My Career

I graduated from college in April 1971 with a Bachelors Degree in Aeronautical Engineering.  I had no job at the time of graduation so I returned to my parents home, now located in Hudson, New Hampshire.  I immediately began looking for a job.  The job market was not great, especially for engineers.  In the beginning of July 1971, I was hired by the Data Systems Division of Sanders Associates.  Sanders was primarily a military contractor making detection avoidance systems for aircraft.  Data Systems Division designed and built data entry terminals to compete against IBM.

I was hired as a Senior Quality Inspector in the Model Shop. The Model Shop was a special function of Manufacturing charged with building the prototypes of new equipment being designed by  Engineering.  My role was to insure that the modules being built in the shop were built to the design sketches and that the workmanship was acceptable.  But the work was very sporadic and to prevent boredom, I began to write instructions on how to do my job.  this caught the eye of my supervisor, who passed my work up the chain of command.  The result was that five months after being hired, I was promoted to Quality Assurance Engineer.  The annual salary of my first engineering job was $8,400 per year.

In my new role, the first assignment was to learn the wave solder process and write procedures for how to inspect the outcome for quality of workmanship.  Wave solder was the current technology for attaching electronic components to circuit boards.  The parts would be assembled to the blank circuit board, some by hand, but most by machine. These assemblies were run through a machine over a vat of molten solder  with a standing wave.  The wave would wash the bottom of the board with solder, making the electrical connect between the components and the circuit board.  I then moved on to writing quality inspection procedures for Incoming Inspection.  Incoming was were the purchased parts and devices would be analyzed to insure that they met the purchase requirements.  My final project there was to analyze a cassette tape drive mechanism used in the product  for data storage.  I found numerous issues with the purchase spec and forwarded them to Mechanical Engineering.  That resulted in me being promoted upstairs into the Mechanical Engineering group.

As an MTS II (Member of Technical Staff) I was responsible for the design and purchase of elector-mechanical devices like printers and punched card readers.  About 1974, the company began a crash project to design a competitor to the IBM 3260/3270 series.  Those selected for the project were isolated in a locked room and our only focus was this project.  As  part of the printer team, we were tasked with designing a single 13"x10" card that would drive eight (8) printers simultaneously.  I had to design an interface card to go into each of our printer that would operate with the new printer card.  The printers could 1,000 feet down a coax cable.  Our design was to drive both data and timing the coax that was AC-coupled at about 1.7 volts.  I also had  to develop the microcode for the printer card.  The microcode was basically software, in binary, that physically operated all of the hardware registers on the board.  The microcode took software commands from the application and drove the registers accordingly.  

Once that was released, I went back to developing custom printer solutions  One project was a high-speed line printer for the Air Force Accounting Office in Denver.  I chose a Data Products 600-line per minute drum printer.  Once I finished the interface card, I had to fly to Denver to install the printer and get customer sign-off.  Mission accomplished.  Next project was a Daisy-Wheel printer for the Sisters of St. Francis.  This Diablo printer was unique in that my interface card also had to operate the paper feed mechanism, drive the print carriage across the paper and back.  But these were stepping motors, so part of my design had to calculate the next print line and move the carriage to the start of the next line or to the end.  The interface had to be able to print the lines left to right or right to left, which ever was faster.  For this project I used a Zilog Z-80 microprocessor.  This was my first real venture into software programming.

About the time the Daisy-wheel project was complete, Data Systems was awarded a contract to design a new rental car terminal for Avis Rent-A-Car.  This terminal used a Diable Daisy wheel printer, but this one had a split platen and could drive two separate paper feeds.  It also had a keyboard, credit card reader, a 5" CRT and an 1800-baud async communications  line.  For this  project, we spent one full year working with the customer to develop a Requirements Document that fully explained how the attendant would use the terminal and how it would communicate with the IBM-360 at Avis headquarters on Long Island.  While working on this project, Sanders sold the Data systems division to Harris corporation's Data Communications Division in Dallas, Texas.  In January 1978, I was transferred from Nashua, NH to Dallas.  I continued as the Project LEader for the Avis terminal until Christmas 1978, when we flew back to New England for the holidays.  While there, I decided that I wanted to change jobs and move back to New Hampshire.  In February 1979, we left Dallas and moved to Londonderry, New Hampshire.

