FINDING PATHS INTO SERVICE Using Retirement to Make a Difference in Our Community
	JULY/AUGUST 2005

by Jeff Schults
Photos by Russell Byrne

I was born in the middle of an Iowa February snowstorm and began packing my bags to leave for sunny Northern California before I was three months old. Alright… I didn’t do my own packing, but I really was a resident of San Jose before I reached my fourth month of life.

Following high school graduation I had high ambitions for my life. Over ten thousand feet high, actually, because it was my big goal to be a member of a ski patrol at one of the Sierra ski parks. I landed a job with one of them, but I had a problem because at the time we were right in the middle of the big seven-year drought. A ski patrol actually requires at least some snow.

When January rolled around and I was still playing Nintendo and hanging out at the mall, my dad told me I needed to do something. The Iran hostage situation had just gone down and I figured we were going to go to war. I had serious objections to dragging a rifle through a bunch of foxholes so, in what seemed like a flash of genius at the time, I joined the US Navy. I ended up as a shipboard Communications Specialist working on radar, UHF/VHF, Satellite systems, etc. My military experience was a “four years and out” thing.

Finding a Profession and a Family
While I was in the Navy, Xerox invented Ethernet. The new technologies of networking and data communications were in the process of creating the most explosive marketplace in the history of U.S. business. I landed a job at Fujitsu-America, where I met my wife. She was the Admin Assistant for Fujitsu’s Senior Vice President of sales. As I was doing double-time pass the mailroom one day, I turned a corner and ran into Jan, who knocked me right on my butt. That’s how we met. “Behind every man is a good woman,” they say. I don’t know about that, but since marrying her I’ve had a good woman behind me, for sure. When she knocked me on my kiester, I fell into one of the best things that happened to me. I never once had any worries about my kids. Some people call it “domestic engineering,” usually with a smile. But the way Jan takes care of our home and our kids is more deliberately planned and rational than some of the actual engineering projects I’ve worked on in the past. It was great going to work with the assurance that my family was at home and my wife had the place running like a Swiss timepiece. The fact that Jan had everything under control at home was the only way that I could have been successful in high-tech to the extent that I was. I was able to focus on my job with a conscience clear of family issues.

I worked for a few of the Silicon Valley companies, including (among others) ASK, Radius Technology Corporation, and a little company called Cisco Systems. When Cisco hired me they gave me 1,000 shares of stock at 72 dollars a share and every year thereafter the stock went through a 2 for 1 stock split. During part of that time I worked in Cisco Sales with some of the greatest sales people that I’ve ever known. They taught me about tactical selling and team selling. They taught us to answer questions such as, “Who’s the decision maker? Who influences him?”

Things really took off when I became employee number 40 for Redback Networks, which got its name from the fact that the founders put the company together in Australia while drinking Redback Beer. I took the job as West Coast Sales Engineer. Making money was easy during those days for people in the middle of the telecomm boom. For example, as a bonus I once got an offer of 5,000 shares of stock for a dollar each, which I sold later when the stock was running about 500 dollars a share. Redback (RBAK) turned in one of the top ten best IPOs of all time.

I sold stock every opportunity I could. I was cashing in on the dot-com boom and retired from the industry January 15, 2000. By the end of the year the whole market had collapsed. (I wouldn’t be vain enough to suggest a connection.) Many people have a lot more money than we have but, on the other hand, we have more money than we can spend since we don’t want to buy an island or our own 747.

I was 39 years old and done working forever. I was still a type-A, however, because you can’t change who you are. I realized that I couldn’t spend the rest of my life (or even 10 minutes of it, actually) watching Oprah or MTV. Jan never actually said the words, “I love you around the house, but not around the clock,” but I knew she was moving in that direction. I needed to find something to do.

Retirement: My Own Faith-based Initiative
I decided to turn the transition into a genuine faith-based decision. I had spent my life preparing myself to do that. I had some pretty bad bumps and before age 25 I had hit bottom a number of times. During spiritually dark times I was in despair. The only thing that pulled me through some of those experiences was my faith in God. The tough times had the effect of instilling in me a genuine faith.

