2012 Toastmaster Walter Moeller, Class of 1962

After graduatation, Walter Moeller worked at Herb’s Body Shop for about a year before leaving to attend Weaver Airline School in Kansas City, Missouri. As a result of that training Walter obtained a job working for Western Airlines in Los Angeles.

Uncle Sam called in 1965 and Walter was drafted and sent to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, for basic training in the Army. He was selected and completed a leadership orientation program before going through his basic training course. Eventually, Walter was sent to Fort Richardson, Alaska, and assigned to headquarters company US Army Alaska. Walter worked as a data entry clerk in the data processing department. After about three months he was transferred into the analyst department. In his spare time he developed a relationship with some of the people that worked in the computer room and began to learn about electronic data processing (EDP) equipment. These were not yet computers, but this became a stepping stone for what would turn out to be Walter’s career.

Walter returned to Western Airlines after his military service was completed and worked at Los Angeles International Airport. Shortly thereafter, he applied and was accepted into a computer programming training program that Western Airlines had initiated. He worked as a computer programmer in Western’s AccuRes reservation system for two years. While at Western Airlines, Walter met and married Chris Zalejski, from South Bend, Indiana. Shortly thereafter Walter accepted his first consulting job, working with Greenwich Data Systems to develop the “Wizard of Avis” Reservation System for Avis Rent-A-Car Company on Long Island, New York.

Walter accepted a programming position and moved to Kansas City, Missouri, to work for TransWorld Airlines (TWA). While in Kansas City, Walter and Chris had two sons and a daughter. Walter’s objective was to immediately move from New York back to the west coast (the best coast!). That did not work out quite the way he planned. Twelve years later he finally accepted a one year consulting assignment to work on the ‘to be developed’ Bank of America electronic banking computer system in San Francisco. Walter was next hired into the management consulting team of Coopers and Lybrand in San Francisco. This was followed by a layoff and a four year stint with the Information Engineering Consulting team at Arthur Young’s management consulting group. Then two years with Axiom Management Consulting. This convinced Walter it was time to start his own consulting business. He operated as an independent management consultant for almost five years and was hired as Pacific Northwest Regional Director for the Data Warehouse practice of KPMG Peat Marwick.

During this time the three children grew up, finished high school and then completed college. The all live in the greater bay area. The two sons have married and presented him with four beautiful granddaughters. His daughter is engaged to be married. Walter remarried in October, 2010, to Linda Ballard, formerly from Chicago. She has a daughter, son-in-law and grandson living in South Pasadena, California.

In 1997, Walter started another management consulting firm, Principle Partners, Inc. He has continued to manage this firm and provides management consulting services to this day. Walter started taking college courses part-time shortly after moving to Los Angeles and continued to go to night school for years until he had complete a two year community college degree, a four year degree in business and an MBA in marketing and organizational behavior from the University of Missouri, Kansas City.

Walter had the opportunity to travel extensively and has been to Europe, South America, Mexico, Canada and Asia multiple times for business and pleasure. He has had the pleasure of living in Anchorage; Los Angeles; San Francisco Bay Area; Long Island, New York and Kansas City, Missouri.

Walter’s hobbies include hiking, working with local hiking trail building groups and reading. He has been actively involved in professional associations and community volunteer activities over the years.