Implementing Organizational Change



The Biography of

Peter George Silton

Los Angeles, California

2003

Lifetime Biography

Copyright 2003 all rights reserved

562-445-7059

Peter George Silton ńe Silberstein

Peter Silberstein was born in Vienna, Austria March 25, 1932. The name Silton comes from Silberstein, which changed when the family came to the US in 1939. Peter and Bonnie Sturner, his second wife, currently live at 11146 Montana Ave, Los Angeles, California.

Peter did not develop any real expectation about how his life would turn out, but two defining moments stand out: (1) when he discovered he was not a genius but nevertheless, he was very smart, and (2) when he discovered he will not cross his principles (and would not carry a gun in the US Army.) These decisions altered his future.

Since their marriage, Peter and Bonnie have traveled a lot. Bonnie is very active with her private practice in Brentwood. In addition, she is on staff at UCLA and teaches in the Doctoring program there. Peter says that he did not develop close friendships until recently. “My wife is my best friend, and I have some friends now. My children, including my stepchildren, are my friends.” Peter is most proud of his relationships with his wife and children and learning to get in touch with his emotions. “There are so many wonderful new things to explore, books to read and things to do… I now have a partner who shares many of the things with me.”

Table of Contents

Personal and Family History 3

Father - Bert Silton 3

Mother Esther Dichter-Silton 4

Grandparents 4

Family Life 5

Peter and Family in Vienna 5

Day to Day 6

Religion 6

Giving Back to the Community 7

School Years 9

Grade School and High School 9

College and Graduate School 11

Military Service 13

Earning a Living 14

Love and Romance 20

Becoming a Parent 22

Leaving the Nest 24

Living 33

Beliefs and Expectations 34

Choices 36

Favorites Now and Then 37

Leisure Time 37

Predictions 38

Politics and People 38

Standard Pedigree Tree 39

Table of Figures 40

Personal and Family History

Father - Bert Silton

Bert Silton, Peter’s father was born in Vienna, Austria, in September 1899. He graduated from the University of Vienna around 1923 as a Medical Doctor. He was valedictorian of his class. In September 1939, he brought his wife Esther and his son Peter, to the US, narrowly escaping Austria after the Anschluss. They lived in Chicago for a year, then settled in St. Louis, Missouri near the Wahl family, headed by the cousin of Peter’s grandfather Dichter. Bert had a brother, Herman and a twin sister that died in the European flu epidemic of 1918. It was the worst epidemic of recorded history with casualties that reached close to forty million people.

Herman arrived in St. Louis from Vienna earlier. He brought with him the knowledge gained through his work in clothing manufacturing. Herman and Bert borrowed money from their cousin, Arron Fischer to start a company that made leather jackets. The company was called Silton Bothers. Herman ran the plant and Bert was the salesman. He was on the road eleven months a year, and traveled throughout the United States. When World War II ended, he declared that Santa Monica, California was the place he wanted to live. So the brothers, along with Fred, Herman’s son, moved the factory to Santa Monica.

One day after moving, Bert and his family played tennis in the morning, drove to Mount Waterman to ski and returned to the ocean to say, “That’s why we moved to California!” Bert lived in Santa Monica until he passed away in his 80s.

Mother Esther Dichter-Silton

Esther Dichter-Silton was born in Vienna, Austria in July 4, 1904. She had five sisters (Lotte, Rosel, Gretel and Mina being four of them) and one brother, Frank.

Esther was raised in the European style of the 1900, with a classical education, including piano lessons. However, she deviated from that when her father Leopold, promulgated that besides study, women should also work. So she worked in the family department store, Warenhaus Dichter.

After moving to the U.S., she kept the books and financial records for Silton Brothers, the family business. By the time the factory and family moved to Santa Monica, Esther no longer needed to work as the company bookkeeper. She lived in the house at 409 24th Street in Santa Monica until she was 89 years old and had to go into an assisted living home with supervised care. She passed away at age 92.

Grandparents

Esther’s father, Leopold Dichter, was the member of the family that had the entrepreneur spirit. In 1924 and 1928 he went around the world, visiting his cousins in Chicago and bringing back to Vienna a miniature Taj Mahal from his travels through India. Through his ventures and travels, Leopold was always an inspiration to Peter, who has also traveled extensively and started a number of different businesses. Leopold’s spark was so passed further. He moved from Vienna to St. Louis and lived with Bert and Esther. He took care of Peter, serving him lunch and watching him before and after school.

In his mid-seventies, Leopold took to the streets in St. Louis as a jobber of stuffed animals. He spoke only German, but carried a little dictionary as he traveled by streetcar to toy shops. He was a remarkable person with the same courage and interest to live an active and meaningful life in his seventies, as in his early years. He made life count and remained active until his death in Los Angeles, July 16, 1952.

Family Life

Peter and Family in Vienna

Peter’s family was extremely wealthy. They had a country house where they spent weekends in the summer. They had two cars, one a nine passenger Horch town car and one a small Tatra. When Peter was born, he had a wet nurse and a nursemaid. He spent a lot of time at the country house because the “myth of the day” was that outdoor and fresh air was health for children.

When Peter was in town he was dressed as little Lord Fauntleroy with white gloves and stockings. Being a normal boy his gloves had to be changed a couple of times a day. When he was four he went to Anna Freud’s Nursery school. He also went to the mountains with his parents and had his first experience skiing. All this changed when he and his parents fled Austria.

