Joe and Marilyn Klooster
Bob Neuman
If it has been your pleasure to know Joe and Marilyn Klooster, you are indeed fortunate. If not, you should. Spend a bit of time with this couple and words like pleasant, intelligent, compatible, energetic, curious, gregarious and talented will start bopping around in your head. Best of all, they are still obviously in love after 32 years of marriage.
They met at Fluor Corporation, Irvine, California, where both worked.
Marilyn, graduated from Pasadena City College (AA) and PCC’s Department of Nursing (RN, later became certified as an Occupational Health Nurse).
Joe was a Process Chemical Engineer. Required to have a yearly physical examination at work, he noticed Marilyn. “The thing that got me was her beautiful smile,” he recalled. It took a couple of exams before they went out because, “That was the only time I saw her,” he said. They married in 1982 and soon discovered they had many of the same interests.
Marilyn’s maiden name was Larson and her parents arrived from Sweden in 1928. She lived in Pasadena and Irvine, California.
A New Yorker with ancestry from Holland and Czechoslovakia, Joe began his college education at CCNY but joined the Navy in January 1942.
Upon discharge, he completed his BS in Chemical Engineering at NYU and several jobs followed, including building liberty ships, leather lab technician, Italian grocery/deli owner, Chemical Process Engineer, Process Manager and then became General Manager for process engineering of a fully owned subsidiary of the Fluor Corporation. His MBA was obtained from UCLA.
In his work he traveled to all states and nearly all European countries, the Far and Middle East. He recalls being in Korea at the demarcation line in a house that straddled the border. There was a line drawn through the middle separating North and South Korea. None of the negotiating parties would dare cross it.
While living in Chandler, golfing at SunBird occasionally and looking for a resort community, they began to consider SunBird with its location, amenities, cost and home sizes and no pet restrictions for their big dog. They purchased their current home in 1994.
A second marriage for both, they have eight children, 20 grandchildren, and 11 great grandchildren scattered from coast to coast.
The Kloosters are owners and supporters in SunBird Golf Club. They enjoy golf, dances, cards and traveling to Southern California and Sedona. Marilyn has also accompanied her mother to Sweden and is fond of crossword puzzles, reading, volunteering and as she says, “hooked on knitting, crocheting and needle stitching.”
She retired from outpatient nursing in 2009.
Joe loves the challenge at Bridge and Hearts and uses his gift of mathematics to rarely miss a “trick.”
An interesting pair indeed.