
Home Reunion Schedule Contacts Alumni In Memoriam Registration Form Send us your bio and a recent picture	John Lucas Spouse/partner: Therese (Resi) Hahn Children: Juliana (16) Executive Summary My life since graduation has had two phases: For the first 10 years, I sporadically attended college and drifted into full-time work in the software business. I lived most of that time in the San Diego area, either alone or with various college pals. The last 20 years have been quite different: I've been living in Germany, working as a translator for various high-tech companies; I’m with Siemens now. I live near Munich, in a big house with three wonderful women. So many people have come and gone Their faces fade as the years go by Phase 1 After leaving LAHS, I spent all but a year of the time through 1987 in the San Diego area, studying and working odd jobs. I had three great summers living in Los Alamos and working at the lab. While still intending to finish college, I gradually drifted into a full-time job. Older, wiser people told me that if I did that, I’d never finish college. They were right. So there I was, working in a PC software startup called Software Products International. Those were exciting times, a little like the Internet thing 15 years later but without the crash. I ran with a bachelor herd; contacts with the opposite sex were unusual and mostly unspectacular. Free time included hiking, camping, fishing, poker, collecting lizards and snakes (including a rattlesnake that I caught in my house).... No wonder the ladies weren’t interested. At one point, I put my junk in storage and moved into the office for a year. I paid off my college loans and haven’t been in debt since. People see you havin' fun Just a-lyin' in the sun Tell them that you like it this way The desert was great, and so was being able to go to the beach at lunch. But as the condo cancer metastasized and the freeways became increasingly sclerotic, San Diego gradually lost its appeal. My bachelor herd was breaking up as the guys got married or moved away. I needed a change. When the opportunity to work in the German office came up, I took it. I had never been out of the country before, except Vancouver and Tijuana. Now I regret that I never really visited Mexico while it was so close. Phase 2 Within a few weeks I was in Munich. I already knew some German (thank you, Mr. Cernicek), and that was a big help in understanding the media. Verbal skills were another matter. In those early days, men speaking the local dialect seemed about as intelligible as growling dogs. But I caught on quickly and was soon involved in localization, the adaptation of our software to other countries and languages. The plan was to stay in Germany for two years and return to the States with “international experience” in my resumé. But stuff happens.... After about a year, I met Resi at a dinner group where locals get together to practice their English. She’s a nurse, and had just quit a teaching job to work at the local hospital where she gave gas to patients during operations. Now she works at a hospital in Munich, assisting in ear-nose-throat and cosmetic surgery. She’s active in a couple of local clubs that work to preserve traditional dress and customs, and her hobbies include some of the skills needed to alter and repair the fancy clothing. Improving her English and my German are also pet projects, and she enjoys traveling. San Francisco and Boston are her favorite American cities. Juliana just returned from a year as an exchange student in Texas, something her parents always wished they had been able to do. Like her mom, Juliana is active in the traditions club. Other activities include folk dancing, climbing, shooting and playing dulcimer. She speaks fluent German and English (of course), and they say her French is very good too. Je ne sais pas. Next on her agenda is driver's ed. What I'd really like, Dad, is to borrow the car keys. See you later, can I have them please? I mentioned living with three women; there’s also my mother-in-law. She’s 83, a retired former furrier and shopkeeper. Her parents built our house, so now the fourth generation is living in it. “Oma” is 83, still in excellent health and doing a lot of work around the house and garden. She treats me like a king and feeds all of us very well indeed. In the quest for a more successful employer, I left SPI in 1991 to try my luck with Borland, which promptly choked on an ill-advised acquisition. I freelanced for a while, and then came stints with Diamond Multimedia (graphics cards, modems, and the first MP3 player) and blaxxun interactive, where I surfed the Internet wave; that ended in a wipeout. Since then I’ve been with Siemens, doing technical documentation and translations for cell phone and landline infrastructure. All of my former employers are either bankrupt or mere shadows of their former selves. It will take a bit longer to finish off Siemens. When we’re not working, we travel a lot. I still play chess and I'm in the local shooting club. Other hobbies and activities include astronomy (I have a small collection of meteorites), genealogy, history and current events, and helping to organize the Summer Language Institute for the University of Kansas. I’ve also taken over the organization of the dinner group where Resi and I met. Commuting with public transportation gives me plenty of time for reading and sudoku. I'm still fond of Los Alamos and return every three years. But life in “Old Europe” is good, so there's no need to envy those who've been lucky enough to stay in Los Alamos. I do miss (New) Mexican food, though. I look forward to that and to seeing my old classmates. Hey, it’s good to be back home again. Credit where it’s due: More Than a Feeling, Boston, 1976 Takin’ Care of Business, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, 1973 Cat’s in the Cradle, Harry Chapin, 1974 Back Home Again, John Denver, 1974 And why shouldn’t I philosophize a bit, too? I’ve been very lucky: born in the USA, grew up in Los Alamos, went to school at LAHS.... Since then, my friends and family have been a big part of everything that’s gone right. Whatever’s gone wrong has been mostly my fault. And sometimes things just happen... Back to Alumni

John Lucas

Spouse/partner: Therese (Resi) Hahn

Children: Juliana (16)

Executive Summary

My life since graduation has had two phases:

For the first 10 years, I sporadically attended college and drifted into full-time work in the software business. I lived most of that time in the San Diego area, either alone or with various college pals. The last 20 years have been quite different: I've been living in Germany, working as a translator for various high-tech companies; I’m with Siemens now. I live near Munich, in a big house with three wonderful women.

