Hello Everyone, It's time Again for The BEST New Forum at AdlandPro that Honors Members of Our Community;
WELCOME TO *ADLAND'S WEEKLY PARADE OF STARS*
WEEK # 22
This forum is fun, exciting, and is a much needed addition to the AdlandPro community because we are featuring many great and caring people that may otherwise go unnoticed. That is why our forum is a little different than other ones here at Adland that honor members of our community.
Our forum features a member of the AdlandPro community each week who is truly a bright and *SHINING STAR*. It is a person that may not necessarily be a "high-profile" person per say, but rather someone that is not only a great friend to many, but also has a good heart and truly cares about others.
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Let me introduce the most awesome group of team mates anyone could ever have! Not only are they my very good friends, but I also have the pleasure of working with them to bring this forum to all of you, each and every week;
Deborah Skovran http://community.adlandpro.com/go/debskovron/default.aspx
Alfred Delgado http://community.adlandpro.com/go/slendel/default.aspx
Donna S. http://community.adlandpro.com/go/rainbow123/default.aspx
Adebola Oni http://community.adlandpro.com/go/bolaoneal/default.aspx
Mohamed Gani http://community.adlandpro.com/go/Gani/default.aspx
Georgios Paraskevopoulos http://community.adlandpro.com/go/Genesis/default.aspx
and myself;
Marilyn L. Ali http://community.adlandpro.com/go/259882/default.aspx
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Here are the qualifications that will be used in the selection of each honoree. People that are selected will be recognized based on:
1. Acts of kindness that they show to their fellow man.
2. Must be willing to help others, and treat people in a kindly manner.
3. Have a good-hearted nature, and shows it through all that they do.
4. Must be a positive role model, and set a good example
5. Must be professional, avoids negativity, and promotes success through faith and hard work
So, if you know of anyone here at AdlandPro that are not necessarily "high profile" people per say, and that don't get the recognition that they deserve, let us know. We will be helping to get people recognized that should be *A STAR* All nominations must be in by Saturday and you please tell us why you believe the person deserves to be recognized.
Please send NOMINATIONS to one the following links;
Marilyn http://community.adlandpro.com/go/259882/Default.aspx
Donna http://community.adlandpro.com/go/rainbow123/default.aspx
When you get to one of our profiles, click on "Send Me A Message" and then send us the name of the person you want to nominate!
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Now it's time to find out who's going to be our next *SHINING STAR*!
Introducing Our 22nd *SHINING STAR* To You: RICK MARTIN
RICK a wonderful caring gentleman of this Community. Very supportive to his friends and leading a helping hand when needed. His interests include his family, the out- doors, hiking, walking on the beach, music, computers and works very hard with his business - Free Air LA and recently joined Dr. David King, as a VP WOSAT Executive. Come and honour this great man!! :)
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Here is what some of RICK'S friend's have to say about him;
"Rick has achieved much in his lifetime and he continues to keep on learning.I am proud to be his friend."
"Now here's a guy with a mind so totally amazing! Great story teller! A real wealth of life experience. I'm proud to call Rick my friend!"
"Rick is a great guy, and has had quite a life! He has been through so much in his lifetime and still has a great sense of humor just the same. I feel bad that he has had some lies told on him by someone trying to make them look and feel better about themselves, but God will help you prevail always! Keep on being the great person that you are Rick!"
"Rick is a man of high intellect, has a vast wealth of knowledge about so many things, a strong faith in God, and he loves his family. Rick is a person to respect and admire, and is an inspiration to us all. I am proud to be his friend."
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The Meaning of The Name RICK;
The name Rick > Richard The name Richard means "brave power", derived from the Germanic elements 'ric' "power, rule" and hard "brave, hardy". The Normans introduced this name to Britain.
To learn more about the name RICK please visit Georgio's forum at;
http://community.adlandpro.com/forums/thread/400864.aspx
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Here is RICK'S Bio:
A special thanks to you and your staff Marilyn.
I am very surprised and deeply honored that you have elevated me the level of “Star” in your “Parade of Stars” forum.
I have enjoyed the AdlandPro Pro Community since September 6th 0f 2005. It has become my favorite stop on the web and hearty thanks from all goes to Bogdan and staff for putting us first in all that they do.
