Mark Lee

La Jolla High School

Class of 1968

→ Join 2177 Alumni from La Jolla High School that have already claimed their alumni profiles.
→ There are 75 classes, starting with the class of 1925 all the way up to class of 2024.

MARK'S PROFILE

This is a limited view of Mark's profile, register for free or login to view all their profile information.

Mark Lee - Class of 1968 - La Jolla High School

First Name	Mark
Last Name	Lee
Graduation Year	Class of 1968
Gender	Male
Hometown	La Jolla, California
Relationship Status	Single
About Me	Born in the Spring of 1950, I grew up and lived most of my early life in the leisurely beautiful community of Bird Rock (neighborhood in La Jolla) and later for an extended time up in the neighborhood known as "The Muirlands" (a block from the La Jolla Golf Club golf course). I also also lived for a while in Poway (3 yrs), in Pacific Beach (4 yrs), and in my forties in Encinitas (5 yrs) in North San Diego County-after College. I first attended Bird Rock Elementary School 1950-1956, Muirlands Junior High School 1960-1963 and La Jolla High School 1964-1968 graduated with the wonderful graduating class of 1968 - Go Vikings! My first paying job was a cattle ranching wrangler in Jackson Hole, Wyoming during the Summer of 1967-learned to really ride horses the "cowboy way"; drink beer and fly a Cessna aircraft for the first time in my life. The owner of the Fish Creek Ranch in Wilson, Wyoming were good friends of my parents, meeting he and his former wife on their honeymoon in Mexico City at the same hotel. So I left La Jolla for the Summer and worked live at this fine dude ranch called Fish Creek Ranch 20 minutes outside of the Town of Jackson Hole in a small little cow town pop. of 300 called Wilson, Wyoming. Playing cowboy left me a long term wonderful feeling that by living in the country and a new interest in environmental issues, which are so important today. So I have made it a practice to this day to live out in "green acres" and commute to the City for work and cultural events. Even better than this is living in a rural region, next to a ocean or large body of water, which is why I relocated to Portland, Seattle, back to Encinitas and now in Santa Cruz County, not far from the Monterey Bay. Of course I enjoy being where the action is in technological innovation and that is why I like being near Silicon Valley In 1970, I purchased a brand new german auto and traveled with three (3) close childhood friends Greg Stone and Bill Leisk throughout Europe for 4 months, driving to every country in western, southern, northern, and parts of eastern Europe, including East Germany and throughout Yugoslavia (decades before Yugo disintegrated into Serbian-Moslem civil war called the Bosnian conflict). After 4 years, I graduated from the University of California at Davis with a BA in History but also studied Environmental Science. Applied Industrial Engineering and Alternative Energy Technologies courses out of curiosity and new found interest. Became involved in early preparing land use policies; promoting sustainable environments; planning renewable energy technology strategies-such as wind and solar, geodesic dome habitats, as well as customized new local government planning codes, zoning and general plan policies, filtered by California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) while promoting Solar Access design into new construction and subdivision designs for local planners at UC Davis and of course became very interested in wild habitat restoration, responsible land use zoning and comprehensive land use planning; and global peace movement meeting many famous activists of that period. I think the lesson we all learned was to get involved in some fashion to bring attention to the destruction of our planet- ultimately leading to terrible rapid pollution of our valuable rainforests (where approximately 90,000 species of plants, many that have terminal illness healing properties as hundreds of millions of acres the size of Rhode Island are being torched and wood hauled away for fuel or building supplies and destroyed annually with no mitigation nor concern by host countries. What we are witnessing is the wholesale complete environmental destruction of once liveable cities, oceans, unique forests and global air quality. The biggest threat is now the Green House Gas effect slowly melting the polar caps and raising coastal sea levels one inch per year. By 2030 when most my cohort are 80, the oceans shall have encroached coastal lands by 2 feet. Something to really think about. So how to we halt and balance air quality and reduce carbon emissions globally with all countries participating is the $ 1 trillion dollar question? Native indigenous peoples (also endangered species) continue to warn us that technological companies about blindly stripping the globe of all of its physical resources, while