Comments:
After SHS., I went to Penn State and experienced big time college football (as a spectator); then to M.I.T. where I studied Space Propulsion (we thought that we would have colonies on Mars by now). While in grad school, I married Donna Rice. Upon graduation, there were few rocket scientist jobs open, so I started my career at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft in CT designing desalination plants and coal gasification plants. Soon I was back to the rocket stuff, working on jet engines.
In late 1977, my relationships with Donna and Pratt & Whitney came to an end and I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to work on ramjet engines at a division of United Technologies. I was only going to stay for 5 years and then move back to New England. Instead, I met Lin Fraser, got married and have been here ever since. After working on ramjets for about 7 years, I decided to try to start a company. This was in 1985 and the business plan was kind of like a dot com plan, only several years too early. I struggled with this for a couple of years and then gave up and found real rocket scientist job with Lockheed Missiles and Space. While there, I worked on a number of programs and designed propulsion systems for IKONOS (a commercial spy satellite) and Spitzer (NASA’s Infrared Telescope). I retired from Lockheed in 2000 and started work at Space Systems/Loral, a company that makes satellites for companies like Sirius Radio, DirecTV and Dish.
Still enjoy sports, but not as actively as 50 years ago. I am an avid SF 49er fan; but, still root for the Red Sox during baseball season. I have other hobbies including travel, skiing, reading, painting, hiking, and snowshoeing. One of these days I hope to get back to playing golf.
