I met Joe online at Classmates.com. I had graduated a year before him, even though we were the same age. We went out occasionally and became good friends. I do movie extra work. Joe joined me on a Sunday video shoot in Goleta where we filmed a "Walk of Shame" for a production company run by Brent Paella. We had such a happy day together. Please go to the website to see Joe trotting down the street.

[From a biography of Joe written in 2007, when he received the Hiram Award from Southern California Lodge #529, F amp; AM] Joe was born and raised on the east side of Los Angeles where he spent most of his early life. His family moved to the San Fernando Valley in 1941, when there were more orange trees then people. But because of the war they had to move back in 1942 to City Terrace, the Beverly Hills of the east side. After the war they moved to the west side where he graduated from John Burroughs Junior High and Fairfax High School. Days after he graduated the Korean War broke out, but Joe did not do anything exceptional that year except meet a valley girl named Debby at a party. The following June he joined the Navy to beat the draft, some of his friends joked that he did it to get away from the wild life he was having with Debby. But in boot camp in San Diego he broke his leg and that got him weekend leaves where things seemed to heat up even more between him and Debby. After his leg healed he was sent to Electrician's Mate School in San Diego. And on leave he proposed to Debby on December 26, 1951 and to his surprise she said yes. So on February 16, 1952 they got married at the "Valley Community Jewish Center", this was also the day he found out that Debby's real name was Helen. After a three day honeymoon in San Diego Joe took his bride back home to North Hollywood (It seemed she didn't like being left alone all day while Joe spent the day with the boys on the base). When Joe graduated from Electrician's Mate School he was assigned to the LSMR 412 and in June 1952 the ship was sent to Korea for a year. The Captain of the 412 trying to run down a rock a thousand yards off the North Korean coast and almost sinking the ship was not the most memorable thing he remembers that year, it was the birth of their first son Kenneth, when Joe was off the east coast of Korea in a convoy of 68 other ships. Ken was seven months old when Joe first saw him in 1953. David their second son was born on the 4th of July, 1954, Joe was home on leave at the time but Debby and her mother had to find him on the way to the hospital otherwise he would have missed David's birth too. (Joe was at a coffee shop having breakfast with Debby's father) After leaving the Navy in 1955 Joe spent a year going to Valley Junior College during the day and working nights at Lockheed, were he work on the F104 Star Fighter production line. He said that he must have done a pretty good job there because one of the F104's he helped build is still in the air. It is hung on cables at the Smithsonian Space Museum in Washington DC, it's there because the "F104 was the first supersonic, production line, aircraft". Going to school days and working nights just did not seem to work out so Joe quit Lockheed and went to work for IBM, he though it meant Itsy Bitsy Machine Company. You know the Company that put holes in paper cards to count things with. It was a year to the day after Joe went to work for IBM that Cathy was born: August 13, 1957. This time he was there to take Debby to the hospital, all three times!!! After many years installing, servicing and repairing machines from the old card punch machines to third generation computers, IBM asked him to become a programmer and then in November 1973 IBM sent him to Raleigh North Carolina but wouldn't even tell him why he was going there. It turned out they wanted him to help work on the development of the Super Market Scanner and Retail Department Store Systems - then an industrial secret. After 7 months he came back and worked with Ralph's Market to install the first scanner checkout system in the United States in November 1974. He also installed the first retail systems at Robinson here in Los Angeles and Nieman Marcus's Flagship store in Dallas Texas. After that he became a Systems Analyst developing and maintaining an IBM information system network of over 3000 PC stations that covered the Western United States from Albuquerque New Mexico thru to Southern California and on to Hawaii and Guam. He retired in 1989 from IBM after 32 years. Debby has been asked many times how she was able to put up with Joe all these years and her answer is, Joe has always gone on one or more trips every year giving her a break. First in the Navy going to Korea and then with IBM he was always going on trips for business or training. He was away so often, that not only did he miss the birth of his own first son when he was in Korea but he seemed to set a pattern and missed the birth of two of his grandchildren: Melissa, Ken's daughter when he was in Chicago and then the birth of Jason, David's son when he was on an assignment in upstate New York. He did make Eric's and Michael's birth. Cathy had warned him that she would tie him up if he tried to go out of town when Michael was due. Being a traveling man this made him a natural candidate to become a Mason, so on February 24, 1982 at Home Lodge #721, Meyer Levine raised Joe as a Master Mason. And he has been an active Mason ever since. He walked the hot sands of the Shrine in 1984 and was a charter member of North Valley Shrine Club when in December 1985 Tom Boles, Al Malaikah Potentate, gave them their Charter He was President of North Valley Shrine Club in 1996 and has been its Secretary -Treasurer since 1997. He also joined the Los Angeles Valley of the Scottish Rite and immediately joined Al Malaikah Shrine. Joe has been involved in many Al Malaikah Shrine activities, he is a member of Al Malaikah Outer Guard. Joe has not missed a Shrine Football game since seeing John Elway played in it as a high school senior. Joe was Financial Director of the Al Malaikah Shrine Cal-Tex Game in 2001 and was responsible for all the receipts and payables for the Game. He was Managing Director for the Game from 2003 to 2006. For many years he has chaired the Masonic Youth Halloween Dance for Al Malaikah Shrine. He has worked the Midway for every Shrine Circus since North Valley Shrine Club has run a booth on the midway. He joined Southern California Lodge #529 in 1995, where he has served as Lodge Marshal, Steward, Treasurer and has been Treasurer of the Westchester Masonic Building Association for the last 10 years. And has been the Lodge Secretary since 2002 He says that being a member of Southern California Lodge has been one of the best experiences in his Masonic Life. The members here have really taught me the values of Masonry and their friendships have helped me as a person to develop as a Mason.