continuing blind destruction of the planet. This is not long range planning. All Cultures and Countries REALLY need to WAKE UP and take PLANET EARTH back and start planning, designing and practicing a lifestyle that is more environmentally sustainable long term and set the new norm of for living in a carbon free footprint as "ecosystem-citizens" of the planet, which belongs to the next generation and should be retrained as earth's caretakers. The last 200 years and continued drilling for crude oil creating this fantasy of unlimted growth is over, unless we can transition to renewables and alternatives (such as natural gas, solor 'PV" photovoltaic, large and small scale wind machine generation, perhaps even nuclear fussion, ocean wave harmonic electrical power stations, wind generation, or responsible micro hydro, promoting conservation through building retrofit, and non-polluting lithtium battery energy driven automobiles) is the key to Planet Earths' long term survival. The era of the "carbon oil cowboy" economy is now starting to end. We either adapt or perish, along with the rest of the natural environment we are attempting to just now preserve. Moving on from 1974-1977 I decided to attend United States International University in Scripps Ranch (now called Alliant International University, and before that is was called California Western University and graduated with a Masters degree MURP in Urban & Rural Planning-Community Environmental Management. During those early days I actually worked for Arrowhead Puritas Waters out on Clairmont Mesa, delivering and selling residential and commercial drinking water accounts. In 1984 after studying Quality Assurance and Manufacturing Engineering I became employed by General Dynamics-Convair and later GD-Electronics Divisions in the Atlas Centaur NASA Space program in non-destructive weld certification, taking xray photos of welded critical parts of Atlas Centaur missle hulls, as part of my introduction to Quality Assurance in the early 1970s, before moving on into my 1st career path of City Planning-and Environmental Impact Analysis management. This profession still grabs my attention and passion, even today. I am still consulting with an old business partner using CEQA and NEPA guidelines required analysis for local municipal systems in southern and northern California. I also entered the public sector to help out where I could for the first 15 years after graduating and eventually moving from working in government and transitioning to the private sector. Government began while by becoming employed at the County of San Diego, Integrated Planning Office from 1973-1976, San Bernardino County Environmental Improvement Agency 1976-1978 and then in 1978 moved to the Pacific Northwest for 8 years to work for the City of Hillsboro Planning Dept in Oregon, Cowlitz County and also Skamania County Planning Departments, along the Columbia Gorge in Washington State. In May of 1980 I was nearly shaken and startled out of my bed early in the morninf while living in Kelso-Longview (Cowlitz County) along the mightly Columbia and Cowltiz Rivers and witnessed first hand the explosion of Mt. St. Helens only 20 miles away. It was like witnessing a nuclear event and then the worst flood damage with fallen logs and silt on the Cowlitz, Green and Tuttle Rivers. It was amazing to see and of course I had to get plenty of personal photos, which I still have today. It was then I decided to move up Columbia River and became a County Planner responsibile for writing the first Skamania County Columbia Gorge Zoning and Land Use Plan, affecting 60 miles of Skamania County shorelines along the beautiful Columbia River (north shore) which was adopted in 1984 by the Skamania County Board of Commissioners and Planning Commission. If you have never been to the Columbua River Gorge you are missing out on a real adventure and its begins only 30 minutes east of the great City of Portland. Of course I knew trying to manage the natural resouces of the Columbia River was going to be quite controversial and the battle of the Columbia Gorge still continues on today between Oregon and Washington State. In 1980 from Tualtin Oregon, I began a solar hot water company with (2) two business partners selling and installing approximately 1,300 homes with our self designed and UAL certified dual Skylite looking batch heater system, which we patented. After making what we thought was a lot of money, the Carter energy alternative energy tax credits disappeared with the election of President Ronald Reagan and we decided to sell that business to a larger HVAC Supply Company and learned first hand how to run a business. Portland became my second home away from San Diego is quite a beautiful and progressive city-well ahead of many other cities in this country. I still have a handful of close friends who still reside and shall never leave