Michael Biel
	San Francisco, CA

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Me Tom Maslow George Levien

I've been living here in northern California for the last twenty-eight years, except for a cumulative year or so out of the country for fun, study, and business. In 2006, I started The Ultimate Coatings Company which makes and distributes state-of-the-art, "green" technology, solar-reflective architectural coatings that are low toxic and highly energy efficient. Through this, I'm making my contribution for the environmental turn-around that must occur.

A little further back history: After getting my degree in Archaeology at Rutgers College, I took a year off to become a sales rep and taste the non-academic world. Three years followed that at Penn in Classical Archaeology (Ph.D. program), and excavations on land and underwater. This all yielded the realization that I was more interested in adventure than in academics. I went on a leave of absence and came to California in 1980 to become a trained commercial diver. and never looked back. I've spent time on business and playing in Japan, Thailand, Nepal, India, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, South Africa, Greece, Germany, Hawaii, Italy, Netherlands, UK, Peru, Bolivia, and Canada thus far.

I travelled the world for an early software industry innovator as an international sales manager. I was also a producer on a documentary in Peru and Bolivia on Inca spirituality. There have been many and varied experiences since including housepainting, video workshop producer, marketing consulting, screenwriting and sculpting. All this, though, has been secondary to personal and spiritual growth work.

In the midst of it, I was compelled to found a grass-roots advocacy group to help people stop receiving junk mail and was asked to submit testimony to a Congressional subcommittee in 1991. I got some national press, which seems to have contributed to our ability today to "opt-out" of most mailing lists even though the U.S. Postal Service still sells your name and address information each time you use a new address card when you move!.

Glass sculpting and writing are my two evolving creative passions, while hiking, yoga, dancing, biking, travel and occasional scuba diving help me stay in shape and sane. I'm pleased to have been able to spend my 50th birthday diving down under on on The Great Barrier Reef.

I temper my experiences and efforts with the understanding that life is a spiritual journey designed to teach the same lesson through infinite circumstances. Mine certainly has been such a journey and I give thanks for it daily and work towards walking more lightly on Mother Earth. Blessings to you all!

MB
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PS. Some of you will remember my dad, William, who is 80 and retired three years ago as assistant professor of English at Hofstra University. He retired from GNS in 1988 after 30 years there. He's had a few joints replaced and has bounced back, albeit slowly, from each one of his operations, to our gratitude. He's also been a track and field coach at the King's Point Merchant Marine Academy as assistant coach to Dr. Bill Olmetchenko, for many years and more recently at Garden City HS, where he coaches still with the girls' field events team (shot and discus). He's had several successful champions in the shotput and javelin. He and my mom continue to live at the family house in Great Neck since 1963.