My name has always been a point of misunderstanding. I am legally Robert Eric Forberg, but my family has always called me Rick, Ricky when I was young. It was during the Ozzie & Harriet days when Ricky Nelson was popular on TV. I think that must have influenced my name, but not my “proper” name. Mom said that names should sound good with Doctor stuck in front of them, and Dr. Ricky Forberg didn’t sound as good as Dr. Robert Forberg. Talk about pressure to achieve!
I was born in Holland, Michigan on September 27, 1954. Breach! My parents lived in a home that my Mom referred to as "the little red house", but my first memories of home are of the house at 21 East 23rd Street in Holland. We lived there until I was about seven. I started school at Longfellow Elementary finishing Kindergarten and First grades there.
In 1961, my parents were building their dream house in a subdivision on the South side of Lake Macatawa called Larkwood. Because it was not going to be finished in time for us to start at our new school, and more likely because we had to get out of the 23rd Street house, we ended up in a summer house a block from the South shore of Lake Macatawa. This was a fun summer, being close to the water and living what I considered a "rustic" life, but I had second thoughts about that lifestyle when Sumer came to a close and fall temperatures began dropping.
Being a Sumer home, there was only a small oil stove for heat, and the un-heated bathroom was accessible only from the back porch. During the Sumer, My brother and I slept upstairs in the attic room, but now that it was getting cold, all the kids slept in the downstairs bedroom, closer to the stove. I still clearly remember having to go outside in what seemed to be freezing temperatures to get to that unheated bathroom. I can tell you, nobody spent any more time in there than they absolutely had to!
My older brother, my younger sister and I walked a mile to school from there. That’s a long way for three very young kids. I was seven going on eight, which made my brother nine and my sister six. We moved into our new house before any permanent snow and had a blast discovering the new neighborhood. I went from second through the sixth grade there in Larkwood on the lot carved out of apple orchards and farm fields, spending some of the most memorable years of my young life.
My dad had changed jobs and was driving to Grand Rapids every day. We found a home in East Grand Rapids and moved there at the beginning of the school year. My parents thought it best if I try the sixth grade over again figuring nobody would be the wiser since we were moving to a brand new school, and that was okay with me. School was fine, but I did have to modify some of my wardrobe to fit in with these future Yuppies or else I would have been ridiculed to death. The Hush Puppies and white socks were gone and penny loafers and double knit slacks were the order of the day. Whatever!
Summer was spent at the community pool, riding bikes, going to the neighborhood drug store for candy, and digging holes in the field. Junior High was seventh and eighth grade, and High School went so fast I hardly had time to get in trouble, but managed to anyway.
I found that I had enough credits to graduate early, so in January of 1973, I was outta there! I had better things to do, like work in a factory for $4.10 an hour. I saved about $600 dollars that summer and in the fall, quit the factory and took a trip to Florida where I blew most of that money. I came back and did a semester at Montcalm Community College in their Auto Tech course. I liked working on cars, and got all A's but couldn't see myself doing that for a career. So instead I got married.
Married life started with both of us unemployed. Our first house was a rental that we borrowed the first months rent of $75. I found another factory job and we promptly moved into nicer digs at an apartment complex, staying there until we both got caught in layoffs during the Oil Embargo days. It was February 1975 when I went into the Air Force.
Five weeks at Lackland AFB in Texas and this newly minted Airman is shipped off to Tech School in Illinois where the wife and I set up in an off-base apartment. Three months later we pack up and head for Goldsboro North Carolina where I spend the next three and a half years as a Crew Chief on a KC-135 tanker. Those were fun years where Patt and I tested our marriage, met some wild and crazy people, and just had a blast doing young adult stuff. We had our share of bad times too like all the separations due to the military duty, but I think Patt would agree, I remember more of the good times.
I received an Honorable Discharge from the Air Force in February of 1979, and we headed back to Grand Rapids. We got an apartment and I started working at a factory construction job. I thought about what I should do with my life and toyed with the idea of going off to learn the art of guitar making. I even got to the point of sending in some money to hold a spot, but the more I thought about it, the more I didn't see myself doing that as a career. I looked into Grand Rapids Junior College and decided to use my GI benefits to go through the Electronics program there.
I spent two years there working on my Associates In Electronics, finishing with good grades in 1982. I landed a job after months of hard searching with Revco Drug Stores as a Field Service Tech fixing the pharmacy computer systems in the stores. I did a lot of driving the next four years to stores all over Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois. Also during this time, we built our first house in Kentwood.