the Emerald City along banks of the Willamette River and mighty Columbia River. Do you remember that tall red headed hippy basketball player name Bill Walton and the Portland Trailblazers? I do because we went to their basketball games all the time in the Portland Sports Dome. I still maintain fine memories and good Oregonian and Washington State friendships, including a few old girlfriends I made along the way and still in touch with. In 1984 I returned from Portland, Oregon to my native San Diego, returning to work in aerospace, aircraft and electronics quality and manufacturing engineering. From 1985-1986 attended National University in the evenings to obtain an MBA in Finance and Operations Management while working for GD-Electronics in San Diego during the day. Commenced my second technical and manufacturing career from 1986-1992 employed with Advanced Membrane Systems (which manufactured very thin film reverse osmosis coated filament paper for multiple water, wine, dialysis, milk and paint filtration), Quality Systems Inc. (Circuit Board assembly), Allied Signal-Amex (Navy Missile electronics systems) in Chula Vista and Northup Grumman (Unmanned Remote Controlled Aircraft Drones) in Newbury Park (now closed) as a Senior Quality Assurance/Manufacturing Engineer. In 1988 I was assigned to head up a team of 3 QA Engineers in New York for 3 months to help save one of Northrop Grumman's key actuator suppliers from being closed permenantly by the Federal government DCASPRO Agency for poor manufacturing quality. Our team successfully mitigated many internal problems by retraining personnel; re-writing ISO-9000 procedures; manufacturing instructions and established more reliable supplier logistics. DCASPRO finally agreed to not to close the sole supplier plant located in Maspeth, New York employing some 1,300 employees and I was awarded a nice monetary award and corporate recognition for a job well done from Northtrop Grumman. One of the benefits of working in New York City is that I became very acqainted with Manhattan and met for the first time at 38 years of age a handful of unknown cousins, grand uncles and grand aunts-all in working in Medicine, Psychiatry, and Computer Engineering in New York. New York City was a very wild eye opener to say the least. Living and workin in New York was lots of fun for a while, yet became very freenic" inside of this gigantic metropolitan city they call "The Big Apple". I loved working there for 3 months, though briefly, as a tourist while it lasted because this field of quality assurance and manufacturing engineering, though a very interesting profession, Defense related employment was slowing down as President Clinton took office and President Reagan left office. I left the profession ad returned to my 2nd career as a private consulting environmental project planner-manager in San Diego, Carlabad, Newport Beach and Rancho California working for BHA, Hunsaker & Associates of San Diego, ADL Associates and RANPAC Engineering for a 8 years and did not return to High Technology Engineering until 1994 and later stayed with it after moving to Silicon Valley in 1995 and entered the surface mounting technology contract manufacturing product and quality management arena In 1989-I entered my 3rd career path, retraining through the Appraisal Institute to become an Real Estate Appraiser, first in San Diego and later Santa Cruz County. In 1995, I moved from Encinitas, CA (San Diego Cty) to Ben Lomond, CA (of all places) where I purchased a very nice 2,400 s.f redwood home on 1 acre among the Coastal Redwoods and Pacifc Oaks, 7 miles from the Monterey Bay and the City of Santa Cruz. I still live here today. From Santa Cruz County, I set up my independent residential (review) appraisal practice and became employed directly with several direct mortgage lending Banks including Bank of America, Washington Mutual (now defunct) and as a review appraiser contractor to B&C Mortgage (now defunct which was part of Lehman Brothers) and New Century Mortgage (now defunct) wholesale mortgage banking companies. I worked as a mortgage loan underwriter and review appraiser under contract-which opened me to a whole new world of crazy mortgage finance. Then the bottom fell out in 2006-and you know the rest of the story-we entered the 2nd Great Depression. However just before the collapse of the world economy starting in 2005, Silicon Valley was booming from 1995-2006 and everyone was making lots of money. During these economic growing years I became employed as a Production Manager, Environmental Safety Engineer, Manufacturing Engineer and Quality Assurance Supervisor for such companies as Altron Systems (acquired by SCI-Sanmina), US3-Amazing Controls (Smart Cards), Berg Electronics-ASM Socket Division (manufacturing and marketing Telecommunications equipment ot ATT Lucent, Medical and Storage Devices Servers) later renamed as Framatone USA, Inc., ISIS Surface Mount, British Aerospace Systems, Inc.