Sometimes life's greatest lessons are taught by example.
The assignment for this first article of the new millennium is to write about my own personal hero. During my life and throughout my successful construction career, I have "looked up to" many people in many different fields. Some I know personally, such as Arnold Palmer in sports, my wife Joan in my great family and my late brother-in-law, Joe Rudy. Others I know through the history books, such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt in politics and many greats in the scientific world. Naturally there are many more, but my assignment is to focus on one person who is not a relative, but has had a major influence on my life and career.
That one person with the greatest impact has to be Bill Cuthbertson, who lives in Lakewood, N.Y. I've known Bill since 1955, and in all these years of unfailing friendship he has never once told me what I should or should not do, or criticized me if I made the wrong choice. From the beginning, Bill has accepted me just as I am. He was and is a living example of what I wanted to be: