Selected Chapters
Chapter One
You may have experienced growing up during the depression. In those days, kids had difficulty getting money to see movies or buy things. Listening to the radio in the forties was the main source of information and entertainment, especially if your radio could pick up the stations that carried your favorite programs. So, I was fascinated and curious when I looked inside the radio boxes and saw the inside glow of the light coming from the vacuum tubes. One of that era’s most popular and often listened to radio stations was KDKA, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. KDKA was a clear channel 50-thousand-watt station. The year was 1945, and I was 15 years old and attending Pinney Street Junior High School in Rochester, Pennsylvania. My favorite teacher was Ms. Grant, my ninth-grade science teacher. She was an outstanding science teacher and an exceptionally good dancer. How did I know that? She taught students (me included) how to do the two-step to the music of Tommy Dorsey’s Orchestra. But that is another story.
I needed to do a project that was functional and interesting at the same time. At some point in my memory. I had heard about a tubeless radio requiring no electricity or batteries to function. If I could build a powerless radio and it performed correctly then it could pick up that powerful station in Pittsburgh, and Ms. Grant would be pleased. One day at the end of class, I told her about my idea. She told me to try it and said it might get me a good grade. I told my big brother about my idea too. He knew all about radios and he repaired them and was paid well during the tough times created by the depression. My brother said he had an old pair of earphones that I could use. Swell, I said, not knowing how to get the project started. Itold my mom and dad about my idea. My dad, an avid radio listener, said it would be clever to put my brother’s earphones in my mom’s big salad bowl. What will that do I asked him. It will make the sound much louder, my father said.
Chapter Three
We learned we would ship out to Japan as Special Radar Technicians. Surprise. Upon arriving at Fort Lewis, Washington, I met with my four friends. With our orders, we reported to the officer in charge. It was then that we learned we would not be going to Japan, instead they assigned three of us to the 25th Infantry Division in Korea and the other two were assigned to the 7th Infantry Division somewhere in Korea. What a jolt that was.
I sailed to Korea on a large troop ship. It took 17 days to get to our first port. I never got seasick. We docked in Yokohama, Japan, for a 24-hour layover and we got sea leave to hit the town. We returned to the ship in the morning and set sail for Pusan, Korea. After docking at the port, we boarded trucks to take us to the train station. While we were inside the back of these open trucks, young Korean children started peppering us with wet sod and muddy grass. When we arrived at the station, we climbed down from the trucks and headed inside. More young children grabbed our helmets and duffel bags while we were walking to the boarding platform. Seeing all this happen before my eyes was quite a culture shock. What an experience that was. We safely boarded the train, looked out the window, and saw the same Korean kids outside our train windows throwing muddy sod at the windows. To this day, I do not know why the children behaved that way. It had something to do with their social customs, a friendly way of welcoming visitors. I wanted to know what was taking place on the ground outside our train.
As the train pulled out, the children ran alongside, continuing to throw the mud. Then, suddenly, the train came to a screeching stop. One of the kids was crushed under the train. We later learned that this stuff happens often.
Chapter Six:
Finally, I met a man named George Gard. Mr. Gard was the boss of all the other interviewers and was the man in charge of the electrical physics operation there. On Friday of that week, I received a message to call Mr. Gard. I will be dammed. I called Mr. Gard as soon as possible and learned I passed the interview tests, and Mr. Gard made me an offer on the phone.
Yes, of course, I accepted the offer. Mr. Gard followed up with details about when and where to report to work for my new job. Little did I know then that this would be the beginning of an eleven-year marriage working for Armstrong World Industries. I spent the first two years in Beaver Falls, working with and learning from the most likable and very professional men I had ever met.
Shortly after the Pittsburgh Press Newspaper announced that Armstrong changed their corporate name to Armstrong World Industries, with headquarters in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Armstrong signed a contract with Bell Labs, Firestone Electrical Systems, and Dow Chemical Company to manufacture “Lens Media.” Armstrong was now under contract to manufacture a product that was key to the design and development of a new military radar antenna complex located on the Pacific rim. The name of the new system was called: The Nike Zeus Anti-Missile Missile System. The system can determine whether the enemy missile is a decoy or the real thing.
Chapter Eight
Inside the hangar, we gathered around the plane. We met a captain and a Master Sargent, the people we would work with throughout the testing phases. Looking around, I found the boxes containing my test instrumentation. The Sargent and I began connecting cables from my instruments and computer items to a dropdown connector rack attached to the F-4 plane. After an hour, we had hooked my equipment up and were ready for a dry run. Every day for the next week, we pounded away testing and testing. I experienced a great deal of trouble with the computer paper tape system. I would run a scheduled test, and it would fail. Not that the plane was at fault, but there were problems with my code.
For example, I had to change the code if we encountered a NO-GO failure when none existed. I traced the holes in the black paper tape to change the code. When the section of the tape was flawed, I cut the wrong section out with a pair of scissors. Using a paper punch, I punched new holes (fixing the code) in a new piece of paper tape and put the two ends together, holding them with scotch tape. (Remember, this was 1970). Having completed that, we would rerun the test. Bingo! It worked. We proceeded as planned and found no flaws, and John declared our part of the test process was successful. Let the bird’s fly.