Day to Day

Peter is an only child and his parents were from an era and culture where children did not participate in family discussions. When the escaped from Austria Peter was not told what was happening. He had no idea why they had to leave in the middle of the night and get on a plane to fly to a foreign county. Because of his exclusion from family affairs Peter found company in collecting stamps and reading after school and on weekends. He was and remains an avid reader.

Religion

Peter grandparents were orthodox and his parents kept a kosher house with four complete sets of dishes. One set was for non-meat products and one was for meat products. The other two sets were used during the week of Passover, when it was necessary to change the dishes. Vegetables rice and potatoes were neutral and could be used on either set.

When Peter’s parents left for the US they were able to get one lift” out of Vienna. That lift contained some heavy European mahogany furniture, of which some reside in Peter’s daughter house today. It also contained two sets of dishes so that they could continue to keep a kosher house.

Unfortunately, one night, while they were living in St. Louis, the Silton’s house was filled with the deafening sound of a big crash. The cabinet holding all the dishes had pulled off the wall and over 100 dishes, cups and saucers were lying broken on the floor. That was the end of the kosher household.

As a child living in America, Peter was sent to Hebrew School at a small Orthodox temple. In that temple the women and the men sat separately and there was a curtain in front of the women’s section so the men could not see them and be distracted from their prayers. He learned to read and write Hebrew without learning the history or the reasons why he had to do it. Peter hated it. He was also sent to Sunday school for reading of the Old Testament.

One Sunday, he decided to trick his parents. While they were sleeping, Peter set all the clocks in the house an hour ahead so his parents would think it was too late to go to Sunday school. It would have work if Peter’s father had not have checked his wristwatch, which Peter had not managed to change. Subsequently, Peter was forced to go, but he walked very slowly, managing to miss half of it.

Peter’s Bar Mitzvah was in 1944, and at age 12 he did not understand anything about it. As an adult in control of his life, Peter decided not to go to the temple and he kept that promise for the next 20 years until his son Michael was born. After that, he joined Stephen Wise Reform temple feeling that it was important for his children to have a Jewish education.

Giving Back to the Community

Peter believes in living a good life and helping others improve their lives. In the 1980s, he mentored a Hispanic youth at risk and established educational aid for children of homeless parents. In the 1990s, he wrote two books on computer skills for children and how to teach computer skills for parents. He also mentored his own children to happy careers and satisfying lives.

So far, during this decade, Peter has written another two books that tell how to plan and transition into retirement, which under Peter’s definition is anything but retirement, it is a blueprint on how to live a fulfilling and satisfying life in your “Third Age.” He distills his years of living into usable advice in his many workshops.

Peter is an American intellectual who believes in living a spiritually and emotionally rich life and showing others how they can too. His opinions remain distinctive, while he keeps an open mind to ideas and varied cultural values. Through his travels, associations, readings and discussions, he researches and studies the background and value systems of many diverse and geographically dispersed people.

Is it all just a natural continuation of his early dissertation on multi-valued logic and his youth interests that led to a degree in philosophy and a long flirt with pure math? Even now he loves to read impenetrable books such as “The Advent of the Algorithm”, “Fermat’s Theory” and “Einstein and Picasso.”

School Years

Grade School and High School

Straight out of Austria at age seven, Peter entered the first grade at the Polanski School in Chicago where his family lived for a year when his parents first came to the States. The first day of school, Peter wore short leather pants and of course, spoke only German. Needless to say, he made an impression and was beaten up by the local bullies. Poor kid! After one year his family moved to St. Louis, he started second grade at Hemstead and continued until he finished the 8th grade.

During the second grade, he started collecting stamps. He joined a stamp club and was the only one in the club with a catalog that showed the value of each stamp. He made a number of financially advantaged trades that foreshadowed some of his dealing in later life. He enjoyed reading and spent quiet hours at home with his grandfather Leopold Dichter.

The move to Santa Monica coincided with the end of the 8th grade for Peter. Peter was fairly neutral to the idea, and found himself starting the 9th grade a month after school started at Lincoln Junior High School. The school counselor placed him in classes that would have prepared him for a blue collar career working with his hands, or in a trade, instead of going to college.

He was told to take wood-shop, metal-shop and typing classes, as he was unaware of the elective courses concept. Outside school, Peter continued to find company reading, playing tennis, and skiing.

He started to take more of an interest in his education and managed to take some normal college prep courses, but still found himself in classes that prepared students for work in a trade instead of college or a profession until a defining moment in the 10th grade.

…in High School there was an incident that caused me to realize that I was different and that I was smarter than a lot of people. Not average. I solved a puzzle for a boy who was in the “genius category”. He told me that I did it faster than anyone he had given it to, and that I did it with excellent logic. After that, I switched my classes from to Algebra, Physics, and Chemistry.

Peter did well in those classes and was able to take advanced placement classes in Physics, Algebra and Solid Geometry instead of shop and woodworking. In fact, Peter won inter-school competitive debate matches and credits this study as one of the best for building logical thinking and organizational skills. Nevertheless, he found the typing skills applicable to his future work.

Peter continued to play tennis and joined the school tennis team while developing news and a dramatic program on the school radio station. He spent few summers working in the family business cutting leather for jackets. Peter earned very good grades in school but was unconcerned with the “minuscule details and perfection” that would have earned him top grades. Some would consider his schoolwork to have “sloppy mistakes” while others would consider them unimportant details compared to Peter’s big picture mentality. He graduated in 1949 at age 17.

