Place of Birth:

           Belgrade, Yugoslavia (Serbia-Montenegro)

  Date of Birth:

           May 10, 1959

  Languages:

           Serbian, English, French

Education:

           École Communale de Garçons (1^st and 2^nd Grade)
           Hodge Elementary School (3^rd Grade)
           St. Vitus Catholic School (4^th and 5^th Grade)
           Benjamin Franklin Elementary School (5^th and 6^th Grade)
 
          Charles A. Mooney Junior High School (7^th - 9^th Grade)

           James Ford Rhodes High School (10^th - 12^th Grade)

           Florida Institute of Technology
 
                                     Bachelor of Science Degree (1978)
                                     Master of Science Degree (1984)
                                     Doctor of Philosophy (1990)

Biography:

I was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1959 to Ivan and Ljiljana Iricanin. My father emigrated to France in 1963 and settled in Paris. My mother and I remained in Yugoslavia until April 1966, when we also moved to Paris.

The building in the center of the picture is where I lived in Belgrade

(To see all the places I've lived, click here)

46 Rue Dauphine

My father had rented an apartment in the 6^émé Arrondissement of Paris on 46 Rue Dauphine. The apartment was located on the fourth floor of the building. This was my new home for the 14 months.

When my mother and I arrived in Paris, I could not speak a word of French. As a result, my parents sent me to live with a French family on the Normandy coast for the summer. Needless to say, I learned to speak French very quickly out of sheer necessity.

In September 1966, I was enrolled in 1^st grade at École Communale de Garçons located on Rue de Pt. Lodi. The school was conveniently located very close to our apartment (approximately 8 minutes walking distance). All in all, I really enjoyed living there because I was in the heart of the Quartier Latin.

École Communale de Garçons Rue de Pt. Lodi

Unfortunately, June 1967 turned out to be an unforgettable month. A fire at the pizzaria located on the ground level of our building resulted in serious damage to our apartment. Luckily we were not home at the time but visiting a friend who lived in Versailles.

Needless to say, the fire left us without a home for several months. While the apartment was getting repaired, we stayed with very close friends. Since they lived near La Bastille, I had to take the Métro everyday to and from school.

When school was out for the summer, my parents sent me away to summer camp (or Colonies de Vacances) for two months on the Normandy coast. One day will hiking with the summer camp folks, I passed the home of the family I had stayed the year before. I must admit that summer camp was a blast and the two months flew by. It was really weird coming back to Paris after spending two months out in the country. But anyway....when I returned to Paris, our apartment was completely repaired and remodeled.

39 Rue Buffon - Today (Place cursor over picture to see it in 1977)

I started 2^nd grade at École Communale de Garçons in September 1967. That same month my father had found an apartment closer to his work and with a lower rent (which always an anticing proposition for moving). We moved to 39 Rue Buffon in late fall. Across the street from our new apartment was Le Jardin des Plantes. It became my favorite hangout. Every Thursday....
(I need to take a second to explain that at the time, the French school system had chosen Thursdays and Sundays as no school days)
..... I would be in the Jardin des Plantes. It did not matter that it was winter or summer. If I had no school, you could always find me there.

In the spring of 1968, my parents decided that they wanted to move to the United States (much to my objection). With all the necessary paper work was submitted to the U.S. Embassy, we were issued visas to emigrate to the United States.

Renault Dauphin (Same color as our car)

That summer we went on a two-week family "Tour de France" (except we used our Renault Dauphin and not bicycles). We visited La Rochelle, Bordeaux, Biarritz, Marseilles, Nice, Monte Carlo, Grenoble, Vichy, and other cities and towns along the way. After we returned to Paris, my parents sent me to Belgrade to spend the rest of the summer with our relatives.

It was a memorable summer. I spent alot of time with my uncle and my aunt (at that time). We went to Dubrovnik for a couple of weeks. I went fishing on the Danube and had a great time. Unfortunately, my visit was cut short when the Soviets decided to invaded Czechoslovakia. A week after the invasion, I returned to Paris.

When I returned to Paris, my family and I started packing. We sold all our furniture and the "fabulous" Renault Dauphin. And in late September 1968, we boarded an Alitialia Boeing 707 bound for the United States.

Cleveland, Ohio became our new home (...that's what I said too!). I started 3^rd grade at Hodge Elementary School on East 71^th Street. At that time we lived on Lockyear Avenue, right off East 71^th Street. In the spring of 1969, we moved to Bonna Avenue (in a Slovenian neighborhood) several streets west of Lockyear. Nevertheless, I finished out 3^rd grade at Hodge.

That summer, we took our first vacation in the United States. We went to Miami Beach, Florida. We stayed at a hotel called The Blue Horizon (right on the beach). Two glorious weeks on Miami Beach. On the drive back to Cleveland, we o passed by the Kennedy Space Center in Titusville and got a glimpse of Apollo XI on the launchpad. A few days after we returned to Cleveland, Apollo XI lifted-off from Cape Canaveral on its historic mission to the Moon.

In September, I started 4^th grade at St. Vitus Catholic School. For the next 1½ years, we lived on Bonna Avenue and I contined at St. Vitus Catholic School.

In March of 1971, my parent bought a two-story colonial style house in the section of Cleveland called "Old Brooklyn". I spent the next seven years living here. The neighborhood was nice and quiet. Near our house was a wooded gully where I would go sledding in winter and exploring during the fall and spring. Our yard was nice and small. My father bought a parcel behind our house in 1980, which significantly increased the property size. I really enjoyed living in that house; it was a nice house. My parents did alot of work inside and outside of the house transforming it into a dream house.

Well back to the story....I finished 5^th and 6^th grades at Benjamin Franklin Elementary School. In September of 1972, I started 7^th grade at Charles A. Mooney Jr. High School. I have very fond memories of Mooney and all the friends I made. My most memorable event while at Mooney was being the pit orchestra for the school production of "Carnival". I graduated from Mooney in June 1975.

(left) Benjamin Franklin Elementary School (right) Charles A. Mooney Jr. High School

The year 1975 was another memorable year for me. First, the movie Jaws was released that summer. Second, I saw my first live shark off the beach in Maine (it was only a basking shark, neverthe less a shark). Third, we were in the middle of remodeling the house for the better part of the year (what a nightmare). And fourth, I started high school. The next three years I spent at James Ford Rhodes High School. At Rhodes I participated in the french club, marching band, orchestra band, and jazz band. While I was a sophmore, I also joined the ski club.

James Ford Rhodes High School

In the summer of 1976, I went for my first visit to Yugoslavia since 1968. I had a grand old time. I spent two weeks on the Adriatic coast. The rest of the summer I spent in Belgrade. That visit had a great effect on the rest of my life. It made me realize who I was and where I came from.

During my junior year at Rhodes, I was selected to attend a 11-week (April through May 1977) Short-Term Institute course on general chemistry at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachussetts. This is the same school that some notable individuals attended , such as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Samuel B. Morse, John F. Kennedy, Jr., Dana Delany (actress), James Spader (actor) and the Bush boys (George H. W. Bush, George W, Bush and John Ellis (Jeb) Bush). Iguess you could call that my first brush with greatness.

After my junior year was over, I spent two months in Paris. Every day I would be off visiting a new museum or monument. I must have seen the most if not all the museums in Paris that summer. I also learned how to develop pictures and brought back with me a box full of black and white pictures from my trip. (To see some of the pictures from this trip to Paris click here).

I started my senior year at Rhodes in September 1977. I was certainly an emotional year for everyone. Most of the seniors at Rhodes were planning out their futures. Some of us were going on to college while others were not. Those of us that were planning to continue academically met frequently with our guidance counselors. Ms. Annabelle Whalen was initially my guidance counselor. At one of our meeting she told that I would not amount to much (....bless her). I guess she thought that I would do better by applying to her Alma Mater, Miami University (of Ohio). I would say that a majority of students that she counselled applied there. Hey, the school did not offer oceanography so.......

In 1978, I graduated from high school and started my academic studies at Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) in Melbourne, Florida. I received all my degrees at FIT. I really liked the campus.

During the summer break in 1980 (while I was an undergraduate at FIT), I met the woman who would become my wife, Gordana. We continued a long distance correspondence and saw each other during my visits to Yugoslavia. In 1989, we were married.

I received my Ph.D. in Chemical Oceanography in April 1990. My first employment was with a environmental consulting company called Conservation Consultants, Inc. The company changed its name in 1994 to CCI Environmental Services, inc. and was later (in 1998) bought out by Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc.. I left the company in August 1997 when I accepted employment with the South Florida Water Management District.

Presently, my wife and I live in the West Palm Beach area with our two sons (Stefan and Aleksandar).