Thursday, July 14, 2005

Brando retires

By Joe Whitefield
Secretary

Bob Brandolini recently submitted a list of items to sell on u-gear as he was retiring from umpiring. Scott Johnson asked me to put together a few words about Bob.

This was a pleasure inasmuch as usually it's due to the fact that the member has passed on and the widow is asking me to help out. But in this case, Bob is alive and well and is just retiring for good.

I can't recall when I first met Bob, maybe 15 years ago at least and for those who don't know him, he is a past board member and perhaps one of the most hard working Secretary this Association has ever had. Bob, Ken Sack and I were probably the most instrumental in converting our operations, assigning and financial systems to the computer generation. Bob was a good nuts and bolts man that could help put our thoughts into micro processing. In fact, today the Association is still in possession of his CD's which contains many of the early board minutes and how to get them to work.

Brando as we all knew him, retired from his work about 3-4 years ago, bought a little bungalow in Phoenix to facilitate his golfing all winter long. He has a summer residence in Roslyn so he has the best of both worlds. In the past year or two he would travel from Roslyn to the Seattle area to accommodate Leslie and her needs. Travel got to be too much recently so now the retirement is full time and hence, no need for the umpire gear. So, help out a former, gone but not forgotten, good umpire (an ex college umpire at that) and go to the U-Gear link and I'll bet if you're looking for a good Elbeco, you'll find one of his many.

Thanks, Bob for all the years and hard work you've put into for NBUA. Enjoy the 12 months of golfing and keep your head up. There is someone hitting into your group behind you and he may look familiar.

Joey