Esoteric Quandary

Noushig is a friend and originally from Syria but of Armenian descent. The minority group migrated south to the desert after the establishment of what is modern-day Turkey under Attaturk. In this region, the community began to build their life up in the Arab world, and some like Noushig even assimilated into the culture and speech of the region. In 2011 during the times of the Arab Spring, the wor...

David Wallack is originally from NY and grew up in the Bronx near Yankees Stadium. He attended Columbia University in NYC and then was drafted as a Doctor for Vietnam under the Barry program.  After going through Officer Basic Course in San Antonio, Texas, David was assigned the Air Cav in Vietnam in 1968. After a year in Vietnam, David was assigned to West Point Military Academy to finish his two...

Mike and I span a friendship since the late '90s, and we have seen our careers take some very sharp pivots due to many factors. I wanted to talk with Mike because he is at the forefront of many situations living in the Bay area of California. On the one side of the Bay is SF and Silicon Valley, the epicenter of tech and innovation within the US. On the other side of the bay in Oakland and Ber...

Bob is an underachiever if I ever met one. Originally from North Chicago, Bob was accepted to MIT for electrical engineering but, after a few years, opted to switch his career field to medicine and moved back to Chicago to attend Northwestern since MIT at the time didn't have the field of medicine to study. After finishing his medical degree, Bob was drafted into the US Air Force and became a...

Ben Stein was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and moved to Westport, Connecticut as a teenager with his family. He found out he didn't do so well on a boat at the Naval Academy and opted to try out for the Marine Corp and went through Officer Candidate School (OCS). While serving on active duty, he was assigned to Okinawa, Japan, and was an Air Controller and also Maintenance Officer. After the serv...

Jack is Program Director/Professor for DU's Supply Chain Program at the Daniels College of Business and the Denver Transportation Institute. Our focus is the development of the 21st Century Supply Chain that focuses students, companies, and industry on structured problem solving, eliminating waste, and disruptive innovation to solve the greatest challenges in the world. The research is focuse...

Hal is a Korean war veteran from the Navy who had an interesting life in and out of the service. He is originally from the Pittsburgh area and was born in 1932. He played high school football and broke his knee as the starting quarterback but was still able to receive an ROTC scholarship at the University of Rochester. He then came into the Navy as an Ensign and was assigned to the USS Franklin Ro...

To say the least, Don Price is an interesting guy, and I had a great time getting to know him as a fellow veteran. Don is originally from Savannah, Georgia, and made his way to the Naval Academy in the 1970s with a direct assignment to be a Submariner officer at the height of the Cold War in the 1980s. His early childhood growing up and helping the family business in the South was particularly int...

This episode is with Mike Albrecht, a twenty-five-year veteran and fellow Green Beret who seems to have figured out his happiness and transitioned better than anyone I know from the military. Mike and I talked a little about his childhood, what motivated him to join the military, and why he wanted to be a Green Beret.  Since the military, rather than doing the typical route of government work, Mik...

Bernie Rogoff is a friend and former Commander of the Jewish War Veterans Poss #344 in Denver, Colorado. Originally from Lakewood, NJ, and a Korean war Air Force veteran who was initially part of the Army Air Corps. He served his time and returned to the family garment business that sold clothing throughout the US. A staunch patriot who has lived a full life and continues to help the Veteran and J...