College and Graduate School

While his parents moved to the US from Europe and did not know much about American colleges, one of Peter’s friends, Hanna Machlup, had deeper family roots to the college life. Her father was a college professor. The Machlup’s recommended two schools: Swarthmore in Philadelphia or Reed College in Oregon

They felt a small college was better, as class size and access to the instructors was very important for Peter to discover and explore his interests. Peter chose Reed College because it was reputed and because Oregon had good skiing. However, he did not forget Swarthmore and two of his children went to that excellent school.

From the fall of 1949 to the spring of 1951 Peter’s declared major was Chemistry. He believed that he could find the answers to the Universe there. He was looking for that one equation from which he could learn everything about the world. Then he moved to Organic Chemistry, which he found to be too much like using a cookbook. He could also not be bothered with weighing something to the 6th decimal place. So, from the Fall of 1951 to the Spring of 1952 his major was Physics. Which, subsequently, he discovered to be mostly mechanics.

As he wanted a better view of the world, in the Fall of 1952 he declared his major was Math. This lasted about a year, and finally, he decided that what he really wanted was to study Math-Philosophy in order to find the answers to the Universe. In 1954 he graduated with a degree in Philosophy and presented his thesis on Multi-valued Logic, now known as “fuzzy-logic.”

Peter was increasingly interested in the concept and logic of computers, switches, one and zero, on/off logic and the writings of the computer gurus of the time. After Reed he entered UCLA graduate school to study Philosophy. It was interesting to change from a department that believed in John Dewey and Santana to a school steeped in Logical Positivism. There were a lot of great names teaching at UCLA (Han Reichenbacker and Rudolf Carnap being two of them), but even graduate students had little access to them and Peter did not like the large classes and limited access to instructors at UCLA. He was ready for a change.

Military Service

Peter received his draft notice when he graduated from Reed College. He took basic training at Fort Ord when the Army attempted to issue Peter a gun. Peter had been involved with the Quakers in his college years and would not accept the personal responsibility of killing another human being. He politely and firmly refused to accept the gun. And as a consequence, he was made to wait while the Army decided how to process him.

The classification of conscientious objector was only available on a religious basis and Peter did not fit into that category or for that matter, any other existing category. So the Army sent him to a Psychiatrist… who verified that Peter believed what he was saying. After that, the Army sent him to Fort Sam Houston in Texas where they tried again to issue him a gun, and again he refused. This time he faced a Court Marshal. Obviously, this was Texas.

Eventually, Peter was assigned to the Translator Corps in Germany and was stationed in Toule, France. Later he transferred to Kaiserslauten where he translated for the MPs. His favorite assignment in the Army was Ski Patrol in the Garmish-Partichircen. He received an honorable discharge at the end of his two-year term with the rank of Private.

In 1960, Peter used his GI bill to study French Poetry and Existential Philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris. During that time he was also looking for a European wife. He liked the Italian girls, but on Sunday, when he wanted to hike in the country, they had to go to church, so the romance never blossomed.

At the end of the school year, a friend recommended him for a job as a chauffer to the wife and daughter of the president of RCA. Peter drove the two ladies around Europe, Spain, and the coast of Spain for five months. After that, as he ran out of money, his father suggested that he might want to come home and try the family business. Peter was 30 and ready for a change.

Earning a Living

Peter joined Silton Brothers to learn the garment manufacturing. As the passion for learning and the thirst for knowledge was still there, Peter attended extension classes at UCLA to learn time study, MTM and other Industrial Engineering methods. In this way, he earned a certificate in Industrial Engineering.

After about a year, he became the factory plant manager for Silton Brothers. At one point he had to move to Brigham City Utah to run the plant there, because the Utah plant manager had a stroke. Brigham City was voted the cleanest city in the United States. Peter’s family moved with him and they become one of the only two Jewish families in the city.

When Silton Brothers decided to install a computer system, Peter was the logical person to oversee the installation. Again, he went back to UCLA extension, learned how to program in Fortran (a DOS based programming system which he never used) and got a certificate in Computer Technology. Peter designed the software and supervised the programming. He discovered that he enjoyed working with computers more than manufacturing.

His cousin, Fred (Uncle Herman’s son) was Peter’s business partner and a lovable workaholic. After Peter first child arrived, Peter wanted to spend more time with his young family, which created tension between Peter and Fred. So Peter sold his share of the business to Fred and everybody was happy.

After that, Peter and his wife Jill contemplated a move to Europe when a friend who imported shirts asked Peter to design a computer system for him. After it was designed, he was asked to get contract programmers to write the programs. He did, and the system turned out so well, that another manufacturer asked Peter to design another system. Peter and his family stayed in Los Angeles.

At this time, Peter understood computers, business and the apparel manufacturing industry and he was able to translate the needs of the manufacturer to the programmers. He designed software that used a matrix to track clothing sizes - for example, shirts that have different neck sizes and sleeve lengths. His software tracked raw materials, shipments, inventory, cash receipts, disbursements, accounts receivable, accounts payable and all of the manufacturing information needed to run a factory.

