Chamber Inspiration Luncheon featuring L.E. Modesitt

This Wednesday's Inspiration Luncheon will feature L.E. Modesitt whose presentation is entitled:  "How a young economist became a Navy pilot, and then how various failures led to career improvements in business and government and eventually to success as a New York Times best-selling author."  He will be talking about how he went from being a clueless young man with extremely limited people skills through a checkered career path, encompassing being a Navy pilot during the Vietnam era, an industrial economist, a high level political staffer in Washington embroiled in political dog-fighting, to a best-selling fantasy and science fiction author, and what the journey illustrates about the struggle for success.

Although he is the author of more than 65 novels – primarily science fiction and fantasy – L. E. Modesitt, Jr., has also been a delivery boy;  a lifeguard;  an unpaid radio disc jockey;  a U.S. Navy pilot; a market research analyst; a real estate agent; director of research for a political campaign;  legislative assistant and staff director for U.S. Congressmen;  Director of Legislation and Congressional Relations for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency;  a consultant on environmental, regulatory, and communications issues;  a college lecturer and writer in residence; and unpaid treasurer of a civic music arts association. 

Shortly after his tours as a Navy amphibious officer and then as a pilot, he returned to Denver as a market research analyst and economist, which experiences generated the idea for his first published story – “The Great American Economy” – printed in ANALOG in 1973.  He then pursued a career in another kind of fiction by becoming the Legislative Assistant for Congressman Bill Armstrong in Washington, D.C., and later staff director for Congressman Ken Kramer. During his years in Washington, he attempted to regain some hold on reality by writing increasingly more science fiction.  Not totally by coincidence, his first novel was published while he was serving as the head of Legislation and Congressional Relations at the U.S. EPA during the Reagan-Burford controversies. These experiences led to the writing of The Green Progression, a book almost totally factual and yet termed more fantastic than any of his fantasy novels. 

Along the way, Mr. Modesitt has weathered eight children, a fondness for three-piece suits which has deteriorated into a love of vests, numerous canines, the majority of them rescues, and two refugee felines, one of whom has never forgotten that the Egyptians once worshipped cats. Finally, in 1989, to escape nearly twenty years of occupational captivity in Washington, D.C., he moved to New Hampshire.  There he married a lyric soprano, and he and his wife Carol moved to Cedar City, Utah, in 1993, where she directs the voice and opera program at Southern Utah University and he continues to create and manage chaos, largely, but not entirely, of the fictional variety.