My parents had taught me about God, but I had to find out for myself what the truth actually is. I discovered that Jesus Christ is my Rock; He is what sustains me. I have always believed that my life has a purpose. I know that there’s a point to all the bad stuff that comes into our lives, even though it’s difficult, or impossible sometimes, to see what the point actually is. We only see in part, the Bible says. Someday we will understand things as they really are.

I joined the choir at the United Methodist Church and sang with the likes of Reddie Prewett, Vernon Noble, and Dennis Buckley. I focused my attention on the word “inspire.” The word means “to be in the Spirit.” I made it my goal to be in the Spirit so God could inspire to do something meaningful with the rest of my life. If you begin seriously to ask questions of God, He will begin to give you answers. The problem is that you then have to be ready to do what he leads you to do. What God led me to do was to devote myself to the role of community activist. Besides that, as a type-A person I figured I might as well be busy at something that will benefit everyone. Faith without action is dead.

I began working with a number of outreach programs, like Brentwood PAL and Pony Baseball. I became President of the Liberty Union High School Educational Foundation, Corn Fest, and the Rotary Club (both Brentwood and Delta). I also work with the Lions Club and was a Planning Commissioner. I work with Parks and Rec as an umpire and football coach. I was an active supporter of the Hospice “Tree of Lights” program that we ran for the first time last Christmas. I’m keeping myself busy.

Most of what I do in East County has been for children. The kids in East County cry out to me. I can hear them. I know how commuter families feel and know what it feels like to be stalled in commuter traffic when your kids have a ball game going on. Brentwood is a wonderful community, but some people buy a house in exchange for a commute. Latchkey kids are often on their own and their parents are two beep-and-crawl hours away. I also want my own kids to know that I’m concerned about their education. I know hundreds of kids at Liberty High School and want every one of them to succeed. I don’t care what they do with their lives; I care that they’ll be ok.

I’ve been active in Summerset Charities even though I don’t live there. Bill Hill found out that Summerset Charities had been raising money for causes outside the city. “You should contribute to local programs,” he told them. They began contributing to PAL, the Education Foundation, and to Johnnie Rodriquez’ “One Day at a Time” program. Summerset Charities’ big fundraiser is their golf tournament. They were going to cancel the event when the person who ran it was undergoing hip replacement. I couldn’t stand to see that happen so I ran the tournament for the next three years.

I became really concerned about trying to do something about cancer when my friend, Felix Golden’s, daughter, Dominique, came out of her third remission from leukemia. Dominique is the same age as my daughter, Rebecca. I felt led to try to help Dominique and her family. We began studying the problem and discovered there were other kids out here with similar problems. So we began working with the National Red Cross Marrow Donor Program Registry.

It turns out that six million people have registered their bone marrow type. People with leukemia who need a bone marrow transplant use this database to find a match. Five million of the six million are Caucasians. This means that white people have a better chance of finding a match than people of color, and Dominique is a mixed race person. So we mounted a drive targeted at registering ethnic minorities. Last year we found matches for three people who were dying of Leukemia, one was Dominique.

My passions these days are being focused upon the Relay for Life walk against cancer. This year I’ve had some close friends, outstanding members of the community, who died of cancer, so when I was approached for the Relay of Life, I answered the call.

My work in community development is carrying on the legacy of generations of East County residents who have gone before me, including such shining examples as Rose Pierce, Ed Prewett, Richard Fertado, and Bruce Ghiselli — some of whom are still reaching out to the community in many ways. The Lions Clubs, Kiwanis, Rotary, the Diversity Committee, etc. were all here before me. Pitching in to help the community is an old and wonderful East County tradition.

I see my activities as God leading me into things for His glory. I have to do what I can do to make a difference. I don’t accept, “We don’t do it that way.” “It has never been done before.” I’m doing good for the sake of the people in East County, for God’s sake, and for goodness’ sake.

If you want more information about getting involved in the community, call me at 925-890-8296 or email jschults@hotmail.com.