I was the first born of Dick & Barbara Martin in Seattle, Washington in Harborview Hospital on July 27, 1950. My mother was the first baby born there years earlier. My mother’s maiden name is Bullock and Sandra Bullock is a distant cousin on her uncle’s side of the family. I don’t even know her though. That’s as close to stardom as I have been until now.
One would say that I had a normal childhood up until I was in the third grade. My parents both worked many years at the Boeing Company, my dad was a crane operator and my mother was a mechanic in prototypes. They also operated a janitorial service in their off times. My father took on a sales job about this time and had done pretty well in that we moved to a new home just a few short miles from where Billy Gates now lives. As time began to wear on it became apparent that the company he was working for was in ill health and he took to the bottle. Finally the government put a lock on their door and as a result we were forced to move into the housing projects on the other end of town as my parents couldn’t meet the mortgage. This was the beginning of a trend.
Life in the project was pretty much ok. My dad went back to Boeing and resumed his janitorial services and we prospered. When I was twelve we took a trip to my aunt Roberta’s dairy farm in Sacramento where my brother Michael, sister Gloria and I stayed while my parents went on to Hollywood. They must have had a good time there as nine month’s later my sisters, Laura and Lana, where born. Two are always better, isn’t it? Thank God that we were in a three bedroom project house by then. My sister was nine by then and we had our daily routine, what with both parents working and twins to care for. On the other hand we were always well cared for and had our skating and music lessons each week. My first love was my figure skating partner Elaine Berg and we competed locally for two years together until my family moved to the Wallingford area on the other end of town, Knowing how first loves go you won’t be surprised to find out that she hooked up with a guy I went to high school with named Rocky Fultz.
I attended Hamilton Junior High and was active in the photography club and print shop. During my years there I became quite good at dark room work and photolithography in the print shop. My music studies continued as I was in the school band and orchestra and I started learning country western on the guitar and keyboard. For my 9th grade science I built a basic oscilloscope from chassis and parts I bought from the army navy surplus yard. I got the schematic out of an old radio amateur’s handbook and was really happy when it actually worked and I received an A plus second place in the science fair. All in all life was good for all of us and we were still prospering.
I attended Lincoln HS a shorter walk just three miles from home. Buy this time I had sold my clarinet to a friend and was hot and heavy into the rock band phase of my life. The parents were still working nights and we had practice at least five nights a week and I am sure that the surrounding neighborhood had as much of the “Full House” as they could stand when we disbanded. On the other hand the sisters from “Heart” lived around the corner. lol While attending Lincoln I put most of my effort into the electronics lab and automotive shop. On the other hand I did my student service in the library AV Department. I of course graduated and was honored to compete in the statewide Chrysler Plymouth Trouble Shooters Contest with a partner named Stan Hoenie. Our team had won state and gone on to win nationals the year before. Stan had to redo the timing times causing us to miss first place by 23 seconds. None the less we both got some money and a set of tools. After our graduation Stan enlisted in the Marine Corps and died a short time later having thrown himself over a land mine saving several of his comrades. “Good Morning Vietnam” was calling and I took the deferment to go to college and flight school in Moses Lake Washington where there was a B52 base at one time.
I attended Big Bend Community College the fall of 1969 and shared a room with a guy that drove in from Florida in his 1957 Corvette. (The chick magnet. lol) Colonel Wright ran a tight ship and we spent our time taking a full academic load as well as flying school. The goal was a commercial ticket with IFR rating in two years. I did learn to fly and soloed cross country but during the 2nd semester I injured my leg on the soccer field and couldn’t fly. That was the winter to end them all. It was 50 degrees below zero for days, the snow and ice didn’t go away for weeks. I took my recovery leave at home and built myself up a bit and joined the Marine Corps. By then I had developed quite an attachment too my second love, Linda Friis, who worked at the Seattle Center on the games gay way and I had worked several seasons in a grab joint across from the base of the Space Needle.
