Craft Talks, by Roger Schamp & William Zhang
Roger Schamp was born in Denver, Colorado. He is 72, and will celebrate his 49th anniversary with his wife Carol on June 14. He has lived in Rancho Palos Verdes since 1979. Roger retired as Chief Financial Officer of a small manufacturing company and is a retired Captain in the Naval Reserve Supply Corps. His family moved from the Bay Area to South Dakota where his father worked in a gold mine. He remembers the Freedom Train that traveled through Rapid City with copies of the Declaration of Independence, and a tornado that destroyed much of a nearby small town. Later his family moved to Butte, Montana.
He attended the University of Denver where he studied business and then got a law degree, but decided instead to concentrate on business and accounting. He remembers receiving a free ticket and press pass from his government professor to attend a speech and press meeting with then Senator John F. Kennedy, who Roger believes was the most charismatic person he has ever met. Other college memories included an unsuccessful effort to name a new dormitory “Alfred E. Neuman Hall” (after the MAD magazine character). He was the successful student campaign manager in a campus election. In 1959, he won an NROTC scholarship to the University of California at Berkeley. Roger met his wife, Carol, on his first day there. He enrolled in horseshoe pitching, and his team was invited to lunch by the retired Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, who led the Allies’ WWII Pacific campaign. Roger earned both his Bachelors and Masters Degrees at Berkeley and went into cost accounting and financial forecasting.
Roger has many more stories to share and tell. His hobbies are travel, trip planning, politics, conversation, and watching sports on TV. When football season arrives, we can expect happy bucks from him when his favorite teams win.
William Zhang has two professions, real estate and global business information technology (IT), and he spoke on security. He immigrated from China, is married to Julie and has three sons aged 17, 15 and 9. The older two are both on the debate team and the youngest is on the soccer team. William has been a soccer coach for many years for his sons’ and other teams.
Since 9-11, the federal government has spent $13 billion on cyber security. Recently, computers in Iran were hacked, and it may take them years to recover the lost or stolen information. Adware, Spyware, Grayware/Malware and Phishing are all forms of security breach into computers. Hacking can allow malicious virus to corrupt your computer email and programs. Much fraudulent activity requires vigilance; don’t open any email from anyone you don’t know. Even if you know the sender, pay attention to the subject line and do not click to open anything that does not appear legitimate. Watch for messages like “Congratulations, you just won…..” OR “Your click here will increase the speed of your computer…” Don’t be fooled!
Good prevention is to get automated updates of Norton or McAfee virus protection. Use private browsing on Firefox which does not expose your personal information. The best and easiest way to protect yourself is not to share your password with anyone, because you are responsible for any activities that occur under your name and password. Change your passwords and security codes every 3-6 months, using better variations, sentences, names from science fiction, literature or television. Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in the world. In 2012, there were 8 million US victims and 4800 businesses affected, with $500 average theft requiring 200-600 hours of consumer time to resolve. The most common involve credit card fraud, utilities/social security/date of birth/address theft, banking, employment fraud, government documents and benefits fraud and loan fraud.
If you have to freeze your credit, CALL, do NOT use your computer to request your file from any of the three credit score companies. Every 15 seconds there is spam email so invest in a spam filter.