Before I wrote my first novel, I worked in the telecommunications industry. I retired after twenty-three years at AT&T as a systems engineer and technical consultant. One of the highlights of my AT&T career was having NBC as my client and receiving the privilege of designing the communications systems for the Olympics in South Korea in 1988. After retiring from AT&T, I joined Citibank as a Vice President of Information Technology at the corporate headquarters building at 399 Park Ave in New York. I designed Citibank’s mission-critical facilities and had the opportunity to expand Citibank globally. It was my good fortune that I became an active participant in projects in forty countries across five continents. I retired from Citibank after fourteen years, began my own engineering business, and published several technical papers, including “The Distributed Data Center”, “Universal Structured Cabling Systems” and “Global Solutions.”Traveling the world expands your horizons and if you listen carefully, you may learn many interesting perspectives from a diverse population. In 2003 I wrote my first novel, “Going for the Laugh”, a fictionalized story about a young man growing up in Brooklyn, N.Y. Many think it is autobiographical in nature, but I’ll never tell. I urge all my readers and acquaintances to write a story and leave it for your descendants to read and possibly learn something about “where they had come from.” As time passes by, and it does, more quickly than you can imagine, so many wonder about their past, and few have taken the time to ask their parents or grandparents. The family story is lost forever.Then, years later, I was inspired to write a story about an HOA (A homeowner's association). Originally taken from a real-life experience, it became a fictionalized account of characters that may have resembled some of those from the HOA. I’ll never tell. This first story, The Darkness at Decker Lake expanded into a series of four novels; The Darkness at Harborfront Village, The Darkness at Delancey Street and The Darkness: When It Comes for You.I found an old spiral notebook, something I had purchase in the early 1960s, when I was just seventeen. It seems I had jotted down stories of a poetic nature, relating to the era of the Viet Nam War and the environment and other meanderings of a youthful mind. I managed to decipher my own handwriting and rewrite these stories. Each poem is preceded by an explanation of its meaning and that is how the book “Mindful” was created.The joy I receive from my stories is not just in the writing, it is in the reading.Read more about this authorRead less about this author