BILL C. BRADEN

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The author was born in 1928 in Northeast Texas and named Billy Charles Braden. Bill C. Braden is being used as the authors name for this book. His parents were farmers. He was a farm boy until the age of seventeen when the family moved to California. In California, he graduated from High School in 1946 at the age of 18. World War II had ended the year before in 1945. For this reason he had not been drafted to serve in the military.

In 1948 he joined the California National Guard and served for six and one half years, becoming a Commissioned Officer.

The author is Second person from left to right.

This photo is cropped from a group photo taken at the National Guard Armory located in National City, California were the author served.

The same year, 1948, he enrolled in San Diego Jr. College graduating two years later.

In 1950 he enrolled in San Diego State College. San Diego State accepted his previous two years of college so that he was able to graduate in 1951, after two years instead of four. Incidentally, he was on the gymnastic team in San Diego State in his senior year.

In 1951 he obtained a job with Rohr Aircraft Corporation in Contract Administration. He worked at Rohr for five years and met his future wife, Lorraine, who was also working there. They were married in 1953. They lived in an apartment and began planning to build their first home. They obtained a FHA loan from Bank of America and began building their first home as Owner Builders. They hired the subcontractors and Bank of America sent out an inspector to approve different stages of construction and pay the subcontractors.

In 1956 he enrolled in a four year Bible College graduating in 1959.

The Author is the second male from the right. This was a new college. Shown here is the 2nd or 3rd graduating class. The number graduating each year increased going forward.

He received degrees from all three colleges. By living at home and commuting, he was able to work his way through all three colleges and come out debt free. Why so many colleges? He didn’t know what he wanted to do in life, so he kept going to college. He worked for this Bible College for twenty-four years.

In 1979, living in the L.A. Basin, the smog was beginning to take a toll on his health. He moved his family to Cardiff by the Sea on the ocean in North County, San Diego. This meant that at the age of 52 in 1980, he needed to begin a new career. He started out working for a roofing company, first paper work and then sales.

He also worked for a large property management company in Orange County, owned by the Japanese. He never saw the Japanese owners. The office was run by Americans. They owned properties in Las Angeles County, San Bernardino County as well as Orange County. He did roof surveys for them, recommending roof repairs where needed and also complete new roofs when indicated. He took photographs and made drawings of the roofs.

During this time he was hired by Western Roof Inspections. This involved the re-roofing of buildings in Glendale and Burbank owned by Prudential Insurance Company.

After working for Western Roof Inspections he started his own business. One of his first jobs was inspecting the re-roofing of Hanger 6 at Miramar Naval Air Station for the county of San Diego. (see back of book)

At that time, the California Energy Commission was giving rebates to commercial building owners that white coated their roofs to conserve energy. They asked San Diego County to recommend a roofing inspector, and they put his name in. He worked for the California Energy Commission for almost one year until they ran out of money. He inspected white coated roofs for them, measuring roofs and taking photographs. He inspected roofs from Palmdale South in Southern California. They paid him an hourly wage and covered his travel expenses.

In 2006 at the age of 78, he became legally blind, suddenly. Immediately he knew he could not sit around and contemplate the darkness without becoming severely depressed. He went to blind school and learned about the Blind Library and recorded books. He checked out some thirty books (non-fiction) over a period of time including the large volumes written by James Mitchner. Mitchner’s books included Hawaii, Texas, Alaska, and more and he listened to them all. Then he asked himself, “What am I going to do now?” This is when he began to write his own books.

At first he could see to operate the computer by enlarging the print to 72 fonts. His eyesight deteriorated to the point where he had to hire an assistant to operate the computer and read to him. Besides this book, he has written a second book, “Women: Imagine the World without Them”.

Most of his initial research for this book was done by listening to Recorded Books. Audio books do not give page numbers. Every effort has been made to make sure excerpted material is precisely correct.

He has a lifetime of experience that he wanted to share with young people so they will not make some of the mistakes he made.