The software first ran on the IBM 360 family of mainframes and Peter’s company primarily programmed with RPG and used some assembly subroutines. Later the programs were re-written in COBOL. The business grew to 10 clients and soon, Peter had to buy time on five computer systems across Los Angeles to run his software and support his service bureau customers. He incorporated as Silton Data.

Peter partnered with an ex-IBM employee, John Smart who had been running one of the computers used by Silton Data. John became the operations manager due to his connect-the-dots detailed nature and Peter was responsible for sales, interfacing with clients and software application design. Peter talked the language of the programmers and the industry. Silton Data became Apparel Management Systems, AMS. AMS expanded to New York, Dallas and Montreal. But John was not comfortable with the expansion. So Peter bought John out after being partners for eight years.

Peter and his wife had three children, Michael, Petra and Triana and their life together centered on the children and the family. They have a friend who also had two girls the same age as Petra and Triana and the four girls often played together. The father, David Perez was a Mexican Citizen and he explained to Peter that there was a new law in Mexico that permitted foreigners to lease beachfront property.

Peter became interested in developing a hotel in Mexico, and partnered with David Perez. Peter invested $ 25,000 and raised $250,000 in capital mostly through his network of friends. Unfortunately, the peso was severely devalued after the construction was finished. Peter’s partner began to maneuver in what Peter describes as “shenanigans.” The hotel had to be sold and most of the people who invested in the venture lost some of their money.

By now, AMS ran on Burroughs computer systems. Burroughs was more advanced in terms of on-line systems. Peter’s vision was often a few years ahead of what the current hardware could accomplish and he was always pushing the edge of technology. When a client of AMS went bankrupt and was acquired by another computer company, the client sought to recover their losses by suing AMS and Peter personally.

It was not that the client considered the service or work performed by AMS to have caused their loss, but they were hurting so badly they sought to obtain money any way possible, even if it meant suing a company that had helped them grow. Peter had started a company from scratch, and built it by helping many other companies grow. He had provided good service to many people and helped their companies. The lawsuit soured the experience and during a two-year battle, AMS had to file Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection and Peter sold the software rights to his employees. At this point life became so stressful that Peter felt he could not take the additional stress of his home life. It had turned to a more negative than positive influence. He told Jill he wanted a divorce and moved out of the house.

Peter was ready for something new after this stressful event and he started developing properties and spreading his debt obligations over time so he could satisfy them after selling his company. In the late 80s he developed a factory building in downtown Los Angeles, apartment buildings in Westwood and remodeled houses in Pacific Palisades.

In 1992 his first book, How to Educate Your Child with the Computer was published. Using the Computer in Second Grade was published in 1994, Active Retirement for Affluent Workaholics was published in 2001, and Don’t Panic!! You Can Still Retire was published in 2003. He leads seminars and most recently began to develop a new workshop to offer insight into the non-financial planning aspect of retirement.

He is a member of the Over The Hill Gang a club for skiers over 50 and the Plato Society, an intellectual group that gives symposiums. It is associated with UCLA people over 60. Some of the members of Plato and Over The Hill Gang were interviewed by Peter for his books. In his workshops, Peter begins by defining his terminology in the context of the book. About Active Retirement for Affluent Workaholics, Peter says:

Work does not mean the job and retirement does not mean stopping from doing anything. I am a workaholic because I am doing so many projects, none of which I am getting paid for. I have to keep my mind active and do what interests me. Our whole society is built up of workaholics to some extent. These are people who continuously have the need to do something.

Bowker Biography describes Peter as:

Writer, Consultant, Teacher, Business Executive, Volunteer, World Traveler and Sports Enthusiast, Peter Silton is a man of many interests. At the time he decided to Actively-Retire, Peter was the owner of a software business with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Montreal, Dubin South Africa and Sydney Australia. After retirement at age 59, he has written two books on computers and education, developed business plans for computer firms, taught entrepreneurial skills in Russia, raised capital and structured multiple business while traveling to 43 countries, including little explored lands such as Suluwasi, Bhutan, and Nepal, on top of that, skiing twenty-five days a year.



Love and Romance

Peter did not rush onto the dating scene and he met his first girlfriend in the high school debate club. During high school he was allowed to stay out until 1:00a.m. Peter dated fewer than a dozen women before he married Jill Scheiman. They met at the Hollywood Ski Club and Peter delivered a ski jacket to her house. He was attracted to her because she was European, she liked to sky, had a college education, worked as a microbiologist and… was cute. But she did not want to get married.

In order to convince her, Peter flew her mother over from Sweden. The three of them tooled around California in Peter’s Porsche and Beebe, Jill’s Mother, convinced Jill to marry him. His parents liked her and her parents liked him. Six months later, August 1962, they were married in a civil ceremony. About 75 people attended the reception at the Bel Air Hotel and the couple spent their honeymoon in Aspen and started their life together in an apartment at 7540 Fountain Ave in Hollywood.

The early years of the marriage were good and it centered on their three children (Michael, Petra and Triana) and travel. Jill was very involved with the children. In the spare time she had, she took up flying and got her license as well as instrument and seaplane ratings. She also competed as co-pilot in a number of cross-country races. Peter was not thrilled about this, especially after she crashed in Texas during one cross-country event.

As the children grew-up and Peter faced trouble in his business he felt the loss of his wife’s emotional support and an increase in negativity and criticism. He sought counseling and found himself telling the counselor everything he should have been telling his wife. He realized that if he was going to turn his situation around, he needed a positive environment and supportive atmosphere. Seeing that the marriage was ending, he concentrated his efforts on their children and nurturing his relationship with them through and after the divorce. Their youngest child, Triana, was in the 11th grade. The 22-year marriage ended in divorce in 1988.

