Peter Aichen

Peter was born the youngest of three boys to Michael Aichen and Anita Boehner-Aichen in Kalispell Montana. He was raised on the ranch his father had inherited, and for the most part had a good childhood despite his older brothers William and Vernon always setting him up and trying to get him to do stupid shit. William was almost eight and Vernon was six when Peter was born, so there was an age gap between him and his brothers. It was said that their mother wanted a girl and would call him Petra sometimes. To his brothers, he was called 'Little Peter' with all the teasing connotations that came with that.

Growing up on a ranch was both fun and hard work. His father demanded the boys pull their own weight, and as the older sons graduated high school, they both went off to college in Washington State. William went to the University of Washington in Seattle and studied business while Vernon went to Washington State University in Pullman Washington and studied agriculture. Since Peter was just hitting adolescence when his brothers left, their workload fell on him alone. Still, Peter found time to participate in sports, and was even a reasonable cornerback for the Glacier High School team. His father didn’t care for Peter expending so much energy for a sport, but he knew he had to give the boy something else besides hard work. By the time he graduated from Glacier High in June 2000, he had enough of the ranch-hand life and immediately joined the army for six years.

After Basic Training he applied for and got an assignment in communications which he had shown a keen interest in and easily learned the equipment. It wasn't long before Specialist 4 Aichen was assigned to a highly top-secret comms center in Pine Gap Australia as a radio communication interceptor. He learned a lot of skills that would serve him well after the army when he was hired by a security company.

Peter married Hannah Dowd when he was 33 and they bought a house in a nice suburban neighborhood. His home projects were fitting out his basement into a high-tech media room, and he had a small workshop at the back of the garage which he played with electronics and communications gear. He kept that locked and private.

He was adept in his work at the security company, and he managed to climb the ladder quickly. On his brother William's advice he invested in the company and by the time he was 34 he had become part owner of the company. He still did hands-on work, but he got to choose his jobs.

Suburban life was nice as Peter was quite personable with the neighbors, and he made friends with a few. His marriage however was rocky at best and when he was 36, Hannah filed for divorce. They didn't have any children, but Hannah was making as big of a cash-grab as she could. Though the settlement hurt, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Peter kept the house, Hannah got the Audi sportscar, a sizable savings account, and enough of Peter's stock in his Advanced Solutions security company to make her a small player at the table and a big pain in the ass. It was this that stung Peter the most. He didn't want to deal with his ex-wife, but he had to deal with her almost constantly.

But Peter didn't lose his usual jolly demeanor and he slowly but surely had Hannah's stock bought out as she cashed it in to support her lavish lifestyle. He became popular in the neighborhood with his cool techy Halloween and Christmas decorations, and would act as the local Santa Claus just about every year. Peter liked kids, he just didn't have any himself.

(more details to come)