User:Fredbenson2



My full name is Frederick Oscar Benson Junior. The name is a real mouthful, so I go by Fred. Recently retired, I spent my working years working with computers and programming. I always loved my job and I dreaded the notion of not working anymore. With this mission, I may have found a way past that. Also, to keep myself somewhat occupied, I have found a good number of names for temple work. As part of the temple work, I have a calling as a veil worker in the Salt Lake Temple which motivates me to get at least one ancestral endowment name every week. I had a brief knowledge of the Wiki, but I realize now there is a lot more there than I had thought. Professionally, after the Navy (where I worked with electronics) and college (where I majored in math and accounting),  I spent most of my career working around computers. I started out programming in assembler and Fortran, spent a few years with COBOL and then moved to a high level statistical analysis tool named SAS. Part of that effort required becoming reasonably proficient in other tools such as Excel, Word, DB2 and other media. Life was good. I view myself as a hard worker who is (or at least was) gifted with the ability to learn quickly. I love learning new things, including languages, and enhancing my ability to make my contribution count. I ended up as a Risk Manager that last decade or so, but I still think my best times were with the details of the code. In terms of church service, I spent my most rewarding times with the young men. I loved being a scoutmaster helping young men achieve their Eagle. Also, I served a long time in District Callings (about twenty years) helping young men and leaders in our district focus on attaining that same goal. All the other callings I’ve had including Elders Quorums President, Stake Young Men’s President and Bishopric member were rewarding, but the time with scouts and scout leaders definitely stands out. My family is the core of my life. My wife and I were blessed to raise three remarkable kids, two girls and a boy. The good news is that each of the three ended up happy, healthy and doing work they love. The bad news is they have moved far away and are not nearly as close as we’d like them. We do love to visit them and our five grandchildren. Importantly, each of the three children say that more grand kids may be coming.