Looking for a challenge to serve, Carl E. Linke accepted an appointment to the United States Military Academy in the spring of 1966. After graduating from West Point, he served as a Infantry officer in the U.S. Army for twenty years in a variety of command and operations assignments around the world. With a Master of Science degree in Industrial Relations from the Krannert School of Management (Purdue University) and years of experience in building operations, he has spent his professional years developing and promoting start-up companies in Chicago and in the Research Triangle of North Carolina. Carl currently lives with his wonderful wife, Penny, in Chapel Hill, NC. They now share the house with two dogs and a parrot; their horse just could not handle the stairs so he lives in a nearby barn. His two grown children -- in New York City and in graduate school at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) -- will not let him leave the land of Tar Heel basketball, though Carl longs for the day when he can sit on the dock to watch the sunrise over Lucy Creek in Beaufort, SC.