Over the years AIS has seen many a romance. Some have lasted, some have not, but of course all have been meaningful for the people involved, helping us shape our lives.
Here's a "how-we-met" story from Lisa (Balliett) McCready (employee # 100) on how she met future husband Eric McCready (employee #120) when AIS was up in Crestline.
The "Walt" she refers to in the story is Walter Nunes (I think his employee number was 101). Sadly, Walter passed away in October 1997, several years after he left AIS.
"While mapping for long hours, we often needed to focus at a distance to give our eyes a break. This was the summer of ’82. Walt began noticing a man and his dog running by the window at AIS.
Walter knew I was a runner and he would look up and say 'Hey Lisa, there goes the cute runner and his dog!! Get outside and meet him!' Pretty soon I got to watching for him as well. Boy did Eric have a pair of giant calves back then!!
I just lived up the street from the old AIS building in Crestline and about a week later, I was coming back from a run and Eric was just heading out, when we literally ran into one another. It turned out our driveways touched. I called out 'Hey do you live there?' That kind of took Eric by surprise as he couldn’t figure out how I knew him. Little did he know I’d been watching him out the window for days.
The rest is history. We went out together later that week, Eric trained me for my first marathon, and later Eric started working at AIS to help pay for the classes he was taking down at San Bernardino. He mainly worked with Ed mapping the infrastructure of L.A. Walter had such a big heart for Eric and I. Without his coaxing, we may never have met each other.
After we married, I worked at AIS for about 3 more years and finally replaced work with kids about the time Eric started teaching math.
Gretchen (Stangl Charlton) helped coach me in the birth our first son Nathan and Sue (Ross Rohde) filmed our son Josh’s birth in Vegas. "
Thanks for sharing this, Lisa! We look forward to seeing you and Eric at the reunion.
Anybody else with an AIS romance story to share? Send it in!
Click here to download the form for reunion - there's still time!