ALLEN LERCH

Yes, many years have passed.  I never dreamed the path that I went through.  After graduation I worked one year at Lentz Motors on Main Street in Northampton.  Instead of waiting for the draft, I joined the Army for three years to go to drafting school.  But as luck would have it, the school was full.  They said I have a mechanical aptitude.  They sent me to heavy equipment maintenance and repair school for six months at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.  It was a critical MOS (military occupational status).  They kept the top five men with the highest score to be instructors in the school I just went through.  This kept me in Fort Belvoir for the rest of my three years in the Army.

After the Army I got a job with Mack Trucks as a mechanic.  This lasted for 18 years.  During this time I got to know the manager of service training at corporate headquarters in Allentown.  Mack had five training locations, one of them near Atlanta, Georgia.  When the instructor retired in Atlanta, they asked me if I was interested in the job.  To make a long story short, I said yes.  In June 1986 Mack moved me and my family to Georgia.  For the next 19 years I was the instructor of their training school near Atlanta.   On July 1, 2006, I retired from Mack with 37 years of employment.

In August 2017 I will be married for 50 years.  We have two sons and nine grandchildren.  I never dreamed that my life would have taken this path, but it has been a wonderful one.