Divorce

In most divorces the partners blame each other. Peter believes that in any divorce the fault rests with both parties. Peter thinks that his problem was that he could not express his needs for support and affection to Jill, and that she did not recognize that Peter needed some of the attention that she lavished on the children. As a consequence, even today, Peter knows she was a wonderful mother but somehow could never really define her role as a wife.

New Love

Peter likes to tell amusing anecdotes to illustrate his stories. When he met Bonnie Sturner, hiking in the Sierra Club, he told her,

“I am having a little problem, and I can’t seem to get any work done.” She said, “Straighten out your desk and do one thing at a time… by the way, what’s the problem?” Peter said, “I owe a million dollars and have no idea how I am going to pay it back.” To which Bonnie replied, “That’s not a little problem!”

As mentioned earlier, eventually, Peter was able to restructure his debt and make payments over time. The lawsuit that he had fought for five years ended when his employees bought the rights to run the software without paying royalties and Peter filed bankruptcy under Chapter 11. At age 58 Peter retired from the Computer Industry. He married Bonnie two years later, in 1992, and enjoys their friendship and according to Peter, “…the relationship is excellent. It is often more enjoyable to be alone together than to go places or do things with other people.”

Becoming a Parent

Peter and Jill wanted a family and were married two years when their first baby, Michael, was born August 19, 1964 in Los Angeles. Peter used some of his own money and borrowed some from his father and the couple purchased a house at 902 Teakwood Road in Brentwood. Petra was born June 8, 1967 and Triana was born March 8, 1971 in Los Angeles. Today, Michael is the CEO of Rainmaker Systems, Inc. a company that he founded and took public in 1998. Petra, after a career as Chef, Restaurant Manager and Food Consultant, is a homemaker with three children, and Triana is Vice President of the Janitors Labor Union in San Francisco.

Peter sees his children often and when they were small, he loved seeing the kids grow-up and found it most difficult, “not telling them what to do.” As he values education very much, he and Jill sent their children to the best schools (meaning schools that encourage students to discover and develop their interests and explore many subjects and ideas.)

The family traveled many places together on vacations, including Sweden, Africa, Peru, Russia, Burma, and many others. When Michael was five and Petra three years old, Jill, Peter and the two kids went to Africa. Peter rented a Volkswagen Bus and they drove six thousand miles through Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Ethiopia. Peter taught the kids to be independent and sent them to Hebrew school and Israel to learn about their heritage and to Sweden for summer camp to learn about their maternal grandparents.

Peter’s method of discipline was to tell the children he disapproved, when he did. It was very difficult to be quiet about was his son’s choice for a wife. Peter kept his opinion to himself, and the marriage was brief. If he had it to do over again, he would teach his children more about emotions. He believes the best piece of advice he offered his children is “…do what you really want to do. You can do anything.” Peter is proud of each of his children as a person and the way they live their lives.

Leaving the Nest

Michael attended Harvard High School in North Hollywood and then moved on to Swarthmore College. He completed Swarthmore in three years. After graduation he worked for Peter’s company earning $25,000 a year, when another company offered him twice the amount. Peter encouraged the move to broaden his work experience. Michael worked for three other companies of various sizes moving quickly to a very good annual salary and managed a large group of employees as Marketing Head for the Health Division of Basic-4. Seeing the trend for a downturn that would lead to reduced spending and a reduction in staff, Michael considered an MBA. He was accepted at Stanford and Yale. He discussed the idea with his Dad. Peter counted out the tuition cost ($40,000 a year) and the opportunity cost of leaving a job that paid $80,000. The benefits of the education and the enhanced earning potential did not measure up to the $240,000 cost for an MBA. Instead, Michael became the youngest student accepted in the MBA weekend program offered at UCLA and kept his job.

Michael continued to work for Basic-4, and considered working for Hewlett Packard or another large company, but Peter suggested that with money in the bank, no wife or family to support, it was a good time to start out on his own. So Michael decided to research alternatives and discussed with Peter the idea that he wanted to sell shrink-wrapped UNIX systems. It was 1993 and Michael was 29. Peter was not convinced the idea would turn into a profitable business. He told Michael that if he sold and shipped $20,000 of product in the six months, he would help raise $250,000 in capital. Michael found WordPerfect, Lotus and others software companies willing to offer their product on a UNIX platform and allow Michael to sell it.

After six months, Michael shipped $21,000 of product in a month. Peter raised the capital from friends, mostly psychologists and psychiatrists who did not know anything about UNIX but trusted Peter and Bonnie. After about five years, Michael saw that the shrink wrap UNIX systems business would not grow to the size he wanted, so he sold that division and started another division that marketed maintenance agreement and software upgrades.

The company was renamed Rainmaker Systems, Inc. Peter served on the board of directors for six years, after which he recognized it was time to step aside to make room for a board member who had different experiences than his own. Michael still confers with his Dad often. Headquartered in Scotts Valley, Rainmaker Systems Inc. is a leading outsource provider of sales and marketing for service contracts. For example, when a company buys a computer and the initial manufacturer’s warranty expires, Rainmaker offers maintenance contract for the computer. His clients include Hewlett Packard, Dell and Cisco.