Linda’s parents were cruise line workers on the Norway and she was born in the port of San Francisco (What’s an anchor baby?) and the family immigrated to the Ballard area. We did everything from boating, riding the Honda, cruising in my 63 Corvette and hanging out with her mother and grandmother. I grew to like the boiled coffee and got quite a view of another culture noticeably different from ours. Linda was that girl over there with white blond hair from head to toe and with that to die for smile. Life is great but Vietnam was calling.
Well today is the end of week six at the USMC Recruit Depot, boot camp and Linda wrote me that dear John letter. The training regime has taken over my life and to be honest I didn’t lose any sleep over it. Half of the guys in my group were from Chicago and were given the choice of the Marine Corps or the Slammer. They were quite a rag tag group but in the end our platoons set all time records in boot. I can here the judge now saying, “What is there about prison you don’t understand son”, but it ended in death for many of them on their tour in Nam. I on the other hand served as a navigator on a C130 flying all over the east coast, Caribbean, Trinidad, Panama and Puerto Rico to name a few. My job was to tell the pilot where to go and I never did tell him to set course for Vietnam. lol
The summer of 1969 I met my first wife Mary Ann Finch, who started working at the same job I had for several years at the Seattle Center Fun Forest. She was the new counter girl home from college for the summer. In the fall I moved to Pullman, Washington to be near her where she was a junior at Washington State and our relationship grew from there. We eloped a year and a half later to Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho and were lucky to make it the 100 miles back to Pullman in a blizzard. It started snowing while we were eating at Stuart Andersons overlooking Spokane Falls. Our trek home was aided by three high school girls that pushed our car past the ice in the driveway.
After Mary Ann graduated from WSU we returned to Seattle and a few months later we were invited to work with the Peace Corps in Zaire (Congo Africa for 2 years. So we packed up our stuff leaving all but 180 pound which would go to Africa with us. Our French language training took place on the Island of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. We were taught French in total immersion as the instructors spoke no English. After suffering on our own private beach, sailing, diving, dining and partying 7 nights a week we passed our Foreign Service language tests and we flew to Zaire two weeks later. We had ten days on Manhattan Island and did take in all the normal tourist sites while there. Our flight lasted sixteen hours with a stop in Senegal and on to Kinshasa the capitol city of Zaire. Life in the Congo it was like being thrown into a time warp. We were in a country that had fallen back in time and the infrastructure (i.e. roads, power and clean water) were disappearing. After they gained their independence in a long and bloody coup in 1963 they didn’t have the skills and money to maintain them. President Mobutu was the 8th richest man in the world and didn’t want for anything but his people didn’t have the necessary foods, water and employment to fulfill their dreams. Their main staple manioc root has no food value and the meat of the day is anything that moves.
I reorganized the mechanical division of their civil aviation administration. We managed the power and transportations needs at our 47 airports within Zaire whose land masse is about the size of the USA west of the Mississippi River. My division numbered 360 employees that provide daily transport of the 2400 RVA employees. Mary Ann taught English to student at the Salvation Army School and to Air Zaire employees. She still works with the Salvation Army but is an accomplished lawyer in Olympia now. Apart from our jobs we lived in a 7000 square foot house with a pool and acreage where we hosted Peace Corps Volunteers returning from the interior to take a break or more likely handle medical needs. The house came with my position and was maintained by a staff of four. We had a spread of chickens and fruit trees in the yard. Normally speaking we had 2 to 6 guests at all times so it was really like an oasis in the jungle for them and the stories were incredible.
My most memorable moment was the birth of my daughter Veronica Malaika in the Danish Hospital over looking the Congo River at 4:00am on December 18th 1974 and the perfect Christmas present. Shortly there after our tour was over and off to Kenya we were the three of us went on safari in a VW bug. We went on to Athens, Greece, Bonn, Germany and a quick stopover in London and on to Seattle. In the Congo it really didn’t drop below 90 degrees so we were freezing and decided to race home to our families’ for warmth and comfort. After all there was a new grandchild to spoil. It being late May summer was soon to come at last. After setting up house keeping in Seattle I was hired to work for the FAA at Portland International Airport.
