User:Henry Sprague III

Born in 1945, Henry Ware Sprague III was raised by his grandmother and throughout his lifetime has become an olympic athlete in dingy sailing, navy veteran and eventual anti-Vietnam war conscientious objector, paving contractor, the founder of www.ComplianceNews.com and www.PavingNet.com, a father, and a grandfather. He is known for his eclectic, inventive and high energy abrasive personality.

Henry lives in Long Beach, California. He graduated from Corona Del Mar High School in 1964, where he was a star athlete in football, track and field, and a dingy champion. After missing college to train for and take part in the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games, Sprague would then attend USC. He and his roommate Scott Allen won the National College Sailing Championships. Singles and Doubles. Sprague took 17 straight firsts in the round-robin Foster Trophy against Robby Doyle (Doyle Sailmakers), Carl Van Dyne.

At USC Sprague had the opportunity to hear talks by social justice activists such as Mario Savio, Ralph Nader, and others. Eventually after serving in the U.S. Navy during the late 1960s during the Vietnam War, he turned against the war and became a conscientious objector. As documented in the film Sir no Sir: [1], as with many other conscientious objectors, Sprague was forced to undergo grueling punishment by the military brass. Eventually he was released on an honorable discharge.

In 1986 Henry served as U.S. team captain and won a gold medal with Mark Reynolds in the goodwill games (in the STAR dingy sailing fleet) that took place in Estonia in the former Soviet Union. At the time Henry appeared numerous times on the news broadcasts put out by Ted Turner's news channels. In 2015 Sprague made a major comeback to the "sailing world" receiving the highest ranking ever for a "legend class" (or senior citizen) in the Finn Fleet ranking high among the top olympiads: [2]

Henry during the last three decades of the 20th century and the early part of the 21st century worked as a contractor with a small paving and asphalt business with various ups and downs. In the late 1990s he began working on an online business that eventually he transitioned into full-time. His websites were among the very first online applications that related to construction supply and supporting California's unique laws that promote (DVBE) Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise, Disabled Business Enterprises, Women Business Enterprises, & Minority Business Enterprises.

Sprague married his former wife Elizabeth Jane Weeks and in 1980 had son Jeb Harrison Sprague who in 2015 earned a doctorate in sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara: Curriculum Vitae.