Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2021 15:47:19 -0500
From: "Fiksel, Joseph"


Here is a brief summary of my personal life. (Henry was kind enough to post my
professional biography on his web-page.)


My days at OHS were stimulating and fun, but I think I was pretty immature and
had a protracted adolescence. My parents moved to Miami immediately after
graduation, so I lost touch with almost all of you good people. I joined a
fraternity at MIT, and managed to get decent grades despite the partying and
other distractions. Moving to California for grad school was a revelation, and I
fell in love with the Bay Area eventually moved back there with my wife, and our 3
sons were born there. But I get ahead of myself.


After earning a Ph.D. in operations research (O.R.), I took a position at
Concordia University, and lived nearby. Discovering downtown Montreal as a young
adult was fantastic, and I acquired a new group of friends. Then one summer I
decided to take a trip around the world, stopping in Hawaii, various parts of
Asia, and Europe. I met my wife-to-be, Diane (an American Jew), on a street
corner in Hong Kong, and this was a turning point in my life. We got married in
1978 and settled in the exciting Boston area where I got a job in the O.R.
department of a great consulting firm Arthur D. Little. (This is where I began to
specialize in environmental risk management and corporate sustainability.) We
waited 11 years to have children, so we had lots of opportunities to take exotic
vacations. Diane had lived in India and we traveled there frequently (Udaipur
was our favorite city).


In 1985 we moved to Silicon Valley, where I continued to work in research and
consulting while Diane worked for Fidelity Investments. However, despite the
attractions of California, the cost of living and the impoverished educational
system were a big negative, and in 1996 I accepted a job at Battelle, in
Columbus Ohio. We were able to raise our kids on one income, and they received
an excellent education. (They are all thriving now, scattered in different
cities, but no grandchildren yet.) Columbus was a bit of a backwater after
Boston and the Bay Area, but I did flourish professionally. In 2005 I decided to
rejoin academia, launching the Center for Resilience at Ohio State University.
This was a satisfying way to cap off my career, and I finally retired in 2018.
We moved to DC, which is a wonderful city to live in multicultural and
intellectually active. I still work on occasional projects, and I developed an
on-line course that is offered through George Washington University.


Nowadays we are hunkering down in Chicago, helping out Diane's dad who is
approaching the age of 100. He is also a former professor, and still mentally
sharp albeit physically challenged. It has been a traumatic year in the U.S., as
you know, so we are waiting patiently for a time when we can travel, dine out,
go to theater, etc. I still have relatives in Ottawa and friends in Montreal,
and I hope to visit when it becomes possible.


Peace and good health to all of you!


Joseph