FAST FORWARD
Life has taken a number of turns for me and I am staring down the barrel of a 357 Magnum at a roadblock just east of Winslow, Arizona at 4am on February 21st 1979 its 30 degrees and clear. Officer Lester Short had motioned me forward and I had come to a stop in the illuminated area between two patrol cars and now I’m staring down the barrel of his gun. I hit the power window switch and the window is coming down as the gun fires. Time stands still as the window explodes from the muzzle blast with chards of glass flying past me and I see the bullet ripping its way through the plastic laminate of the glass on its way. The bullet strikes me in the lower jaw blowing away 7 teeth and fracturing it into four pieces and it continues on to rest lodged in a bundle of nerves next to my spine. I was picked up by the force and propelled into my girl friends lap.
Barbara Jean Coulter and I were cruising down the road in a new Thunderbird on our way to ski in Lake Tahoe when we came upon the road block that fateful night. The roadblock had been set up to snare an armed robber and unfortunately they had let the real culprits through when Lester’s gun went off accidentally changing our life’s course as the police chief then invents a cover up. This was accomplished by having Lester rewrite his report to say that he fired because I was trying to run him over it didn’t matter that several witnesses were on hand when Lester told the chief that his gun “just went off”. So there I was a government employee in a travel duty status returning from an FAA school and now I am charged with four felonies and two misdemeanors for robbing a Whiting Brothers truck stop of $ 4.00 and hitting the attendant John Penry over the head with a revolver. Sure!
This battle lasted 6 years as I had several surgeries, won the criminal case costing $ 55,000.00, at four years the insurance company offered their insurance limits of $ 350,000.00 and apologized for the city of Winslow for the obvious frame up, Chief Maule, Lt. Spinks and Lester were charged with 144 felony crimes in the cover up causing the chief to end his candidacy for mayor of Winslow and Barbara died of a self inflicted drug over dose. In the end it took over a million dollars to get chief Maule but he and officer Spinks went to jail. Lester turned evidence against them and plead guilty for which he got 5 years probation. There were also a number of other Winslow police that were charged on other crimes they committed while wearing the badge. My best advice would be to avoid Winslow. God really was watching over me.
My New Life
After the Winslow Case I relocated to Lancaster, California and have work as a HVAC technician throughout in the Los Angeles area. Most of my work has been industrial commercial buildings and a hand full of movie stars homes. I have been pretty successful in this and have managed several large jobs as well. On the family side of this I have been married three times and have raised 11 children and all have been brought up in their faith of God and have attended church as a family. My faith was the teachings by my mother and the Baptist Church as far back as I can remember. I am lucky as all of my family is active in the church. We have all taught on Sundays and Norm and I have been on a number of worship teams over the years. I am not perfect but god has always been there right beside me as he is now.
WOSAT
Presently I am the Executive VP of Wosat and I am very excited as we are readying for a world wide launch of our product, Dipetane. In essence we are all equal partners and are setting up distribution center in five locations around the globe. I am both humbled and thankful to God, Dr King and all of the Wosat team for their work and confidence in seeing our mission through. There isn’t an hour of the day that without some one or a team working towards this launch. We started with 168 candidates and are now about 68 dedicated hard working partners. This is only the beginning of my new life and I can’t wait to see where we will go next.
A special thanks goes to all of my friends, Dr King, Mark Kross, Kay Reeve and her husband Denis, Alice Whyte, Mike Ward, Tim Southernwood, Carla Cash, Luella May, Shannon Bolin and her husband Barry, John Sanchez, La Nell, Larry Anderson, Steven Reid and so many others.
Alas I spend most of my time online, but I maintain a bit of truth.
Thank You,
Rick Martin
To read more about Rick's life please visit his "About Me" page;
http://community.adlandpro.com/go/290826/myBiography.aspx
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Let's all Congratulate RICK on being named this week's *STAR*. If you are not a friend of RICK'S please send him an invitation and become his friend today. Here is RICK'S link;
http://community.adlandpro.com/go/290826/default.aspx
I hope everyone will continue to support and enjoy our forum, and please take the time to NOMINATE someone that you would like to see be one of our *SHINING STARS*.
HAVE A GREAT WEEK!
GOD BLESS EVERYONE,
FROM *ADLAND'S WEEKLY PARADE OF STARS* TEAM!