I began working for Compugraphic as a Senior Hardware Engineer.  Compugraphic  developed photo-typesetters for the printing industry.  My first project was to work on a team developing an Arabic typesetter.  In English, we print (and read) from left to right.  In Arabic, they read right to left.  We needed to develop a type-setter that printed in both directions.  About a year later, I was promoted to Project Leader and was assigned to a Low-Cost photo-typesetter project.  We completed the project on-time, but the company was experiencing financial difficulties.  I was laid-off in a company-wide reduction in September 1981.

I began my time at Computervision as a Project Engineer in the peripherals group.  We were responsible for the design and support of the displays and devices that connected to their CAD/CAM systems.  Within a few months, they began a major new design project.  As a result,  I was promoted to Product Line Manager and became responsible for the existing InstaView display and peripherals.  Two years later, there was a complete reorganization of the Engineering department and I found myself as the Manager of Engineering Support.  I now picked up responsibility for Mechanical packaging, Drafting, Document control, and Regulatory compliance.  Less than a year later, the Manager of Diagnostics Development left the  company and I was reassigned to manage diagnostic software development.  This included power-up diagnostics, loadable diagnostics, and system level diagnostics.  But Computervision had made a strategic decision to exit the hardware market and utilize Sun Microsystems as their hardware platform.  So before my job was on the list, I decided to leave the company.

I became one of DEC's 130,000 employees in July 1986, as Supervisor of Diagnostic Development. This change in employers meant that I was now commuting from Londonderry, NH to Maynard, Massachusetts, a distance of 55 miles one-way.   This meant putting well over 500 miles per week on my  car.  It also meant that I got to work in The Mill.  When DEC first started in 1957, they leased space in the old Assabet Woolen Mill.  At about one million square feet, the Assabet was the world's largest woolen factory for many years.  In 1974, DEC purchased the entire mill complex of over twenty buildings and large mill pond.  Construction of the mill complex began around 1847.  Each building was built for a specific purpose, which mean that the ceiling height was different in each building.  So it was not unusual to leave one building on the third floor and exit the bridge on the fifth floor of the next building.  It was a real adventure to wander around the complex.  As a DEC employee, it was an honor to be called a Mill Rat.  Being a technology company it only made sense to label each stairway, elevator, or bridge  with the building number and floor number.  But why make it easy?  The labels were painted in resistor color codes.  I assume that most people reading this will not know what resistor color codes are.  

 My team of eight engineers were developing the diagnostics for the next generation of the MicroVAX family.  The work included both the built-in power on diagnostics, as well as a loadable diagnostic.  I continued in this role for about two years.   When my manager decided to transfer to the fledgling Personal Computer Group, I was promoted to Software Engineering Manager and assumed responsibility for the entire group.  At this point, I had about fifty engineers and support personnel in my organization.  

About one year later, one of my peers was promoted and became my manager.  With this event, I chose to leave the Diagnostics group and join my previous manager in the PC Group.  I moved out of The Mill to a small building (LTN) in Littleton, Mass.   The PC Group was not only responsible for engineering PC products to compete with IBM, but also a layer of server software, known as PATHWORKS, which made a suite of  communications, file services, and print services available to PC users.  Keep in mind that Microsoft Windows did not have any networking built in at the time.  The PC Group was providing data link drivers and protocol stacks to be integrated into Windows.  Thus making it easy for PC users to communicate with VAX/VMS  systems.   My role in the group was to set up and execute a certification lab, which would take PC's from major manufacturer's like Dell and Compaq and certify that they were compatible with PATHWORKS.

Boston Technology was a very interesting company.   It was one of the smallest that I worked for during my career.  It also had one of the most complex products that I had worked on during my career.  The product was a voice messaging system for large phone companies.  Think voicemail, although it was much more than just voicemail.  The full-up system could handle three hundred thousand messages an hour.  Customers were the likes of Bell South, Bell Atlantic, Southwestern Bell, and Docomo and NTT in Japan.  The system was fully redundant with automatic fail-over.  For example, a CPU card had two completely independent CPUs and included arbitration logic to determine if there was a failure and complete the transaction via fail-over.   