Michael is very much like his father in appearance and business savvy. He led the company to a public offering just before the market downturn of 2000 that saw many dotcoms go bust. The company was loosing five and six million dollars a year, was spending heavily on marketing and had many employees since it needed to grow to a size that could go public. Michael, like Peter, figured out how to restructure and regroup to focus on the essential strengths of the company and after a few years of belt tightening, Rainmaker is growing and headed toward profit.

Petra attended Westlake High School, then Georgetown for a year. She found it too structured and transferred to the University of Pennsylvania. She took her junior year abroad in France and at the end of the year she studied at the Cordon Blue to improve her cooking. She returned to the states and finished her bachelors of arts in International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania.

Back home in Los Angeles she announced that she wanted to be a chef, so and she took a job washing dishes at the Beverly Wilshire to start her career. Speaking both Spanish and French she could talk with the workers and the chefs. She worked her way up to Sous-chef and realized that this was a man’s kitchen. She went to work for California Pizza Kitchen and after a year was running the Beverly Hills operation. After three years, she saw that serious management positions were reserved for men and she would not be allowed to move into any meaningful management role.

Peter encouraged her to follow-up with her boyfriend, Michael Lisgarten, who was studying law at Columbia University, to see if living with him would move the relationship forward. It certainly did. During this time in New York, Petra worked for a catering service. After Michael graduated, he and Petra married in 1994.

Michael was awarded the Sorro’s Fellowship to teach American Law for a year in Estonia. Petra consulted with restaurants in Estonia teaching them to make chili so the patrons would buy more beer. She also learned some Estonian. Peter jokes that as she speaks Swedish and Estonian, she can go anywhere in the world and not be understood! Fortunately, that is only to complement her knowledge of Spanish and French.

Petra and Michael have three wonderful children: Noah Silton-Lisgarten, Kia Silton-Lisgarten and Ilan Silton-Lisgarten. Peter describes Michael and Petra as “super-doper parents, superb.” At this time, the baby Ilan is three months old, Kia is two and a half year old and Noah is five.

Peter sent his three children to Montessori schools and his grandchildren also attend Montessori school. Peter loves the fun and lovingness of being a grandparent. He has to resist giving the grandchildren everything, for their own good.

Triana went to Westlake High School. She was a National Merit Scholar and in addition went to the US Debate Finals garnering an 8th in the US in impromptu speech. While Triana was at Westlake College, she was awarded the “Most Valuable Student.” This was a special new award created for Triana. She graduated from Swarthmore in three and a half years with double degrees and received two grants even before she had finished. The Mac Arthur grant was awarded to her to study the effect of logging on the rain forest, and the Greenpeace grant was awarded to her to study in Sweden. Peter accompanied her to Brazil to study the rainforest.

After graduation, Triana lived in Great Britain, working as a magazine writer for The Ecologist. She made a study on the pollution caused by the destruction and decomposition of Army materials. She wrote an article for the Ecologist magazine “Chemical Weapon Incineration in the United States”. The report is very dense with technical descriptions and measurements of her findings. (It is five pages with 36 footnotes.)

England was not for Triana and after one year she returned to Los Angeles and purchased a house in Echo Park. On one visit home, Triana told her Dad about her love interest. Triana said “he is a little older than I am” As Peter recalls, it was an interesting couple: he was 43 and she was 23, he was Philippi no, she was European-American, he was a guerilla fighter in the Philippines and she was a college graduate from sunny California. But nevertheless, Triana went with him to the Philippine jungles and lived there six months. The relationship came to an end when the FBI arrested him.

Triana is a champion for the less privileged and in her work with the Janitors Union, she orchestrated a big strike, Justice for Janitors with a sit-down at Wilshire and Westwood Boulevards. It was an enormously successful action and the 18,000 Union members received pay increases and medical benefits. Peter has a newspaper cutout picture of Triana being arrested on her 25th birthday for sitting in the middle of Wilshire and Westwood Boulevards. There was a movie made of the story (starring a Hispanic woman, not silver-spoon-white-women who really put it all together.) Triana is a leading authority in the US on this type of action and she consults to others who work to help people achieve better treatment in their work.

Peter laughs when he tells about Trina’s disappointments with her father. First, she can never become the President of the Union because (1) she was not born with a Spanish surname – although she speaks “Spanish like a Cuban”, (2) she went to the best schools, and (3) she has a trust fund...

A New Life

After the divorce Peter started to date. He looked for someone who was his intellectual equal and enjoyed the same things he did. His key interests were hiking, skiing, travel and music. He met Bonnie Sturner on a hike at the Sierra Club.

When Peter and Bonnie started to date, he met her two children, Tony and Debbie Romain and her dog, Benson. Benson immediately liked Peter but it took longer with Tony and Debbie. Tony was just 13 and Debbie was 17. Peter recalls that after going out together a few times, Bonnie invited him to her house.

Tony had returned recently from Mexico and had hepatitis. He came into the room where Peter was and began to get acquainted. Peter asked him what he was doing, he asked him about school, and Tony started to talk. Although their parents had been divorced for some years, and Bonnie had dated a few men before meeting Peter, Debbie was still suffering from her parent’s divorce. She stayed in her room and flitted between it and the bathroom, to avoid getting close to Peter.