It was also during this time that I began investigating spiritual things. Patt had starting going to a small church and kept talking about the fun things they were doing. I wanted to know more about what she was into and started asking questions. Being kind of new in the faith herself, she had difficulty answering some of my questions, which doesn't surprise me since I can ask some bazaar questions. In an attempt to be helpful, she gave me the book "Mere Christianity" by CS Lewis, which I read and was really blown away. I thought that Christianity was for non-thinking losers that couldn't see how stupid they were. What I found was something really deep and mind boggling. Not at all stupid, but profound in every sense of the word.
I started attending a class with my wife at the church she was going to, and within a few months had enough answers and sufficient evidence of credibility that allowed me to make a commitment that would shape the rest of my life. I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and that the bible is Gods Word. If you don't, I would like to recommend that you seriously reconsider your position. Let me put it this way for you. If YOU are right and I am wrong, I spend my life attempting to be a better person, and in the end we both just cease to exist. If I am right and you are wrong, I will still spend my life trying to do better, but in the end will spend eternity in Heaven while you spend eternity separated from God, which when you think about it would be Hell! The sermon is now finished, but the story continues.
Patt and I attended Kentwood Community Church for about three years before the associate pastor announced that he was moving to Georgia to start a church. We went through a long decision making process before deciding to join this effort, and in July of 1987 we sold our home and moved to Lawrenceville Georgia. There were all kinds of new things to get used to. We moved into the fastest growing county in the country where construction was the norm and traffic jams were a way of life, but we had a purpose and were committed to making this new church work.
And we did work! There were only eight of us, four couples that were the core of Crossroads Community Church. We had our first services November 1st 1987 meeting in a local movie theater. For the next couple of years, we set up and tore down everything from stages, lighting, and sound systems, to nurseries and kids’ areas. It was a major undertaking until we finally built a building and experienced a growth spurt that none of us expected. The church grew and many people committed their lives to Christ. It was a very exciting and fulfilling time in our lives, but during that time, Patt lost a sister, I lost my dad, and in 1991 we adopted our first son. These things combined to create a yearning for renewed family connections, so we sold our house there and moved back to Michigan.
During our time in Georgia, I had studied to become certified in Novell networking which on our return to Grand Rapids got me a job in computers. This started the career path that I am still on today. That path winds through more Novell studies and certifications, Microsoft NT certification and finally Cisco certifications and a shift in duties to exclusively Cisco networking.
I progressed well in the technology which got me a job offer at the Cisco office in Grand Rapids which I accepted. Unfortunately, within months of starting with Cisco, the bottom fell out of the technology market and the dot-com bubble burst. It was 2001 and things were changing. Cisco let go 8500 people, me being one of them, and for the first time in a long time I found myself unemployed.
We had adopted our second son in 1996 so now had family responsibilities that I never had before, and I had not been without a job since before the kids were born. I hooked up with a guy that I had worked with before who got me a consulting gig while I trolled for a new full time position. I landed a position that started September 17th 2001; one week after the towers fell in New York. Considering the full time jobs I worked in 2001, the severance from Cisco, and the consulting time, that year ended up being the best year financially that I have experienced even to this day.
Over the next few years I worked a couple of positions at two different companies, getting caught in another layoff from my position as the Manager of Network Engineering, and taking a job a little too far technology wise from my desired networking field. I found a much better fit in my current position as Sr. Network Architect for Meijer in Walker Michigan (a Northwestern suburb Grand Rapids), having now about 25 years in IT. I work with a great team of engineers keeping the Meijer network up and running. Over my career, I have been certified by Microsoft (MCSE) and Novell (CNE) for OS work, HP and Compaq hardware trained, Cisco Certified Design Associate (CCDA), and Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA).
When I'm not working, I enjoy music, golfing, astronomy and good movies, and I am a Pilot of General Aviation aircraft. I also enjoy putting together web sites for things I am associated with. Other than this personal site, I manage sites for My wife's business Organizational Designs by Patt, and built the Kentwood Amateur Astronomy League (KAAL) site and ran a site for five years for my sons Cub Scout Pack until just this year. Movies are probably my main means of escape. There's nothing better than an old flick to remove one from the reality of the moment.
I have a lot of information about other aspects of my life on the INTERESTS pages on this site. Please take some time to check those out too. If you made it this far, hit the CONTACTS page and drop me a note. I'd like to hear from you!