I grew up in Jericho, NY, a town on Long Island. My parents Norman and Lila bought a house there in 1956, shortly after my sister Judy was born, and lived in it for 50 years. At Jericho High School, I excelled at mathematics and science, graduating as class valedictorian.

In the autumn of 1970, I entered Princeton University, where I majored in Psychology, with minor subjects in Religion and Linguistics. I also operated a small business: the Student Birthday Cake Agency.

I received a Master of Arts in Teaching degree from Reed College in 1977, and then taught remedial English at a high school in Portland, Oregon.

I moved to New York City in the autumn of 1978 and worked as a typesetter before studying computer programming at New York University. Then I worked for the city government for a year as a technical writer.

In 1981, I moved to San Diego and worked for three years as a technical writer of software manuals for NCR. One of my projects involved telecommunications protocols for distinguishing a two-byte kanji character from two ordinary one-byte characters.

In 1984, at the tender age of 32, I decided to cross the great water, and flew to Asia for the first time. My intention was to live in Japan for six months. I stayed three years, working as a rewriter of Japanese-to-English translations in Tokyo. For most of that time, my employer was Inter Group Corp, a leading provider of translation and interpreting services for international conferences that are held in Japan.

Next I went to Thailand, where I taught English at Srinakharin Wirot University (in Songkhla, in the south) and then developed curriculum for distance education at Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University (in Nonthaburi, near Bangkok).

I then studied gemology at the Asian Institute of Gemological Sciences (AIGS) in Bangkok. After graduating, I taught gemology to students from six continents for a couple years. I worked as an independent trader in semi-precious gemstones during the second half of 1991.

In 1992, I moved to Yogyakarta on the island of Java and studied the Indonesian language intensively at Wisma Bahasa. For the next three years, my brother Steven and I operated a small business called Emerald City Imports. We bought clothing and handicrafts in SE Asia and sold them in the USA.

I moved to Klaten (between Yogyakarta and Surakarta) in July 1995 in order to work for Cooperative Business International (CBI), an American company that is a division of the National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA). For nearly three years, I served as the marketing adviser at a high-end furniture factory, PT Alis Jaya Ciptatama. This factory uses teak and mahogany logs cut from plantations that have been certified by the Rainforest Alliance. (In fact, teak and mahogany are not native to the Indonesian archipelago, and therefore the trees are not part of any rainforests here.)

In April of 1998, I started a consulting business American Services In Asia, which includes Yankee English Services and Universal Web. The theme of the business is "Global English" which I explained in some online articles, including a series titled Globally Speaking that I wrote during 1999 and 2000 in collaboration with David W. Paul.

In October of 1997, I married Sriwikanti Wiryani Rahayu Prihatiningsih, a Javanese woman who has two daughters by her late husband Warsito: Yunita Indri Apriliani and Eki Santi Kasari.

On July 23, 2000, Sriwikanti gave birth to our daughter Chelsa (variation of Chelsea) Putri ("princess") Schell. Then on November 30, 2000, Yunita gave birth to twin girls Talissa Rasendriya and Tarissa Rasendriya fathered by her husband Teguh Sugiarto.

On April 7, 2003, Sriwikanti gave birth to our daughter Gebby (variation of Gabby) Mutiara ("pearl") Schell.

On December 26, 2005, Yunita gave birth to her third daughter Maheswari Cetta Rasendriya (nicknamed Tata) by Teguh, shortly before they moved into a new house.

On July 26, 2007, Eki gave birth to her daughter Alfieki Cleophila Ovasi (nicknamed Clio) fathered by her husband Alfi Yanto Nugroho.

On April 18, 2010, Eki gave birth to her son Alfieki De Lavariel, Jr. (nicknamed Junior) by Alfi.

Although Javanese traditionally do not use family names, Yunita and Eki collaborated with their husbands to create a name common to all children from the same marriage.

If you want to contact me, email schell@alumni.princeton.edu

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