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Welcome to The Schaefer web site!

This page is maintained by me, Richard, but I will eventually get my wife's information up here also.  My wife's incredible amount of volunteerism in the borough makes her known to a lot more people than me.  Some of her activities include school secretary at Erskine School, Mrs. Republican of the Ringwood Regular Republican Club in 2006, 30-year member with 20 years as president of the Ringwood Ambulance Auxiliary, member of the Ringwood Environmental Commission, past secretary to the Ringwood Board of Health and Councilwoman for 12 years with 2 years as deputy mayor and 2 years as mayor of Ringwood.  She recently earned "2018 Volunteer of the Year" from Ringwood Borough.

I am quite a bit lazier than my wife and my activities are limited to supporting education as a member and past president of the Ringwood Board of Education and trying to spend as much time as possible on the beaches at our beautiful Erskines lake here in Ringwood.  Ahh, the summer in Ringwood!

I served 12 years on the Ringwood Board of Education with 2 1/2 years as president, but I didn't run for another term on the board.  Education will never be the same in Ringwood after the cuts from Governor Christie and Mayor Taukus.  I'm all for reducing future expenditures, but I am 100% against cutting funds that a school district is relying on.  That leaves us no recourse and no way of preparing.

I worked for Sony Electronics as an Engineering Manager for more than 15 years before getting caught in a financial crunch and getting my walking papers.  Fortunately for me they offered me a buy out which helped out quite a bit.  Sony called it a reduction in force.  I called it a reduction in salary.

When I was in my teens, I quit high school to join the U.S. Navy.  It wasn't until a few years after leaving the Navy that I earned my GED and then my Bachelor and Master degrees in Psychology earning summa cum laude honors for both degrees.  I had a 4.0 graduate Grade Point Average for my Masters.  I started the Ph.D. program in Experimental Psychology at Fordham University, but had to leave the program in my first semester due to a motorcycle accident.  I have no permanent injuries from the accident, but I was in pain for eight months at the time.  I only completed two of my four courses for the semester and dropped out.

While I was in the Navy I took a test that qualified me to join Mensa, the high IQ Society.  I took other tests in college, including the Graduate Record Exam (GRE), with the same result, so I finally reached out and joined Mensa.

After I earned my MA at Montclair State University, I realized that a masters degree in psychology was not worth very much in the job market so I immediately started looking for work in the high tech market and worked more than 20 years in technology or engineering management.

Much more to come!!

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