Ronald E. Mills – 50th Reunion Essay

Ronald E. Mills

322 Juniper St.

Florence, OR 97439

RonMillsPhD@gmail.com

541-991-0262

Spouse(s): Lesley Mason (1968), Nancy Harms (1987), Rhonda Butler (2006)

Child(ren): Gwen (1974), Derek (1977)

Grandchild(ren): Bevin (2008), Garrett (2011), Vivienne & Quinlan (2016)

Education: PhD, Yale 1978

Career: Software developer, health care applications

College: Morse

Who among us has not looked back on events in their lives and thought, “If I had that to do again, I would have behaved differently”? For me, those seem to cluster around the years at and just after Yale. Some of that concentration is due to an event about 15 years ago: annoyed by the embarrassing way in which the Yale Corporation was treating (and still treats) its UNITE HERE employees and graduate students, I stopped giving, stopped going to reunions, stopped admitting that I had Yale degrees. However, the net result of all those wrong decisions has been remarkably right—a perfect life with Rhonda here on the Oregon coast, retired after 50 years of health care software development but still working part time for 3M, two successful children, grandchildren, playing outdoors in our little patch of Oregon forest (RandRtrees.com), and carrying the Yale Alumni Magazine directly from the mailbox to the recycle bin.