Brandin’s 2019 Year-in-Review

As promised, here comes another round of Brandin’s adventures of fun.

The year started kind of somber. In February I said goodbye to my grandfather, whom I was lucky to have had this far in my life. As I grew up, I became more appreciative of what he did for all of us, especially in recent years. He championed everything I did in my life, through school, scouting, college, crew (and then officiating), my career, hobbies, and all this crazy stuff I do in my spare time (really?). He would always peek-in late at night at the shop to see what project was pulling my hair out. He provided everything. He saw me race in the Newport Autumn Rowing Festival not that long ago, even saw the KillaGrams 8+ racing shell get christened with the family’s influence on it, even had the privilege to meet my team’s co-founder, Dr. Lud Spolyar. He was the prime example of what the American Dream should be: heading to the states from Germany to escape pre-WWII events as a kid, learning the language, going to school, raising three boys, and starting a medical products empire, working with doctors all over the world, including my own doctor when I was a kid. All of us have a responsibility in life to contribute more than you get. Things were never perfect for him, but that’s the case for many of us. Things were (mostly) in order, they got done, and that’s what needed to happen. He made it through Christmas, was so spirited, even played the violin so well. We keep moving ahead, because that’s what all he wanted. We were lucky enough to have just gone through the holiday season peacefully, getting the closure I needed to express such love and gratitude all along. Of course, it disappointed all of us that he was not able to make it another month to witness something special.

I became an uncle in March. Margarette “Maggie” June Loyer was born on March 4 in Irvine. She is a bundle of joy, and for some reason, smiles really big when I show up to see her. My brother-in-law says this is because I am so animated, animated in the way that I made sure Maggie had a Maggie Simpson doll in her crib as soon as she got home from the hospital. Of course, it was only appropriate for my parents to pull out all of our old baby toys from our youth and hand them over to Maggie. She has grown up to be a happy little girl over the year.

Moving onto my “hobbies” and other activities that are consuming so much of my time, officiating with USRowing has never slowed down. After taking a short leave-of-absence at the start of the year due to the events above, the spring racing season started in full-speed. That full-speed meant that I was selected to be the Deputy Chief (think of it as second in command, but maybe a lackey too) for the Southwest Junior Regional Championships at the Sacramento State Aquatic Center. This is the biggest USRowing event in our region, covering three days in early May. This selection was then overshadowed by an invitation to work for the PAC-12 Championships that next weekend at the same spot. That along with field testing I was hired to conduct in the Fall, I had been back-and-forth between Long Beach and Sacramento five times this year. Then it gets better. Put a flight to Atlanta/Gainesville in between May and June for a national championship that signified the 10-years since my last race in college only to have the venue surprise you with birthday cakes. It was a nice 5-day birthday weekend doing the things I love, spending it with a lot of extended friends that somehow I know. I covered a total of 21 airline flight segments by the end of the year as far as Seattle, Atlanta, Boston, and Fort Lauderdale, with many cities in between. I’ll let you guess where I hopped through. People wanted me to go all over the place after all this, but I started saying no by November. I feel so loved, really. Talent is a special thing, but don’t let them take advantage of you. I’ve gone way beyond my four required regatta days per year.

The efforts to host boating events for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games have shifted from Lake Perris back to Long Beach (really?!). Other than new bridges and homes that have been built since the 10th Olympiad in 1932, the International Olympic Committee and FISA, our international body, are watching us really close to see how it can be pulled off. We will see.

Outside of officiating, the regatta media/data consulting operation began its sixth year, gaining such a huge fan base at the 55th Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston, that I was compelled to hire (yes, with money) an operations coordinator/personal assistant who I have been training over the Fall season and will be into Spring 2020. We were out with the old, hand-me-down stuff we have used since inception, and acquired “modern things” to get the jobs done. We needed it bad. He’ll track this stuff for me. Of course, this has tipped the scale or sounded the radar to the point of having to funnel all of this into my holding company. Yes, my hobbies are now under a Limited Liability Company (LLC). Oh boy. How is this not my job? In July, Rowing News Magazine released an article on us about all we have done over the past five years. It was a very good summary of everything, not a quick shout-out, and not a massive documentary either. Who knows where this will lead, but one thing is for sure, we closed out what was an incredible year. Once again we found ourselves doing something we enjoy, even if that meant auditing race data at 1:00am or finding the source of a bad cable. I am blessed to have such great friends come along for the experience. While we all work hard, we try to have fun too. I owe much of the accomplishments this year to my good friends who stand with me.