Peter smiles when he says that his keen sense of parenting kicked in and he soon bribed Tony with a talking watch. Then he tells how Tony prepared for his Bah Mitzvah and welcomed Peter’s help, and how Peter was honored to carry the cake for Tony.

Peter became interested in seeing Tony and Debbie do well, and understood how different he was from their father, a cautious person and an attorney. Peter says that Bonnie would say to him that he “jumps and then looks to see if there is water in the pool.” Tony took it further and says “Peter jumps and then looks to see if there is a pool!”

Soon after meeting Tony and Debbie, Peter showed Bonnie how to get Tony into Crossroads (an excellent school) got him a computer, and encouraged him to learn about them. Tony and Peter became friends. Tony left home for college in Oregon. After a year there, he transferred to Boston University and completed a degree in Film Making.

He took a job as a Production Manager and worked on the movie 8 Millimeter with Nicolas Cage. It was not a very good movie and Tony was disappointed to have spent an entire year of his life working on something he did not want to tell his friends about. Tony considered changing his career and discussed this with Bonnie and Peter. Peter told him the motion graphics field was just developing and it might be a good choice for him. Tony enjoyed cartooning, and it seemed like a good possibility.

Bonnie and Peter offered to support him a few semesters while he went back to school. Tony chose the UCLA Extension program and within six months was working in motion graphics. He was 23-years old and an independent contractor earning good money doing something he enjoyed. He has worked on several TV shows that he is proud to talk about (example: Echo Challenge and Blind Date.)

Tony considered moving to Seattle to explore work opportunities there, and Peter and Bonnie suggested he should stay in Los Angeles, and look for a house instead. Soon, he found one and Bonnie and Peter helped him with the down-payment… Obviously, this is how Peter manipulates his children… Tony stayed in Los Angeles, and today has a successful business and is happy, and like Triana, has started a list of disappointments with Peter’s parenting style.

Debbie became accustomed to Peter and gradually opened up to him and accepted his influence in her life and family. Peter describes her as extremely cute, and says that most of the boys who met her also thought she was extremely cute, but she was oblivious to the fact. As she left the nest, Debbie thought she might like to study Law and she attended Law School for a while before deciding it was not for her. She enjoys Real Estate and currently works and lives in San Diego.

Traveling

Since their marriage, Peter and Bonnie have traveled to 43 countries. Bonnie has taken many photographs and has had exhibits at UCLA and The Santa Monica Library.

The exhibit, “Faces and Monuments” represents selection from the world photos of Bonnie. Bonnie and Peter use photos and text as a vehicle to express their thoughts and feelings as associated with travel, the feeling of capturing the spirit of an individual in people’s faces, while Peter is addicted to lines, curves and structure. The photos in the exhibit represent Bhutan, Nepal, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, India, Cuba, Estonia and Latvia.

Peter and Bonnie travel because they are interested in other cultures, people, mountains, statues and architecture. In their travels they visit markets, local shops and schools, and bring books and other supplies for the kids. They also bring medical supplies. In addition they are interested in UNESCO sites and world monuments.

Living

In 1994 Bonnie was found to have breast cancer. Peter nursed her through the chemotherapy and the radiation treatments getting her different food all the time as she could not stand the taste of things she had thrown up, and she threw up pretty often. The doctor said that she was the only woman he had ever known that gained weight during chemo.

The entire process was very wearing on Peter and at the end when Bonnie was momentarily out of the woods she suggested that Peter take a vacation. Peter Decided to go to Nepal. This was his rationale:

My father developed his love for the mountains when he was in the Austrian Mountain troops during the First World War. I was taken to the mountains at an early age, in Austria when I was six, in Colorado at age ten and then to Mammoth Mountain, Sun Valley, Aspen, Mount Hood and other places during my high school and college days. After my father died, I came up with the thought that my homage to him and his life should be a trek into the Himalayas.

He returned from 22 days in Nepal. During that time he experienced a sense of exhilaration and enjoyment, which became the foundation on which to continue his life. But at the time of the actual experience he didn’t feel that way:

My muscles ached and my lungs felt like exploding and I wondered why I was doing this trek. In reflecting about it, the best moments in my life occur when I am stretched to the max, in an effort to accomplish something very difficult. Sixteen days of trekking in the Himalayas were the hardest physical exertion of my life. I was stretched to my limit, fully involved with every detail of my body, concentrating on the here and now, trekking, breathing and eating, just putting one foot in front of the other and every once in a while opening my eyes and looking up.

Beliefs and Expectations

“Done is better than Good”. Peter tells how he and Bonnie reached this motto. She was in school working on her doctorial dissertation and obsessing on it to no end. Peter and Bonnie discussed the importance of the dissertation as it related to life after completing the doctorate, meaning, how important were the revisions and edits to fine tune the document compared to the good work Bonnie could offer others in her practice as a Psychologist? The outcome was the motto, “Done is better than good.”

He also believes that, “The past is the past, bad thing will happen but move on. For every bad thing there is something good.” And often evaluates decisions by saying, “What is the worst that can happen?” Recently, he and Bonnie considered a trip to China amidst the SARs scare. At the time, they thought it too risky and they would forfeit their $4,000 trip deposit with a mind to the idea, “What would you do if money didn’t matter.”

Take a minute to think about this. It is very powerful and liberating for those like Peter and Bonnie who have lived with daily responsibilities of work and providing for a family. With this consideration out of the way, Peter and Bonnie eventually decided to go to China after more research. Peter’s thinking is published in his recent newsletter.

