PEEKS [Persona] Bowling for Brentwood Jim is the 2007 Brentwood Citizen of the Year. He tells the story of his life and passions. And we understand why he is richly deserving of the honor. May 2007

Jim Wangeman

I retired in 1993, and became completely bored with daytime TV and golf. I developed a dream to build a bowling center in Brentwood. So now I’m the proprietor of Brentwood’s Harvest Park Bowl, and I’m having a great time!

I’ve been a member of Rotary for 33 years and have maintained a perfect attendance record. The ideals of Rotary provide values that I try to live my life by. We Rotarians are supposed to apply a Four-Way Test of the things we think, say, or do:

First: Is it the truth?

Second: Is it fair to all concerned?

Third: Will it build goodwill and better friendship?

Fourth: Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

The test provides the standard by which I try to conduct the affairs of my business and personal life.

My passions push me beyond passive responses to the test, however. My mission in life is not merely to avoid causing harm but to pay forward to others from the good things that have come to me. I’ve been doing that most of my adult life.

From Darkness Towards a Light

My childhood years weren’t easy. I contracted polio when I was seven years old and spent six nightmarish weeks inside an iron lung. I can remember the awful pain in my legs and recall the horrors of that confinement. However, I’ve suppressed all other memories from those dark days.

The experience inside that shiny coffin gave me a terrible case of claustrophobia that I have to this day. I would rather die than ever take an MRI because the experience itself would kill me.

One reason why I’m so heavily involved in Rotary is because one of its main missions is to eradicate polio worldwide, which of course appealed to me as a polio survivor. As of June last year Rotary had paid more than $595 million into a program of global polio eradication — disbursing $24.9 million just in the past two years.

Approximately 1.2 million Rotarians in 32,000 Rotary clubs are scattered among more than 200 countries. We all support the Rotary Foundation, which is now the largest in the world. Besides polio eradication, Rotary is involved in such things as the Wheelchair Foundation that has given wheelchairs to disadvantaged people in 144 countries.

The Rotary Foundation is also involved in programs that provide prosthetic hands, plus cosmetic surgery for cleft palates and burn victims in third-world countries, and has spent more than $74 million to support 278 Health, Hunger, and Humanity projects.

Just in the past two years Rotary has:

1. Paid $14 million dollars in scholarships to 731 students from 59 countries

2. Paid $4 million to support 25 university professors to teach development in 19 third-world countries

4. Contributed $2.9 million to support scholars in six Rotary World Peace Centers

5. Given more than $2 million in disaster relief

Rotary sponsors a group-study exchange whereby thousands of kids from other countries come to America every year while we send our students to foreign countries.

We have a high-school program called Interact through which Rotarians support and guide high school service projects, and Rotaract, which is the college-age equivalent.

Every year our local club presents a free dictionary to every fifth grader in Brentwood public schools. We also prepare meals for various local nonprofit events.

These are only some of the things Rotary is doing internationally and in our Brentwood community.

An Impetus to do Good

I came by my impulse to return to the world from the things I have received through a terrible event in my life. My dad was a Los Angeles police officer. When I was nine, my dad died of gangrene from a leg that had been crushed between a train and an automobile while pursuing a felon.

Some unflattering things have been published about the LAPD, but those officers showed themselves to be a true band of brothers by the care that they gave to me, to my two brothers, and to my mom after my dad died.

Mom was sickly and unable to work so those guys provided for us. They gave us their time, as well, taking us boys to sporting events and making sure we were okay.

We eventually moved to Redwood City to escape the LA smog as a protection for my mom’s fragile health. She died of a massive heart attack during my senior year of high school.

I entered the military service in 1956 and married my first wife, Sharon, the next year. During the birth of my first daughter I was stationed in Guam and didn’t see her until she was a year old. Lori needed braces on her legs, which would have been impossible on my soldier’s pay, but the Crippled Children’s Fund took care of all the expenses.

After mustering out of the service in 1960 I went to work doing field accounting for PG&E. Sharon didn’t work and we couldn’t live on a single income, so besides my fulltime job at PG&E I was also working fulltime as manager of a San Jose bowling center.

During my free time I was performing various charitable activities. For one thing, the PG&E’s Employees Association needed a Santa Claus, so for 12 years I was the guy in the red suit and whiskers, distributing toys to needy children.

My “Ho! Ho! Ho’s!” were convincing for any six-year-old!

