Greg Bell's Biography

• 1958 - (January) Born in Seattle, Washington. Raised in Bellevue (across Lake Washington).
• 1963-1964 Attended Kindergarten at Phantom Lake Elementary (Bellevue, WA)
• 1964-1968 Attended Saint Louise Catholic School grades 1-4 (Bellevue, WA)
• 1968-1970 Attended Stevenson Elementary School grades 5 & 6 (Bellevue, WA)
• 1970-1973 Attended Highland Junior High School grades 7-9 (Bellevue, WA)
• 1973-1976 Attended and graduated from Interlake High School (Bellevue, WA)
• 1976-1980 Attended various local community colleges (Bellevue, Everett, Edmonds, North Seattle).
• 1980 - Hired by CGG Offshore (a French geophysical company) where I traveled to Houston, Texas,   New York City and Paris. Then worked offshore on seismic research vessels that looked for oil off the coast of West Africa (mainly in Gabon and the Congo).
• 1981 Received my Associate of Applied Science in Electronics Technology from North Seattle C.C.
• 1983-1986 Worked for Hewlett-Packard, Lake Stevens Division, near Everett, Washington, as a production bench technician and later as a circuit board test programmer.
• 1986 - Hired by Maersk Line, LTD.  Flew to their office in the World Trade Center, New York City for hiring and then off to Diego Garcia (Chagos Archipelago) in the middle of the Indian Ocean. There I worked as an apprentice Radio Electronics Officer aboard the M/V PFC James Anderson Jr. for six months. This vessel was contracted to the US Military and was part of the prepositioned force that is staged in several strategic locations around the world (one is in Guam). . It carried military cargo and eventually was called up for Operation Desert Storm (luckily it was a few years after I left).
• 1985 - (March 7th) Met my future wife (Lori Lee Smith) on a blind date setup by her cousin Dani that I worked with at Hewlett-Packard.
• 1988 - (July 16th) Got married in Bellevue, Washington. It was an outdoor wedding in held in Robinswood Park. The weather was bad the days previous but turned nice and sunny for our special day. 
• 1991 - Hired by US West New Vector Group as a Cellular System Specialist (field technician) with the network operations group. Responsible for maintenance and repair of cell sites in a large cellular system. Back then it was all analog. The equipment used was made by Northern Telecom but was switched to Motorola about a year after getting hired.
• 1991 - First child born. A daughter - Julianne Nicole.
• 1993 - Second & last child born. A son - Matthew Alexander.
• 1996 - Transferred to the field engineering department. Now the company is called Airtouch Cellular. Responsible for system performance.
• 2001 - (June 20th) Became a private pilot by taking flying lessons at Northway Aviation, Paine Field, Everett, Washinghton.
• 2002 - (August)  Now my company is called Verizon Wireless. We switched from Motorola equipment to Lucent. Quite a large project!  It took over a year. We have over 300 cells sites now.
• 2002 - (April 5th) Received an instrument rating so now I can fly in the clouds!