ANNUITY HELPS DONOR AND MICHIGAN TECH
Albert Mickus is long removed from his childhood days in South Range, Michigan. "Those were Depression days," he recalls, "and everybody had it tough--although we didn't feel that as kids."
Times are now much more comfortable for Al. Late last year he established a generous charitable gift annuity with the Michigan Tech Fund. He says the annuity ideally fits his current state of affairs, which includes both providing for his wife and helping Tech financially.
Al, a soft-spoken man, enrolled at Tech in 1942 but was drafted into the Marines a year later. After serving until 1945, he returned to Tech on the GI Bill. Halfway through, he was in a bad motorcycle accident; the downside was it took him two years to walk again, and the upside was meeting his wife Rosella, one of the nurses who took care of him.
Al came to Tech because it was a good school and close to home. He also found it "comradely." His dad used to tease him, "You're going to be an electrical engineer because you knew how to change a light bulb when you were a kid." He did indeed earn an electrical engineering degree in 1949 and then a business degree (called engineering administration at the time) in 1950. After graduating from Tech, he got married and earned a master's degree in business administration at the University of Michigan.
During his college years, Al wasn't certain what he wanted to do, other than to finish college as a way to thank his dad for everything he had done for him. Al ended up working for Kohler Co. as a salesman in its Detroit office. He soon rose to branch manager and then was transferred to the firm's Kohler, Wis., headquarters as director of field sales for the western half of the US. He retired, in 1990, as executive director of distribution for the entire US and Canada.
Al believes that Tech was good preparation for the working world. "The discipline and the ability to think through in great detail helped me very much." He brought many skills and his own makeup to his job: "Learning, growing, teamwork, perseverance, and hard work."
Meanwhile, in his personal life, he tried to live up to a simple aspiration: "Plan ahead and be a pleasant individual with people." In retirement, he works on his vegetable and flower gardens and on his investment portfolio that now includes the Tech annuity. The annuity supplements a long history of annual giving to Michigan Tech by Al and Rosella.
Al notes that his Kohler pension ends when he dies. This void will be filled by the Tech annuity income that is almost as large as his pension income. "My wife will still have the annuity income if I pass away before her," he says. "It's a very good program and fits in perfectly with our plan." When Rosella dies, the remainder of the annuity will go to Tech's School of Business and Economics. Al worked more in business than engineering, which allowed him to be a good management and sales analyst, and he wants to pass that capability on to other youngsters.
His reward? "Satisfaction that my wife will be taken care of and Michigan Tech will have something to help them out."