As things got intense rising up to my departure to Boston in October, then this happens. The company I joined about one-and-a-half years back, Smart-Edge, was acquired thanks to the hard work of our teams in Irvine and Atlanta. As soon as I returned from Boston, I became an employee of the Intel Corporation. Yes, Intel, the “Big Blue” giant that has powered a lot of the electronics that we’ve taken for granted for decades. It’s been a crazy ride going from startups in a garage, beach offices, 24/7 e-commerce, higher-ed administration, non-profits, to the “Big Blue.” Our offices are not changing and much of our culture remains (they promised not to “Intellify” us). They didn’t just buy the assets, but the talent as well. Cheers to what’s next: company policies, engineering practice, compliance, licensing, and all the fun things that come with a Fortune 500 company. What is really intimidating at first is walking onto one of Intel’s massive campuses in Santa Clara or Folsom, thinking that you’re trespassing, but now, you have a badge to go wherever you need. I have to get used to this.

The summer included a nice break attending my annual tech conferences in Portland, OR, followed by a trip up Interstate 5 to Seattle to visit family and friends again. I spent a morning kayaking (yes, not rowing!) around Lake Union, enjoying the Seattle skyline and watching the seaplanes circle around my head looking to land. You don’t see that in SoCal. I made it a habit for the last two years to, if not officiate, at least visit the regatta courses of my region and the west coast. Back at home, I was fortunate to have actually put myself back into a racing (rowing) shell with some friends several times to enjoy the waters of Alamitos Bay. I really want to do this more often.

Here’s a quick note. It’s been on my project queue since 2017 to get my own artificial personal assistant, X (no pun intended to my childhood cartoon/video game hero), up to speed. His “engine” exists, but he doesn’t know “where to go.” Then I started thinking, “I should put him in a car first.” Visions of your childhood are now a reality. Into the 2019 Toyota Tacoma he goes, for now. We will see what progress comes along in 2020. No, I don’t use Alexa, Siri, Cortana, etc… I’ve been there, under the hood, and I know what they do. X, a variable of limitless potential, will do what I want, and only what I want.

There’s one more thing…

Going into the last weeks of this year, I lost an old friend, Tim Staples. I had known Tim through Boy Scouts in my teens. We were on several area planning committees throughout the 2000’s. Tim was based in the local council in Upland (formerly Old Baldy), while I was based in Orange County. I had not spoken with him in a few years but kept up on what he was doing. Tim was a nine-year veteran of the volunteer West Valley Search & Rescue operation of the San Bernardino County Sheriff. Knowing him from the past, it was no surprise that Tim dedicated his life to helping others. Tim became a history teacher at Damien High School on top of coaching track & field and cross country. In early December, West Valley Search and Rescue was dispatched to rescue an experienced hiker from Irvine in the San Gabriel Mountains, which had been covered in snow over the Thanksgiving holiday. On December 14, Tim got separated from his team, falling down an ice chute to his death. The announcement became national news. It was painful to watch the local and nightly news. The next morning I was having breakfast at a cafe, and then his photo popped up on a TV behind the bar. I didn’t want to see it. No matter how much you knew someone, neither Tim nor the missing hiker, it doesn’t make any difference how badly you feel for all those lives irreversibly changed by this tragedy. We don’t know why this happens in life, but we need to trust in Gods plan for us all. We will miss you Tim. Eagle Scout, Hero. God Bless you man. We will meet again.

While I was trying to scrap up things I had from my time with Tim, I got lost in my life’s work from that time. There’s a lot of nostalgia that goes into writing these letters at times. To end the decade of the 10’s, I dedicate that to the career and personal growth that I’ve witnessed. Some of that is thanks to all of you.