So many people have come and gone
Their faces fade as the years go by

Phase 1

After leaving LAHS, I spent all but a year of the time through 1987 in the San Diego area, studying and working odd jobs. I had three great summers living in Los Alamos and working at the lab. While still intending to finish college, I gradually drifted into a full-time job. Older, wiser people told me that if I did that, I’d never finish college. They were right.

So there I was, working in a PC software startup called Software Products International. Those were exciting times, a little like the Internet thing 15 years later but without the crash. I ran with a bachelor herd; contacts with the opposite sex were unusual and mostly unspectacular. Free time included hiking, camping, fishing, poker, collecting lizards and snakes (including a rattlesnake that I caught in my house).... No wonder the ladies weren’t interested. At one point, I put my junk in storage and moved into the office for a year. I paid off my college loans and haven’t been in debt since.

People see you havin' fun
Just a-lyin' in the sun
Tell them that you like it this way

The desert was great, and so was being able to go to the beach at lunch. But as the condo cancer metastasized and the freeways became increasingly sclerotic, San Diego gradually lost its appeal. My bachelor herd was breaking up as the guys got married or moved away. I needed a change. When the opportunity to work in the German office came up, I took it. I had never been out of the country before, except Vancouver and Tijuana. Now I regret that I never really visited Mexico while it was so close.

Phase 2

Within a few weeks I was in Munich. I already knew some German (thank you, Mr. Cernicek), and that was a big help in understanding the media. Verbal skills were another matter. In those early days, men speaking the local dialect seemed about as intelligible as growling dogs. But I caught on quickly and was soon involved in localization, the adaptation of our software to other countries and languages. The plan was to stay in Germany for two years and return to the States with “international experience” in my resumé. But stuff happens....

After about a year, I met Resi at a dinner group where locals get together to practice their English. She’s a nurse, and had just quit a teaching job to work at the local hospital where she gave gas to patients during operations. Now she works at a hospital in Munich, assisting in ear-nose-throat and cosmetic surgery. She’s active in a couple of local clubs that work to preserve traditional dress and customs, and her hobbies include some of the skills needed to alter and repair the fancy clothing. Improving her English and my German are also pet projects, and she enjoys traveling. San Francisco and Boston are her favorite American cities.

Juliana just returned from a year as an exchange student in Texas, something her parents always wished they had been able to do. Like her mom, Juliana is active in the traditions club. Other activities include folk dancing, climbing, shooting and playing dulcimer. She speaks fluent German and English (of course), and they say her French is very good too. Je ne sais pas. Next on her agenda is
driver's ed.

What I'd really like, Dad, is to borrow the car keys.
See you later, can I have them please?

I mentioned living with three women; there’s also my mother-in-law. She’s 83, a retired former furrier and shopkeeper. Her parents built our house, so now the fourth generation is living in it. “Oma” is 83, still in excellent health and doing a lot of work around the house and garden. She treats me like a king and feeds all of us very well indeed.

In the quest for a more successful employer, I left SPI in 1991 to try my luck with Borland, which promptly choked on an ill-advised acquisition. I freelanced for a while, and then came stints with Diamond Multimedia (graphics cards, modems, and the first MP3 player) and blaxxun interactive, where I surfed the Internet wave; that ended in a wipeout. Since then I’ve been with Siemens, doing technical documentation and translations for cell phone and landline infrastructure. All of my former employers are either bankrupt or mere shadows of their former selves. It will take a bit longer to finish off Siemens.

When we’re not working, we travel a lot. I still play chess and I'm in the local shooting club. Other hobbies and activities include astronomy (I have a small collection of meteorites), genealogy, history and current events, and helping to organize the Summer Language Institute for the University of Kansas. I’ve also taken over the organization of the dinner group where Resi and I met. Commuting with public transportation gives me plenty of time for reading and sudoku.

I'm still fond of Los Alamos and return every three years. But life in “Old Europe” is good, so there's no need to envy those who've been lucky enough to stay in Los Alamos. I do miss (New) Mexican food, though. I look forward to that and to seeing my old classmates.

Hey, it’s good to be back home again.

Credit where it’s due:

More Than a Feeling, Boston, 1976
Takin’ Care of Business, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, 1973
Cat’s in the Cradle, Harry Chapin, 1974
Back Home Again, John Denver, 1974

And why shouldn’t I philosophize a bit, too? I’ve been very lucky: born in the USA, grew up in Los Alamos, went to school at LAHS.... Since then, my friends and family have been a big part of everything that’s gone right. Whatever’s gone wrong has been mostly my fault. And sometimes things just happen...

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