 
Hess, Alan
Mailing Address:
Primary Phone: 801 292-7162
Primary Email:
Comments:
7/2015:
Life has been an amazing ride.
After graduation, I attended Weber State for a year and then left on
an LDS mission to the Southern Far East. I served about 18 months in Hong Kong and then went to Thailand
for a year when missionary work commenced there.
I met Carol
Nelson (Clearfield High School class of 1965) on the first day of freshman registration at Weber State; I
remained smitten, and she by some miracle remained available at the end of my mission. We were married in
August of 1969. We have four children and 17 grandchildren – amazing.
I worked for
Ferris Collett at a company named Freight Outlet delivering furniture and appliances during high school and
then elbowed my way into sales there after Carol and I married (just couldn’t support us on $2 an hour).
I worked full time and carried a full load at Weber State and later worked as corporate merchandising manager
at Collett’s during most of my time in the MBA program at the University of Utah. Working full time was
just about the only viable option to keep food on the table during all those university years. Naturally,
I had to make a tough situation even tougher during the MBA program by falling off the roof of a house I was
trying to fix up to sell. I pretty much broke everything, but happily didn’t die.
Under imminent
threat of being drafted, I managed to get into an Army National Guard military intelligence unit in 1970 and
spent six years as a Chinese linguist. It did occur to me that speaking two Asian languages might
increase my chances of getting called up into active duty in Vietnam. It didn’t happen.
I spent a
dozen years developing commercial real estate and struggled in the economic headwinds of the 1980’s. In
1987, I bought a tiny travel agency located in Centerville. We have somehow survived the seismic changes
in the travel industry in the last twenty years, and have blossomed into a nationally ranked travel management
company.
I continue my involvement in Hess Travel and will likely
do so until people start asking, “Who is that funny old man that keeps coming in here?” I will
admit to being pretty much in denial about my age. Life has had a few rough spots, but it has
nonetheless been a marvelous adventure.
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