And now some words for the wise…

“Magical things occur with patience and perseverance. Hard becomes easy and complex becomes simple.”
“Life is about change and growing with it. Resisting change is resisting your own growth.”

― Benjamin Razi

Until we unite, stay gold.

~Brandin

Momma Brittany with little Maggie and her uncle at cousin Christie’s wedding
Kayaking around Lake Union in Seattle, WA, enjoying the cityscape and the seaplanes circling around us for landing
The jury of the PAC-12 Rowing Championships at the SacState Aquatic Center. It rained on us but got through racing
Yet an even broader team in Boston, this time from Philadelphia, Phoenix, Sacramento, Orlando, and Long Beach
Thanksgiving in Idyllwild, CA. Toyota needs to make this a commercial!
Reuniting with colleagues from my college days in Downtown Long Beach after many years apart
Sending my thoughts and prayers to Tim’s newly-wedded wife and family. Tim passed doing what he loved, to help others.
West Valley Search & Rescue, San Bernardino County Sheriff
The best photo I can find with both Tim and me. Tim is right in the middle. This is from an event planning book.
Photo courtesy of Michael Gollner

Brandin’s Year-in-Review 2017

Link to Brandin’s Year-in-Review 2016

As promised, here comes round two. To avoid being somewhat of a repeat from the previous year, I’ll focus on some new happenings and changes. For some reason the 7’s of each decade have become significant points marking the end of one era and the start of another. Here’s how…

The beginning of the year started along the southern Oregon coast (as you read) visiting my grandmother, followed by a quick trip down to the San Francisco Bay Area to take care of “shareholder meetings.” Yes, I have a lot of ties still up there. It’s turned into an annual trip now. Not much has changed in my career at iHerb. We’re just continuing with the growing pains and trying to deal with the onslaught of people joining the company. There are more distribution centers on the way! iHerb sent me to Las Vegas to attend Amazon’s annual Re:Invent conference with a whopping 42,000 other people in attendance that covered six different hotels and conference centers. Insane!

Back in the sport of collegiate rowing and then some, the year saw me out in Knoxville and Sacramento again, including a little birthday surprise in Gainesville, Georgia. My A/V tech team was invited to head to Boston once again to work at the 53rd Head of the Charles, the largest two-day regatta in the world. It’s hard to describe how intense the two weeks were prior to departure, working with shipments, staff changes, and a big engineering change, after things were shipped! It can’t be done without such great friends who I am blessed to have. There were a lot of new things we pulled out of the hat, including our partnership with a production company in Los Angeles. Along with volunteers already in Boston, we brought the most coverage of the regatta to date. There are too many people to thank, those on and off the water. Thank you to everyone for your support and encouragement.

Grandma & gramps turned 80 years young this year. We are blessed to have good health in the family. We are starting to hear several facts from the past, some which my own parents didn’t even know. My grandpa’s shop, where a lot of my tinkering has been conceived, still to this day, consists of old army barracks that came over from the former Santa Ana Army Airbase (now Orange Coast College and the Orange County Fairgrounds) with a roof built on top and other things around it. Now it all makes sense! Another fact we have uncovered involves my great-aunt, Dr. Gita Labrentz, my grandpa’s step-sister. Many years ago, probably the mid 1970’s while she was teaching at Stanford University, guess who came in to crash the class? Apple Computer’s Steve Jobs! If you think that was a surprise, she was then offered the role to translate the manual for the first Macintosh Computer to the German language in 1983. I’m sure there was no connection at all to the previous encounter! She still brags about the legacy we all have. And then they all look at me, being the only biological grandson. Go figure!

In spite of all the positive upkeep and developments this year, there were also some parts of my life that I lost.