We were not going to any cities that had reported cases of SARS. The number of cases of SARS (at that point in time) was well under 200 compared with the Chinese population of 1.54 billion. Most of the contagion was with health workers that had been in direct contact with SARS patients. The death rate from SAR’s was about 4%. All of this was prior to the minister of health from Hong Kong being fired… And the continual spread of the disease along with a 15 % death rate.

Peter believes it is important to help others. He mentored Miguel, a Hispanic youth at risk from the 4th grade to Jr. College. He created an after school program for youth at risk at the Neighborhood Youth Association, a computer class for the Venice Boys and Girls Club, and worked the last ten years at Coeur d’Alene, a school where 20% of the students are children of homeless parents. Peter continues to help others and keeps it in perspective with living a good life together with his wife, children and grandchildren. He says: “There are so many wonderful new things to explore, books to read and things to do… I now have a partner who shares many of the things with me.”

Choices

Peter did not develop any real expectation about how his life would turn out, but two defining moments stand out: (1) when he discovered he was not a genius but nevertheless, he was very smart, and (2) when he discovered he will not cross his principles (and would not carry a gun in the US Army.) These decisions altered his future.

Since their marriage, Peter and Bonnie have traveled a lot. Bonnie is very active with her private practice in Brentwood. In addition, she is on staff at UCLA and teaches in the Doctoring program there. Peter says that he did not develop close friendships until recently. “My wife is my best friend, and I have some friends now. My children, including my stepchildren, are my friends.” Peter is most proud of his relationships with his wife and children and learning to get in touch with his emotions.

Favorites Now and Then

|Favorites |Now |Then |

|Holiday |Birthday |Birthday |

|Hobby |Writing |Stamps |

|Board Game |Tetris |Monopoly |

|Card game |None |Poker |

|Outdoors |Mountains |Mountains |

|Food |Chocolate |Ice cream |

|Place |Aspen |Mammoth |

|Color |Blue |Blue |

|Animal |Dog |Dog |

|Season |Winter |Winter |

|Author |None |TS Eliot, Isaac Asimov |

|Book |None |The Enormous Room |

|Charity | |Quakers |

Leisure Time

Peter spends much of his time writing, reading and working on projects. He goes to the gym, rides his bicycle, hikes or skis 30 days a year as a way to remain fit and healthy. He spends lots of time in his office when he is not traveling or skiing or helping others. This is Peter’s ideal life style.

Predictions

“Although I read a lot of Science Fiction, real life is turned out stranger then fiction.” According to Peter, the greatest promise for the future of the planet is the Internet and the greatest danger is too many people.

Politics and People

Peter’s family members were democrats so he was, too. Today, he is a liberal who wants race equality and healthcare, and he notes that the Democrats seem to embody these values better than the Republicans. The most important events to Peter in his lifetime are World War II, McCarthy-ism and the Vietnam War. Growing up Peter’s heroes were intellectuals, Einstein, Bertrand Russell, ee Cummins, Dewey and his Philosophy teachers at college. Peter plans to run a symposium on what he considers the most significant historical event and technology that most changed the world during his lifetime, the computer and the Internet. In conclusion, Peter remains an educator, a mentor, an intellectual and most important a good husband and father.

Standard Pedigree Tree

See the Peter Silton World Family Tree at for more information.

Table of Figures

Figure 1 Peter with Grandfather Leopold

Figure 2 Esther and Bert Silton 1931

Figure 3 Peter with ski instructor

Figure 4 Peter in Junior High School 1948

Figure 5 Peter in the Army

Figure 6 Baby Peter

Figure 7 Hotel in Mexico

Figure 8 Peter with Miguel

Figure 9 Michael’s graduation, Peter, Petra, Michael and Jill

Figure 10 Petra and Michael’s wedding

Figure 11 Bonnie and Peter’s wedding

Figure 12 Peter and Bonnie ski

Figure 13 Peter and Bonnie

Figure 14 Peter Nepal

Figure 15 Bonnie at Iguazu Falls

Figure 16 New Zealand

Figure 17 Mickey and I in Omaha

Figure 18 Family Bonnie and Peter in costumes

Figure 19 Bonnie and Peter in Italy

Figure 20 Bonnie and Peter in Carmel

Figure 21 Peter’s Great Grandfather

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Figure 1 Peter with Grandfather Leopold

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Figure 2 Esther and Bert Silton 1931

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Figure 3 Peter with ski instructor

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Figure 4 Peter in Junior High School 1948

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Figure 5 Peter in the Army

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Figure 6 Baby Peter

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Figure 7 Hotel in Mexico

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Figure 8 Peter with Miguel

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Figure 9 Michael’s graduation, Peter, Petra, Michael and Jill

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Figure 10 Petra and Michael’s wedding

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Figure 11 Bonnie and Peter’s wedding

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Figure 12 Peter and Bonnie ski

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Figure 13 Peter and Bonnie

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Figure 14 Peter Nepal

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Figure 15 Bonnie at Iguazu Falls

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Figure 16 New Zealand

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Figure 17 Mickey and I in Omaha

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Figure 18 Family Bonnie and Peter in costumes

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Figure 19 Bonnie and Peter in Italy

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Figure 20 Bonnie and Peter in Carmel

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Figure 21 Peter’s Great Grandfather

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