In the summer of 1996, my wife Josephine and son Paolo traveled with me to the U.S. soil from the Philippines thru the sponsorship of Computer Power Group (CPG), a consulting firm offering Information Technology solutions to clients with diverse computer platforms. We arrived at San Francisco International Airport on June 26th, and stayed at Nestor Bautista's residence in Hercules, California for a couple of weeks while awaiting for my initial assignment. Joining my family in Hercules, CA were Jason Alay-ay and Jeoffry Agpalasin. On July 8th, I was notified to fly to St. Louis, Missouri together with Jason and Paolo Ocampo. We were the first three Asians in our St. Louis branch, and eventually more Filipinos were added to the group: Peter Julian Flor, Senen Caringal, Peter Swann, Allan Rosanes, Darwin Rebudiao, Roderick Monforte, Eduardo Lucero, Edward Peol, Ritche Gumahin, Emellieza Santiago, Anadelf Piatos, Christine and Francis Songco.

Our branch manager, Mark Burford, gave me the phone number of a certain Edwin Moncada who was pastoring a Filipino-American International Church under South County Baptist Church. We met a number of Filipino families in this Church: the Ocuamans, Siats, Moncadas, Luistros, Sanchezes, Martinezes, Abaricias, Rosarios, Dionicios and Severinos to name a few. The Aguases and Villanuevas were close friends and fellow Manchester residents too. We gained more friends in St. Louis and had a tremendous stay there for exactly three years. But as the Y2K projects were winding down, clients started to realize a cheaper way of software development and maintenance thru offshore outsourcing. Interim Technology, which acquired CPG in 1996, experienced a lower utilization rate in all of its branches across the nation during the second quarter of 1999, and thus, prompting the management to keep the number of benched consultants to a minimum. At the time, my contract with Southwestern Bell came to an end and it was my first time to be on bench since August of 1996.

While my family's Green Card application was nearing the approval of the U.S. Department of Justice Immigration and Naturalization Service to become permanent U.S. residents, there was an ill-timed delay in the processing of our I-485 due to some backlogs and large volume of applications. Door of opportunity opened in Madison, Wisconsin but traveling was not an option. So we had to relocate to Madison, WI in June of 1999. We loved to stay in St. Louis, MO but I just could not leave Interim Technology (now known as Spherion Corporation) because I had to be actively employed by my sponsor in order to avoid any legal issues that may hinder or nullify our GC approval. I was even asked to travel to our Minneapolis, Minnesota branch for a 15-month project. And just when we least expected to receive them, the approval notices from the INS for our Change of Status applications have arrived. We became permanent U.S. residents on May 16th, 2000. Then on September 8th, 2005, our dream of becoming U.S. citizens finally came true.

Things seemed dreary and sad when we left St. Louis, MO and all the friends we had shared laughters with, but it was God's will for us to move to Madison, WI. He has blessed us with a house and three more lovely kids: Patricia, Joshua and Jared. We indeed enjoy living in this colder but very nice city for raising a family. New found Filipino friends and local Church (Madison Baptist) make us even happier. We are reunited with the Rosaneses, Rebudiaos, and Monfortes. The Demaalas, Reyeses (Tony), Trows, Cacheros and Arnold Fenix all share similar faith with us. The Ybanezes, Peniera's, Llantos, Gonzaleses, Holloways, Llamases, Lopezes, Licoses, Ruby Simsiman, Toni & Jack Franklin and dozens more that I failed to mention in here are regular "see-you-next-week" friends. Pastor Fred Weiss and family are a real blessing and encouragement to us. What a place to live!