On Labor Day weekend, Newport Beach lost a long-standing icon of the Balboa Peninsula Fun Zone that had been around since the 1940’s, The Bay Arcade. Many of the Ohlhaver cousins (mom’s side of the family), including myself, took summer jobs here and then some, having known the long-time owners of the place, the Maddy family. You would think that an arcade should have been out-of-business some time ago with the evolution of video games and entertainment, but the Balboa Fun Zone had its own unique market, especially with the summer and holiday tourism. Sometime around 2007, the Maddy family sold the business but kept the property, so the arcade kept going. But sometime last winter, we learned that the property was sold to a new owner. The only story we were able to piece together was that a bakery in the area was kicked out of their building and was looking to open up again close by. In the years after the Maddy family sold the business, the new management was not taking care of the place. The decision was made back in April to not renew the lease to the arcade, and then the place deteriorated even more. Half of the machines didn’t even work, half of the lights were dysfunctional, and the place was staffed by lazy “Newport Harbor High School Boys” who didn’t care much for the place. The Ohlhaver cousins did so much better back in the day. It probably didn’t help that they knew closing day was coming for several months. Bay Arcade is now a bakery and I have yet to see it. The closure made headlines in several news outlets in the area. Bay Arcade was my first job, only to be remembered by all of us now. I managed to save a strand of prize tickets and laminated them.

On November 16th at 1:00pm, Entercom-owned classic rock station KSWD 100.3 “The Sound” went silent as the acquisition by Educational Media Foundation concluded pending the mega-merger of Entercom and CBSRadio. Entercom was obligated by FCC rules to divest a station. Entercom’s acquisition concluded the next day as their CEO rang the closing bell on Wall Street. Watching it on the news, I wanted to give him a piece of my mind. They now own six other stations in Los Angeles. The Sound’s longest-standing DJ, Andy Chanley, played side two of The Beatles’ “Abby Road”. At the end we heard, “This dream will self destruct in 3, 2…” There was 20 seconds of silence, then a legal ID for KKLQ, then another 20 seconds of silence before K-LOVE entered the air. 100.3 is now a Christian contemporary station. Los Angeles has four other Christian stations. I’m Roman Catholic, but I have to say, “What is going on here!?” For the last month and a half in operation, The Sound had what is a very rare opportunity to say goodbye to its listeners. Their office was covered in messages from its listeners.

I did not grow up in the 60’s or 70’s. I never acquainted myself with the music of my peers. Today, I am not afraid to show it off. I first discovered The Sound in 2008, a time when I was on my own, off at college, and eventually became the captain of the rowing team. I think that The Sound’s music was an excellent companion to the scruffiness of that sport. It just works and it got me through all the blood, sweat, and tears from morning practice all the way to a national championship. Today I usually find myself drowning in technical research, tinkering with things at night, maybe pulling my hair out on something. Whether I was in grandpa’s shop or my lab, I always had The Sound on late at night. The music and the voices fit so nice together. Where to others The Sound helped them through hard times, The Sound to me was an extra push of motivation, to figure that last thing out, or make something better. There’s no doubt that the DJ’s loved what they did. The Sound had a perfect combination of both music and people, something you can’t find on the Internet and satellite radio too much. Their Program Director, Dave Beasing, quoted it perfect. “The credit goes to the most incredible team of FM rock DJ’s, ever assembled.” The Sound’s departure marked the end of a certain type of radio in Los Angeles, a type that cared for its listeners. I blame The Sound for tripling my own music library over this time. God bless them.

In the spirit of changing winds, I have something changing as well. Over the last three years, I have turned much of my focus in the sport over to USRowing, first obtaining my referee license and then escalating through the plenary examination as a chief regatta official. On top of this, a rather unexpected but gratifying effort in broadcast media of this sport has been on the rise, almost more than I am able to keep up with. I am blessed to have many friends who have followed. With both of these efforts I have had the opportunity to travel around the country, and soon, maybe the globe, seeing different venues and meeting such great people in this sport, some who don’t even row. The potential problem is that I am wearing too many hats. After much deliberation, I made the decision to focus on these other activities in the sport. The 2017/18 academic year will be my last as the Director of Outreach for crew projects with the CSU Long Beach Foundation, ending June 30, 2018. We have entered into an 8-month transition to hand over duties going all the way back to my involvement as Team Captain, through General Manager, and into the position I have now. Whether or not someone else takes the actual position is still to be determined.

