LMary Ann is a native Californian, which, statistically, is unusual. She was born and raised in San Francisco and still owns the house on Portrero Hill where she grew up. She has just joined the LATC Board and is in charge of welcoming new members. I believe we will see an increase in the participation of new members in the many activities of the club because of Mary Ann’s friendliness.

Mary Ann had not played tennis for twenty-five years, but when she retired she was looking for activities, and she looked back through her life and remembered when she was a young mother sitting with other young mothers around the Menlo-Atherton swimming pool watching their children take swimming lessons. But one day Coach Ben Parks came by, put tennis racquets in their hands and led them to the tennis courts. They became a beginners tennis class, eventually pulling their husbands in and developing the class into a social and tennis group. Maybe the same thing would work again!

So Mary Ann went to the Los Altos Rec Department to check for lessons, the Rec Department told her about LATC, and four years ago Mary Ann became a member. She now plays interclub, enters our tournaments, and has accepted a place on the board. Her other important task is being the runner-up leader of the Monday Morning Tennis Group. It was started by Marijke, who is now living in France, continued by Beth Watt, who is now living in Tokyo for three months, and now, fortunately, Mary Ann stepped in to send out the invitations, to arrange who plays with whom, and to be encouraging when all seems lost. In other words, Mary Ann has made herself irreplaceable.

Mary Ann has lived in this area since 1965. After being a stay-at-home mom for her two children, she worked at Stanford University as a student services officer and later for FMC, Tandem and Applied Materials as a college recruiting manager. During that time she also added a degree in counseling psychology from SJSU to her previous major in biology from Dominican College.

Mary Ann has been married forty-two years to Al whom she met in Florida when both of them were working for the airlines. Mary Ann’s last jobs included a great deal of travel, so it is a treat for Mary Ann and Al to be at home, especially during the summer which they love . When they travel, they prefer tropical locations, beaches and sunshine. They take great pleasure in classical ballet, opera and flamenco music and dance.