in San Jose and began a family. They had three boys who at the appropriate time became involved in Little League. Not too happy with the coaching, Ron got involved. He coached teams and became a board member. He spent a lot of time on Little League business; especially as the league expanded and built more fields. His middle son, Mark, played baseball all the way through to the Pony level. Ron attended hundreds of games over the years; but one he will always remember was one in which a friend was the volunteer umpire. Ron says the ump had taken a lot of verbal abuse and finally walked off the field, sat down in the stands and yelled, “Play ball!”

The vociferous fan said, “What are you doing? You can’t call the game from here!”

The ump replied, “Why not? Evidently you have a better view from here that I had behind the plate.” After two pitches the fan apologized and the umpire returned to the traditional position.

While with Sylvania Electronics (later called General Telephone Electronics) Ron played on the company softball league for many years including stints as manager. In 1996 he took early retirement from GTE and went to work as vice president of a small company called Zeta supervising defense contracts. The company ended up operating in Gilroy and Ron enjoyed the reverse commute from San Jose.

Their oldest son, Steve, is a partner in a small architectural firm in Seattle, where he lives with his wife. One of his most significant jobs was doing the interior design of the office of Ray Ozzie, who replaced Bill Gates as the Chief Software Architect of Microsoft.

Middle son, Mark, lives in Folsom with his wife and two children; Amber, nine and her younger brother, Zachary, who always insists he’s older than Ron’s dog Charley. Ron’s pretty sure that makes him seven. Mark is an industrial engineer and consulted on the design and construction of production lines for both Campbell’s Soup and Gallo Wine. Wanting his children to have their grandparents nearby, he played real estate agent every time Ron and Judy came to visit. It finally paid off when he brought them out to see SCLH in 2001. They bought almost immediately.

Third son, Greg, is married and lives in Chico where he works for the local television station producing commercials. He and his wife are expecting a baby girl in May. They visit Ron quite often enjoying the theater season in Sacramento. Ron says he expects they’ll still make it down for the plays, but he’ll be at home babysitting.

Ron and Judy moved to SCLH in 2002 and the first thing they did was sign up for a travel club trip to Australia/New Zealand. A couple they met on the trip has become some of their best friends. One of the highlights of the trip was a bungee jump off the Kawarawa Bridge in Queenstown, New Zealand. The operators explained that the river below was the product of a nearby glacier and he had a choice of how far he wanted the bungee cord to reach. He thought it would be cool to have his hands just touch the water. They advised him to simply walk to the edge of the platform and fall off. However, it’s called bungee jumping, so Ron jumped off and landed waist deep in the frigid waters.

Traveling is still a major part of their life. They have a time share on Maui and vacation there every winter. They also usually take one foreign tour a year; having visited Ireland, Italy and Costa Rica. They’ve also spent time in Alaska and Canada. They’re thinking Nova Scotia for this year.

When Ron retired he decided to indulge his hobby of astronomy by taking some Sierra College classes. He enjoyed them so much that for the last five years he has been a part-time instructor at the college running the lab sessions of the astronomy program. An increase in the enrollment in these classes means that he may not get to play many games until May. He also teaches an observational astronomy class where he takes students to Blue Canyon or Grass Valley to identify objects in the night sky.

He and a friend started the SCLH Astronomy Club and he was on the steering committee until this year. This club is designed for people who know little about astronomy but are curious about the night sky. Some members who want to delve deeper into the subject have started a Cosmology Group with Ron spearheading the monthly meetings.

He also has several meetings a month with the election committee for the revision of the Sun City governing documents. He is working with a small group to organize the election that will approve or disapprove the changes made to our CC&Rs and By-laws.

Ron stays physically active as well; playing golf twice a week, hitting the gym three times a week and of course playing softball. The first year in the league he also played for the ’55 Coyotes, but it simply was too time consuming. However, he did want to contribute to the success of LHSSL, so he asked Hal Connors (President of the league at that time) if there was anything he could do that didn’t involve managing a team or being a board member. As a result of the conversation Ron designed and implemented the web site. John Bush has made a number of improvements to make the site easier to use; but Ron is still the web master and asks you to call him if you have any information that you think should go onto the site.

Judy also enjoys the many activities of SCLH. She works four days a week at the lodge organizing advertising for the Compass; a snap after a career as an elementary school secretary, which was a challenging position that combined the skills of clerk, nurse and surrogate parent. She plays social bridge and has taken classes offered at the lodge. Her favorite hobby is scrapbooking. The dining room closet is chock full of supplies and she has done a beautiful book for each of her grandchildren. Friends and neighbors meet at her house on a regular basis to work on their scrapbooks. A breast-cancer survivor of nine years she appreciates every moment she can spend with friends and family.

Ron and Judy say that all of the stuff they do separately outside the home makes their time together fresh and fun. They especially enjoy their six year old Bichon Frise, Charley and their 16 year old cat Pita. Be sure to ask Ron how P.I.T.A. got her name.