Peter Ulrich

I spent the majority of my years - to date, anyway - on the East Coast. Born and raised in Fairfield County, Connecticut, I grew up in the shadow of New York City and in the grasp of Long Island Sound. From high school it was on to the University of Delaware to study Electrical Engineering. After two years of too much fun and not enough studying and faced with the rumored end of draft deferments for students, I joined the Navy Reserves (This was 1969 and there was no way I wanted to get "Selectively Serviced" into the Army). By spring of 1970 I was on a charter flight to Saigon ("charter" aka "cattle car")

Serving in Vietnam was an interesting experience. I was stationed on a ship in the middle of the Mekong River. Our job: repair river boats and provide support for their crews. While I certainly do not wish such an experience on anyone, I found that it shaped my life in profound and lasting ways. Suffice it to say that daily exposure to the horrors and reality of war alters one's perspective on the value - and the fragility - of life. I left Vietnam one year to the day after I had arrived, but continues to influence me every day.

Shortly after I returned, I married my high school sweetheart and returned to Delaware to finish college. By June of 1973 I was legitimately employed with Hewlett Packard in Paramus, New Jersey, making real money, a contribution, and doing something I loved. I continued to do that for 30 years - initially in various East Cost locations, then relocating to Loveland in 1991. HP split off its Test and Measurement business into Agilent Technologies, and I went with the new company. Unfortunately, the magical days of the leadership of Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard had been replaced with professional managers - innovation and personal responsibility was replaced with cost accounting procedures.

My high school sweetheart and I outgrew each other and she did not accompany on my move westward, but we did have two wonderful children together and remain friends to this day. After a decade or so of the single life my soul mate and I found each other on the slopes of Vail and married the next year. Not too long after I was "right-sized" out of corporate America and started discovering the joys of working for oneself - short and simple decision making process, no unproductive meetings, easy to reach consensus. Then the opportunity presented itself to start a business that allowed my wife and I to work together and to . That was late 2006 and business continues to be "up and to the right."

I am proud to be a member of Foothills Rotary. I continue to enjoy to learn more and more about how Rotary contributes to the well-being of the world.

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