24 October 2000 - Bob Witte ('82)

Life for me seems like a whirlwind lately. Sue and I have so much going on in our lives. Our oldest daughter was married in August - so we added a son-in-law. Recently married Jennifer is now back to U of I in Urbana to complete her last year at the Law College. Our oldest boy Shane, is staying at home and working while attending Columbia College - a fine arts school in Downtown Chicago. Ron is attending Western Illinois University in Macomb - he wants to be an Optometrist . Katie is eight, going on nine, and in the third grade - she's into soccer, piano, and dance. Our youngest pearl Kristen is three, turning four on November 1, and attending preschool two days a week.

So you can imagine that we have both low and high maintenance going on all the time. Sometimes the older ones are higher - as Jennifer was all summer long just prior to the wedding. The day went off just wonderfully and I have a new respect for brides and mothers of the bride in the amount of planning and effort one of these events can take. I did not remember our wedding planning being so intense. At other times it's the little ones time for care and feeding.

On a personal note, at this time I am Director of Engineering with CTS Corporation. Our branch of the corporation focuses on component design and manufacturing for the wireless handheld marketplace. We also just moved into a new building in Bloomingdale, Illinois. It's probably the neatest looking facility I've been in during my career. Anyway, we perform the majority of product and process design in this facility. We design into three manufacturing sites located in Taiwan, mainland China, and Singapore. So, besides my family life, I travel to Asia about once every six weeks for about one week at a time. I do enjoy the job challenges and like to change roles fairly frequently. This is my third position in about five years, so ... change is good. I expect that I will stay in this role for a little longer than my past growth experiences.

Again, good to hear from you and keep in touch.

Bob