(formerly United Defense and before this FMC) and most recently have been working for Hewlett Packard monitoring their 10 west coast campus facilities as a tenant improvement planner and real estate facilities manager. Taking a detour from, 2006-2007, I began educating myself for my 4th career path by taking a year off and studying law (yeah you got it the LAW!) entered one of the few ABA approved junior colleges in the Bay Area, De Anza College in Cupertino. One year later in 2007 I earned an AA in Paralegal Studies+ the required California Paralegal Certificate in 2007, graduating Cum Laude! I have been looking for Paralegal opportunities in my favorite legal areas-corporate law, CEQA/NEPA law (environmental impact analysis) and Intellectual Property Law (Trademarks, Copyrights and Patents). While I am transitioning to becoming a Paralegal I still continue my Appraisal of residential properties, EIR writing, and public land use policy planning, community planning, & governmental relations from my home office in Ben Lomond, CA Now catching up, from 2007-2011, I have been working at Hewlett Packard at corporate headquarters in Palo Alto and also appraising residential real estate properties when I obtain assignments and now seeking Paralegal work with Intellectual Property, Corporate Law and Land Use and Environmental specialty law firms, throughout California (including Santa Clara, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Orange and San Diego Counties). I have also taken up a new hobby of landscaping and gardening, using my 1 acre mountain home as my experimental studio to study drought tolerent native plants and landsacpe design. I have really become interested in hydroponics so that I can grow my own vegetables without soil on my 2000 square foot redwood sundeck-22 feet off the ground. I actually feel I am living in a tree fort at times. I am still dabbling in natural landscape, people and events photography; writing the draft of my first novel (movie script) using character examples from my life and hope to publish some day soon? My life has been very eventful and still really enjoy listening to various traditions of rock and roll, light jazz and some classical and country music, still attend live rock and jazz concerts, attend salsa and tango dancing classes, no longer surfing nor body surfing as much as I woild like, because the water here is too cold; enjoy deep sea fish for salmon and large sea bass; still hit the tennis courts, jump aboard friends yachts to go sailing; trying to rebuild a sports race car; attend gran prix races in Laguna Seca near Monterey; grab my Olympia 8 Mega pixel digital camera and love taking natural, portrait and architectual photography after years as my favorite hobby; like to hike in the redwoods, as well as dine out at fine little restaurants with close friends disovered along the way, particularly in Vancouver, BC, Portland,OR, San Francisco, Monterey, Santa Cruz, CA, New York City, NY, London, UK, Barcelona, Espana, Bordeaux-Biarritz France and Roma, Italy. Finally I still love drinking good collectable wines (many from Santa Cruz County vineyards, where local wines taste unbelievably fantastic). After working in (4) four different dynamic professions in both government and the private sector- I am pursuing more Project Management, Product Marketing employment and just beginning the developmet of a new on-line (hobby) business, which is exciting but has its challenges as well. The competition is formidable, but learning this new method of marketing is intriquing. My main objective these days is to continue helping businesses become profitable; find a new wife, stay healthy, invest smartly, remodel my mountain home and continue to learn landscape edible and decorative gardening; staying in touch with my far flung Family from Encinitas. Oceanside, San Diego and Huntsville, Alabama (where 50% of my former La Jolla nuclear family, now resides). Of course, I am always looking for Ms. Right to share my remaining life with and planning on living a long life. I continue to dream, attend blue grass, jazz and rock concerts, and hope to continue manifesting a bright, happy, healthy, loving and prosperous future. May you have a peaceful and loving life. Be happy, healthy and prosper! Well Thats It, thus Far! Life Is So Exciting - Enjoy It! & Keep Believing the Dream - continue to recycle and eliminate your carbon foot print to zero emissions. Finally one last request - Please Plant 100 new CO2 gobbling Trees or Shrubs and take the weekend and go clean up a Wetlands nearby where you live, before You Pass. Everyone needs to do this to combat global warming - which is the lynch pin to halting global environmental collapse, slowing down the melting of the polar caps, turn around drought, famine, starv...(read more)