As I write this, I can’t help to say that I’m somewhat sentimental of the past decade of service to this team and the Foundation’s efforts. I still shed a tear with that time whizzing through my mind. I have to admit that I’ve been blessed to work with such wonderful people all over the country, some who aren’t even part of the sport. This was something completely unexpected during my tenure at The Beach. I have to admit that while focused on my studies, I learned so much more outside the classroom than I did on campus. It’s probably why former CSULB President, Dr. Robert C. Maxon, quoted, “If the only thing you do in college is go to class, then you have not had the full college experience.” Meeting so many people over the team’s past 60 years, all the way back to our co-founder, has been nothing short of inspiration. This sport relies so much on community, no matter how big or small your institution may be. Having seen so many other collegiate teams across the country, I can say that the association is in good hands and that Beach Crew is fortunate to have this community. I can remember all of the challenges of its infancy and the difficulty of reuniting 50 years of athletes at the time. We may not have always agreed on how to make things work, let alone becoming acquainted to the needs of today’s athletes, and wanting to see things in different light. It also wasn’t easy being the youngest one in the room. But that is what’s so intriguing to the matter. We all have a story, we found a way, and I am grateful for what we have. I will always have a spot in my heart for Long Beach State and this decade-long effort we spent. We will always cross paths. Perhaps someday down the road after a successful career I will return to serve such a noble cause.

On the contrary, the invitations to travel around the country are already flowing in for 2018. My entire spring has been planned in a matter of a few days, kicking-off as the Chief Official on February 10 in Alamitos Bay. Oh yeah, something has come to my attention that I want to share, but I ran out of room to write this. That and I have an ambitious project that may never end. Maybe it’s more appropriate for next time, or, maybe you’ll figure these out before then. 😉

I feel it is only right to end with a word for the wise…

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” ― Viktor E. Frankl

Until we meet again, stay gold. ~Brandin

Brandin’s Year-in-Review 2016

Nope! The times of receiving and giving are not over until I say so! You receive this in January on purpose, to give all of you the last surprise. I also need to confess that I did not send out the previous year’s letter on time, so you’re getting two this time!

I hope this finds all of you well. I started writing this from the redwoods of the southern Oregon coast near the state line as I return to this location after ten years ago (2007) to visit my grandmother. It’s a place to reflect on things without all the hype. I keep finding myself wanting to contribute to so much with little time to do it. But one thing I found deeply grateful for in the year was the following of good friends, colleagues, mentors, and family, that I can count on. Here’s why…

Life at work is compelling. iHerb.com celebrated their 20th year in operation, with our new warehouse in Perris, California, in full operation and our old one in Moreno Valley was decommissioned. Our Hebron, Kentucky, warehouse is up and running. Needless to say, the Development Operations Department has experienced some growing pains. Working between the software developers, security engineers, system engineers, and our network technicians, having a diverse understanding of our business logic is ever important. This year, I headed our expansions in Frankfurt, Germany; Sydney, Australia; and Tokyo, Japan, without having to even travel there. Our department has doubled in size and has been a challenge to keep moving along in projects as I train several engineers and write documents of our process. Our operation is now fully 24/7 staffed and am somewhat relieved by this accomplishment of the company. One thing is for sure, a process changes every few months and we may not even know about it. That’s the fun of a 24/7 E-commerce operation. Our CEO is the most generous guy you will ever meet and is thankful of this hard-working team. I can’t complain about that.

My non-profit work with the CSU Long Beach Foundation continues as we support the operations of Long Beach State Rowing and our alumni base of over 50 years. Our team returned to their national championship regatta in Gainesville, GA, after a five-year hiatus and we funded a majority of their cost. I closed out just over $15,000 of gift-in-kind efforts for all sorts of equipment, not including a new racing shell that was dedicated to John Cashman, a U.S. National Team member form the 1980’s. But something else even greater happened. Our association was a pioneer of the efforts to dedicate the Alamitos Bay Bridge, a portion of California State Highway 1, more popularly known as the Pacific Coast Highway in Southern California, to the late Joan Lind Van Blom. A year ago August, we lost Joan to an aggressive form of brain cancer if you recall from my last writing. Joan was the first woman to win an Olympic medal in rowing at the 1976 Montreal Games. We were successful through the help of the university, local authorities, and State Senator Janet Nguyen, in pushing through Senate Concurrent Resolution Bill (SCR)102, signifying all of Joan’s accomplishments. The association’s efforts were credited in text of the bill. The resolution was approved on the opening day of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio this last year. “Joan’s Bridge” dedication ceremony is scheduled in March. The camaraderie continues to be strong, time spent that I don’t complain about at all.

