Sandy (Lynn) Simonson

Let's see . . . I went to Arizona State and got my bachelor's degree in Business Management with an emphasis in HR. I had a serious relationship with an insecure turd who turned into a stalker. I graduated and got a REAL JOB, working as a personnel coordinator for the University of Phoenix, which school I deemed too inferior to attend for a master's degree, though it would have been a LOT cheaper, but hey it wasn't my money so who cares, right? After an on again off again relationship with a coworker, I took the leap into technology HR and worked at Microchip, where I met my future ex husband. Two kids, three jobs, and three houses later I decided he would in fact be my ex husband. I worked at Rural/Metro in Scottsdale for awhile before landing at Bank One/Chase, both in HR.

At that point, I went back to school at ASU and got an MBA, which was quite a challenge with two kids and a high maintenance husband, which ultimately landed me in divorceland but with a great job at Honeywell as a Director of HR. But, the pace was just too intense for a single mom, so two years ago I was extremely fortunate in landing a job at Troon Golf as the SVP of HR. In this job I've been lucky enough to travel to exotic places whilst picking my kids up by 5:30 most days. And hey, its free golf, which is quite a benefit even though I don't like golf that much. Cause hey, there are lots of cute guys who do.

So, in between all that, I've retained my interest in being a pretend lawyer, which I get to do a lot in HR, and I still love to read. But my favorite pastimes are travelling and exercise. I've done a couple half marathons and a couple adventure races and sprint triathalons. I tore my ACL skiing a couple years ago and had surgery and the whole bit, but have been back at it this past year. Also, I lost my religion and left the Catholic Church as well as the Republican party. My spiritual inspirations nowadays are Sue Monk Kidd and Elizabeth Gilbert, both authors who blazed their spiritual journeys outside of organized religion and embraced the divinity that resides within all of us and connects to the rest of the world.

I love being a mom to my two kids, Kailey is 11 and Jake is 9. Seeing them grow has been an inspiration and I feel lucky to be their mom. Every day they make me laugh!

I'm surely not the girl you knew 20 years ago, or even 10 for that matter. Frankly, I'm comfortable in my own skin these days, which certainly cannot have been said of me back then. Most importantly, I've found happiness. I hope that can be said of all of you, and I look forward to seeing everyone at the reunion!!