The world of bowling was always a real passion and, as Regional Manager for American Recreation Centers, I became responsible for 11 bowling centers in Northern California. Sharon and I grew apart and divorced in 1973. I met a woman who was a member of a local bowling league — so she had good credentials from the start. Anne and I courted for a year or so and married in 1975. My ex-wife Sharon also got married to a great guy.

The four of us, exes and second spouses, all have good times together. Just because you can’t live with a person doesn’t mean that you should stop being his/her friend!

Harvest Park Bowl

Following my abbreviated retirement, I became general partner with seven limited partners and in May 1994 we began construction on the 32-lane Harvest Park Bowl. We officially opened for business on December 28, 1994.

The new bowling center had to endure more than the usual start-up costs and growing pains, and we came close to closing the doors in 1996. I put some more of my own money into the venture to keep it going. By the end of last year, however, Harvest Park Bowl had become one of the most successful bowling centers in the country.

Things began taking off when we brought the PBA (Professional Bowling Tour) to town in 1997 and 1998. We were on Nation-wide TV, which generated a lot of recognition for us. In 1999 we switched to the PBA National Senior Tour. On July 1 of this year Harvest Park Bowl will host its eighth National Senior Tour event.

I’m proud of our bowling center! The place is clean and well lighted. Also, we’re completely computerized. Not only is the scorekeeping automatic, but when little tykes get up to bowl, bumpers automatically shield the gutters and then uncover them again for the adults.

The machines that oil the lanes do so under computer control, making special adjustments for professional play that we would never use for amateurs.

About 4,000 people come through our bowling center every week — most of them families. We have three-year-old bowlers and at least one who is 93. Our leagues are pretty evenly divided age-wise: 30% are kids, 30% seniors, and 40% active adults.

The center’s dÈcor reflects the community. A giant mural on the sidewall of Lane 32 shows Brentwood corn growing beneath clouds that are forming into the shapes of a bowling ball and pins. A mural on the Lane 1 sidewall, on the other hand, shows wineries with bottles lined up like bowling pins and a ball careening through a vineyard and knocking them down.

Masking units above the pin setting machines display pictures taken from Mount Diablo showing the whole valley. People who see it for the first time often go “Wow!” They can tell right away that they’re in a fun and classy place.

On Friday and Saturday nights from 10:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. the center changes into its “Brentwood Rocks” mode. We play music videos on large screens that drop down in front of the masking units. The kids can have a great time bowling or dancing. We also do the Brentwood Rocks thing on weekend afternoons and for birthday parties.

Our center is a real destination. Forty-two-inch plasma screens in our Sports Bar can simultaneously display as many as eight different athletic events.

We’re trying to raise the quality of bowling centers everywhere. I’m a member of the “20 Group for Bowling Proprietors.” We’re setting benchmark standards for bowling centers across the country by specifying revenue- and profit-per-lane targets, detailing expense-control techniques, etcetera. We cover all the pieces of the profit and loss puzzle.

Bowling for Brentwood

My desire to pay forward from the good things given to me is involving me in a number of local activities. Back in 1998, when Larry Shaw was chief of police and Mike McPoland was mayor, the three of us founded PAL (Police Activities League), and I’ve been president ever since.

I’m on the Board of Trustees for Sutter Delta, and sit on the Boards of Directors for a number of organizations including REACH, Rotary, and the Northern California Bowling Proprietors. Harvest Park Bowl is considered to have the number one youth project in California. We started a Harvest Park Youth Program, which has grown tremendously over the decade of its existence. Through the end of last year the program had given young recipients a total of more than $120,000 in youth scholarships.

We insist that candidates maintain good grades before receiving a scholarship and monitor their academic performance during the years they receive payments.

We have also joined with 104 other bowling centers to create a program called Youth All-Stars in Northern California that awards college scholarships to deserving young people. The organization selects scholarship recipients based upon ability, classroom attendance, and grades.

The program has given scholarships to 100 young people so far, 13 of whom came from our own Harvest Park Bowling Center.

Right now I’m living a dream. I had a vision for this community and the area growth has enabled me to put together a very successful business, which provides a base for my other activities. Anne and my kids give me total support. My staff at the bowling center is wonderfully supportive, as well. They tough it up and do a great job for us. I can’t thank them enough! It feels good to be running my business and to be giving back in all the ways I’ve been doing. I guess this is as retired as I’m going to get!

For more information about Jim Wangeman or Harvest Park Bowl, go to www.harvestparkbowl.com. 925-516-1221.