Grand Haven Mens Golf Assoc.

Bob was born on August 14, 1944 on the Naval Operating base in   Norfolk, VA. On August 14, 1945, the Japanese surrendered. Bob doesn’t remember the celebration.

 

After his father got out of the Navy, the family moved to Rutherford, NJ where he grew up. He played Little League, Babe Ruth, high school and Connie Mack baseball. Baseball was his favorite sport. He has many fond memories of summer afternoons at Yankee Stadium and Ebbets field, running on the field and sliding into home plate. He continued playing softball for his company team even after retiring. He went to Siena College outside of Albany New York and graduated in 1966. After failing to gain admission into the Army due to an asthma condition, he joined Becton Dickinson & Company (at that time a small but growing medical instruments company) as an accountant.

 

Becton Dickinson has since become a Fortune 500 Company. With the advent of financial system software, Bob became a systems analyst and started installing financial systems for Becton Dickinson around the world.  Bob has installed systems in multiple locations in the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Spain, England, France, Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Australia. As a result of advances in software and technology, he has even replaced systems that he had previously installed. Business travel has earned him many frequent flyer miles which he and his wife, Carol, used for leisure travel to many US and foreign destinations.

 

It was at Becton Dickinson that he met his wife, Carol, and they were married in 1983. Every year they would travel to the Daytona Beach area to visit Carol’s parents in Port Orange. It was on one of those trips that they discovered Grand Haven.  In 1999, Palm Coast was too isolated and undeveloped so they passed on purchasing property at that time. However, on a second visit in 2001, they decided to buy a lot. After Bob retired in 2003 and Carol in 2004, they moved to their new home in Grand Haven in July of that year.

 

Bob never had much chance to play golf until he retired. He decided to join the club and has been a member of the MGA since 2004. Carol is not a golfer but has been very active in the water aerobics program and, in fact, instructs classes at the Village Center. Carol also plays Mah Jongg and volunteers at our local hospital. They both volunteered at the Daytona 500 and Bob has been volunteering at LPGA events for about 15 years. They spend their summers at the Jersey shore:  “Oh those Wildwood days.”   It was on July 24, 2013 at 12:53 PM that Bob had his one and only hole-in-one at Avalon Golf Club in Cape May, N.J.

 

They have made so many friends at Grand Haven that rarely can they go out and about without running into someone they know. They love living in Grand Haven and have never looked back after moving down from New Jersey in 2004.