Chapter Nine
Hamilton Technology (Pulsar)
Our Pulsar design team was constantly exploring for information that would allow Pulsar to develop distinct types of wrists worn devices. One such device that had yet to exist was a wrist-worn Pulse Rate Monitor Watch. To make that happen, we needed to search academia for research in the precise field of medical systems. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was the school I contacted. I went to MIT to visit with an engineer I had heard about that was working on transducers that showed promise. Sid Lotlicker and I flew to Boston in early January 1976 to meet with their engineering group and discuss our plan to design and manufacture a watch that could keep time and measure a wearer’s pulse rate. Sid and I were impressed with the depth and breadth of knowledge the MIT engineers had in medical devices. They showed us a device called a photoplethysmograph (PPG). That device was called a sensor. It had two components. 1) A light transmitter and 2) A light receiver.
The assembly comprises two glass bead elements placed side by side one-eighth inch apart and connects the photoplethysmograph to an electronic circuit. The circuit had a power supply, digital display, and other electric elements. A person would place their finger over the two pieces, and in about three seconds, it showed their pulse rate on the display, e.g., seventy-two beats/minute. The PPG used the reflection and absorption of bright green/infrared light to detect the pulse wave traveling down the artery to the finger. Regardless of what sensor was used, the output was a stream of values showing transmission or reflection of a particular wavelength of light. What remained was to count the pulses and display the pulse rate value on the screen.
Chapter Fourteen
UNISYS Corporation Paoli, PA.
My job was to manage a group of trained engineers and technicians conducting scripted interoperability testing. Interoperability testing was a software examination that checked whether the software could interact with other software components and systems. Interoperability tests aimed to ensure that the software product could communicate with other components or devices without any compatibility issues. One of the aims of communications standardization was to ensure that implementations of a single standard (or set of criteria) would interoperate without the need for complex proprietary interfacing equipment.
“Open standards rely on a broadly consultative and inclusive group including representatives from vendors, academics and others holding a stake in the development that discusses and debate the technical and economic merits, demerits, and feasibility of a proposed common protocol. After the doubts and reservations of all members are addressed, the resulting common document is endorsed as a common standard.” Interoperability – Wikipedia
Interoperability in software refers to the functionality of different programs to exchange information, share files and use the same protocols. Java is often considered a highly interoperable programming language for software as it can run and execute on any program with a Java virtual machine.
Military and public safety: In this setting, interoperability is defined as the ability for multiple sectors of law enforcement to communicate effectively during emergencies, standardize training efforts or coordinate the execution of tasks.
Chapter Fifteen
Department of Health and Human Services
I had to take a course in Sexual Harassment because I referred to two Black female coworkers as “girls and not ladies.” It was very innocent, and they worked in my department. About twenty of my fellow employees went on an afternoon boat ride down the Potomac River one day. The boat belonged to another one of my coworkers. After about three hours of boating, we returned to headquarters. We got off the boat and parted company. I said, “Good Night, Girls,” along the way to our cars. By addressing the ladies in that manner, I got in trouble. Live and learn.
As mentioned earlier, I stayed at my daughter’s home in Falls Church, VA, four nights a week. In my little room there, I had my Personal Computer. While at HHS, I applied for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Information Management at Kennedy-Western University. I purchased the required books for the course from the university. The university set up a study program for me, allowing me to study at home and have my tests proctored by an independent observer. So, that was the routine, and I kept up a steady pace of studying and testing. Finally, the course work completed, and I took the final exam.
Now it was time to find a project for my dissertation. I decided to synthesize my network management work at HHS. Collaborating closely with my advisor at KWU, his advice was to start doing detailed research on Proactive Network Management. In that effort, I called and made appointments with key people in the industry to gain knowledge on the subject. In addition, I visited George Town University Library and George Washington University often to glean technical information related to my project.
Listed are just a few of the many elements that comprised my dissertation: purpose of the study, detailed literature search, methodology, data analysis, discussion, summary, conclusions, and recommendations. I searched technical textbooks, magazines, government publications and vendor publications. I studied theoretical models of network management, fault management, security management and performance management. I conducted live interviews with experts in the field.
Chapter Eighteen
Private Sector Enterprises
On the fourth Friday of the month at the clubhouse, we had Happy Hour; evolving out of that social event was born Juke Box Friday Night. By accident, I played music towards the end of one of the Happy Hour Programs, and people jumped up and began to dance. It was fun. Since the Happy Hours concept was fading, I got the idea of switching from the Happy Hour concept to playing dance music. I received backing from the Social Committee to try out my idea.
I had hundreds of songs from various artists in my inventory of music. On my PC, I installed a semiautomatic dance list application. I was using the application to create programs of songs that would continue for over three hours. On the afternoon of my first show, I took my PC, display, keyboard, and mouse and set up the equipment on the clubhouse stage. I hooked up my gear to the clubhouse’s audio rack using a connector cable. The benefit was to utilize the powerful amplification realized from the clubhouse audio system.
On the first announced night of the dance program, I was a bit nervous. During the day, I rehearsed and was satisfied with the sound. In addition to sound, I also had control of the stage lights and special effects lights. I scheduled the dances from 7:00 pm until 9:00 pm. Russ Warner, a good friend and resident of Countryside suggested I open my first dance with the song: “Could I Have This Dance for The Rest of My Life” by Ann Murray. I agreed. At the stroke of seven, I introduced myself. Then I queued up the number and hit play. The music sounded great, and the folks got up and began dancing, and it was a great start. I used that song to kick off my dance programs for the duration. My disk jockey stage name was Bobby R.