1990s

This was a decade of transition for sure.

It started with me unemployed, living unhappily in Shorewood MN. Kyle was 5, Lance just 3. I was still recovering from a severe bout of depression that landed me for a week in Feb 1989 in a Minneapolis hospital in the suicide watch wing.

In August of 1990, Liz filed for divorce and moved with both kids to Chicago to start her new job with Sears. I was left behind to fend for myself.

I moved into an apartment in nearby Eden Prairie and was finding part-time work here and there. New Venture Review, American Harvester, LaserMaster, and Executrain were a few of my clients.

But it was the church with the large steeple on the top of the hill that got most of my attention – Wooddale Church. I started attending by myself and was captivated by the sermons of Sr. Pastor Leith Andersen. I then started playing basketball with Brian, one of the Assoc. Pastors.

It was Brian that convinced me I needed to move to Chicagoland to get closer to the kids and attempt to reconcile with Liz. He also said I should check-out Willow Creek CC as he was hearing great things about it.

The rest, as they say, is history. I started working for the Willow Creek Association in June 1992 and Liz and I were remarried in Jan 1993. My job at the WCA was the most fulfilling of my life and, as it turns out, the last paid job of my life.

Once we moved into Ettl Farm in May 1998, I stopped working remotely and trained myself to trade stocks which I continue to do to this very day. I now know I was born to trade and probably should have been doing it my entire professional life.

Welcome to the decade of Willow Creek and Trading.