The time: Wednesday, July 16th 10:00 AM Mountain Time
The place: The auditorium of Teikyo Loretta Heights Theater
How did Greg come to this point in his life? The reason is clear, his wife and true love, Dianne – both partners in life and business, Dianne and Greg run Web Your Business like a family – our employees are thought of as extended family and we like to encourage fun and good times at the same time as we work diligently to provide web based business solutions to our varied client base.
It was January 2000 in a pre-9/11 world that Greg and Dianne landed at DIA – looking for a city to expand into the USA. As a tiny company it was a huge gamble – to split the company in two and run operations in the UK remotely – but a faith in the business tools which were forming from the internet made them both certain that it could work. So the hunt was on – find a new home base for the business – in the USA – birthplace of Dianne Stayton (they weren't married at that time). The search was a week long, and timed specifically to see winter conditions – reasoning that the worst time for weather would make for the best decision for the company.
After several false starts, it was literally in the last few minutes of driving north on Highway 287, before giving up and driving north to Montana to visit family, that Loveland came into view at the end of the daylight... "This looks promising!" - and indeed it was... for some 5 months later, Greg and Dianne had completed extensive research via the internet and landed on American soil once more, with suitcases and computers to set up shop in the USA – the date was June 1st, 2000.
Within a few months Greg and Dianne were married and their journey began another chapter – along with countless visits to INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) which later became part of the Department of Homeland Security in the post 9/11 government reshuffle. Actually, 9/11 made some positive changes to the immigration procedures, as there was no more turning up on a day you had an 'appointment' and praying that a 5AM appearance to join a long line of fellow immigrants might get you out of the building before noon – the whole process was streamlined and appointment times became accurate – you turned up and were seen within 30 minutes of your appointment time.
The catalyst for this "final step" - the change from being a mere 'greencard holder' into that of a fully naturalized citizen is without doubt this 2008 Presidential election – Greg will happily tell you that he believes this particular election is likely to go down in history – he prefers not to discuss his politics – but even before it became clear which of the Democratic party candidates would move forward, either choice would make for a historic election – and it doesn't matter which side of the political spectrum you occupy, it should be clear that this year's election will be "interesting" to say the least!
So here we are - 10AM the ceremony starts, presided over by an immigration judge, officials of INS and a video appearance by President George W Bush - the ceremony is short, a recital of the Oath of Allegiance, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance and then handing out of certificates of naturalization - which bear a photograph of the new citizen themselves.
The certificate itself is a beautiful thing – gold leaf embossed and something that will look great framed and mounted on the wall – but Greg is only able to hang onto this hard earned certificate of achievement for a short period of time – the ceremony is followed by some optional registrations, which Greg immediately heads off to register to vote - he is perhaps 20th out of the auditorium but makes a bee-line for the registration tables and is 2nd to register to vote, but there is no stopping there - heading downstairs there is social security where the new citizenship changes the status of his social security file, and after that passport application. Before 11:15AM, Greg has completed his naturalization, registered to vote, changed his social security file status and applied for his US Passport - which is where he and his beautiful certificate part company - the original certificate must accompany his passport application...so after taking a few quick photos of the certificate, it is filed away with his application and fees... and the adrenaline high starts to ebb... "It must be time for a beer!" - so despite his new status as one of the newest American citizens, his English remains - beer being universally accepted by Brit's and almost all Europeans as a way to "seal the deal" - some things all Americans might learn... Cheers to Greg – our newest American!
Written by WYB Staff