I was involved with a massive project this last year at the Pete Archer Boathouse of Long Beach, replacing the security system over the course of the summer. While the building resides on park land, it is privately operated, including CSULB as one of the tenants. My team crawled through dirty attics, dusty hideaways, and over rusty pipes to run wires all around the building and underground conduits. In just under three months of operation, Long Beach Police requested evidence of two incidents, one involving a marine radio stolen from a Lifeguard vessel, and the other involving an attempted theft of one of CSULB’s outboard motors on the docks. It’s scary what things happen in the middle of the night.

My duties as an official for USRowing continue to escalate. We saw the sport hit the big screens of NBC over the summer as the Women’s 8+ claimed the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Rio. One of my colleagues in our southwest region was selected to officiate at the event. Being selected to do that is equivalent of winning the Nobel Prize. Of course, we are all looking at the 2028 Olympics coming to Los Angeles. So far the rowing/kayak venue will be Lake Perris (really?). In 1984 the venue was out at Lake Casitas. All the way back in 1932 the venue was in Long Beach’s Alamitos Bay and Marine Stadium, where the waterway remains, but has had significant residential development and bridges constructed since then. Who knows where it will be. The International Olympic Committee has a decade to decide.

And now for something that was quite challenging. Apparently my fellow colleagues thought it was time for me to progress through the ranks of officiating. By surprise, I was handed a written exam two weeks before I was scheduled to be at the western college championships (WIRA) in Sacramento, on top of testing a new timing system I had been working on, still in the works. Apparently I passed and was going to be scheduled for an observation at the regatta. Great! Now I have several things to worry about at the same time! The weekend was exhausting, starting from having to “code” in the car on the way up to prepare the timing equipment, handing off video equipment to another person to deal with the broadcast, then worry about those watching my every move and those who were working under me. Well, I passed, and am proud to be a plenary official. The weeks in preparation for this regatta was not an easy journey. Having three big tasks under my plate and running out of time to get everything done made me pretty nervous running into this event. Somehow by the grace of God I pulled it all off. I have attended WIRA either as an athlete, chaperone, candidate, or assistant referee since 2007. Working at this regatta gives me a sense of nostalgia of the good ol’ days and a chance to do the things I love, sometimes more off the water than on, to spread the heritage and camaraderie of this sport. I want to personally thank my examiners for believing in me, and to all who make this regatta special, too many to mention. You know something is up when you are suddenly paired with several experienced officials at these events. Now I know why.

Something was brewing while I was out at the national college championships in Gainesville, Georgia. As you probably know this is where I’ve been involved with a national broadcast of the event for the past few years over Memorial Day weekend. A guy came up the finish tower and wanted to talk to me. I was approached to run the broadcast for the Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston, Massachusetts, the largest two-day regatta in the world. The first thing that came to my mind was how much more I can take on. This isn’t my job you know. It turned out that I wasn’t doing any of this work in the fall season, so I took them up on the offer to come out and observe the course just before Labor Day weekend. The game was on, and I have less than two months to assemble a team, get them trained, take care of the logistics, and figure out what else I had to build and/or acquire. I hate having to go back to the drawing board, but when an offer like this comes along, they make the R&D possible, which in return can improve the other events I do this stuff at. The event came and went and I have to say I have never seen the amount of preparation and people involved at a regatta, anywhere else in the country. I could talk for days about what’s involved, but I’ll let the broadcast speak for itself. In lieu of pulling my hair out at times, my friends started calling me, “oh fearless leader,” when my answer was needed. I thank them all for coming along and being a part of this journey. I don’t know where we’re going with this, but we are having fun, our viewers are happy, and we’re turning heads.

In honor of this “fearless leader” that everyone is claiming me to be, I leave you with this that I find intriguing.

“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decided to be.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

On to the next page?

~Brandin

Link to Brandin’s Year-in-Review 2017