I joined the company in the Product Quality Department with my role focused on process quality.  

In January 1998, Comverse Network Systems merged with Boston Technology.  Comverse had a similar product but they were focused of the many small wireless companies world-wide, while BT was focused on the the large wired phone companies.  While called a merger, in reality, Comverse bought out BT.  I became a member of one of the integration teams that were focused on how to merge all of the systems of two different companies.  Activities like document control and software release control were done differently and now had to converge.  This work resulted in several trips to Tel Aviv.  While Comverse Network Systems was a New York registered company, the primary facility and all development was done in Tel Aviv.  On one of those trips a coworker and I took a guided trip through Jerusalem.  It was awe inspiring to see structures and walk on roads built by the Romans two thousand years earlier.

Shortly after the integration was complete, I was promoted to Assistant Vice President for Corporate Quality.  For the most part, my job was to meet with customers and address product quality issues.  My travel was extensive.  I have been to Japan four times, Tel Aviv five times and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia twice.  On one occasion, NTT in Japan was having system issues and wanted their entire systems replaced.  I sent a team to Japan to thoroughly examine their systems and determined that they were primarily software bugs.   I then had to fly to Japan to explain a recovery plan to senior management.  I flew to Japan, had a one one meeting with the customer and immediately flew home.  I arrived back home on Christmas Eve.

About six months prior to losing my job at Comverse, we had purchased an old family farm in Limington, Maine.   In some ways, the timing could not have been better.   Most technology companies were in tough shape after the bursting of the Dot Com Bubble.  My chances of finding another job in the area were slim.  So maybe this was an opportunity for me to go back to working on a farm as I had growing up.  After building a pair of stalls in the old barn, I moved our horses up to Maine, while Pam stayed in Londonderry.  I began working as a substitute teacher for MSAD 6.  Within the year, Pam had transferred to the JC Penney store in South Portland, resulting in the sale of the Londonderry house and her moving to Maine.  I continued to work as a substitute teacher for several years until I saw an add for an opening in the Technology Department in Kennebunk.  I began working at the Kennebunk Middle School as the Technology Ed. Tech. maintaining the two labs and assisting teachers when they held a class in the lab.  The second year I was transferred over to the elementary school, doing the same job.  Fortunately for me, there was an opening in the Bonny Eagle school system for a computer technician.  I lived in the Bonny Eagle district, so it was much more convenient.

I began my fifteen years with MSAD6 as the Computer Tech for Microsoft Windows-based computers.  Teachers and students had Apple products, but Central Office and each of the school offices had Windows computers.  After several years, the network admin resigned and I became the Network Specialist responsible for keeping the network up and running.  In many ways, this was like going back to being an engineer and individual contributor.  The Bonny Eagle school district was made up of five communities.  There were eleven facilities spread across those towns., including  six elementary schools, the Middle and High schools were next to each other, plus transportation, Technology, and Central Office.  All of the facilities had a high-speed fiber optic connection.  The network also had routers at two off-premise locations to facilitate the connections to the remote schools.  The smaller schools had a single network closet, while the larger ones had several.  The high school for example had six network closets.

My role was to program and maintain all of the network switches and cabling at these locations, along with the district firewall, and a number of servers providing network infrastructure like DNS, DHCP, and network storage.   While I had some exposure to networking while working for DEC, I was continually studying and learning.  Prior to this I had never programmed switches or firewalls.   And if that were not enough, the Maine laptop program was putting an Apple laptop in the hands of every Middle and High school student.   This meant that the wifi system had to be replaced with a significantly more robust system.  The district chose to deploy Aerohive wireless and required an access point in nearly every classroom.  The job kept me very busy and constantly in learning mode.  I had almost no contact with teachers or students.  I really did enjoy this job.  I got to work with some very good people, like Tonya, Rich, and Ryan.  And then there were the others.