***Editor’s Note: The “I Became An Engineer” blog runs every friday. To share your story email sarah.goncalves@advantagemedia.com***
This week’s story is brought to us by reader Ralph Anderson.
I was raised in a small farm community in Nebraska in the late 1930s to early 1950s era. No one ever mentioned possible careers in Electrical or Mechanical Engineering to me as I grew up. The only “engineer” I knew about was the guy who drove the train and waved at us kids when his train went through our town every Monday and Friday afternoon to pick up boxcars of corn.
My life’s dream as I grew up was to invent something and become rich. It was an obsession. While other kids dreamed of becoming great athletes, school teachers or whatever, I dreamed of inventing something.
My dad was the town mechanic and somewhat of a homespun inventor himself. He could fix any piece of farm machinery imaginable, from a manure spreader to the latest John Deer Tractor, and he designed and built all kinds of things by hand in his shop, such as a motor scooter, lawnmowers, a garden tractor, ride-snow plows, and an air boat.
As a kid, I stayed away from his shop as much as I could because I had very little mechanical aptitude and hated to get my hands greasy. I remember my dad saying to me, “I don’t know what will become of you. You are too skinny to be a farmer and don’t seem to be capable of becoming a mechanic.” On the other hand, my mom wanted me to become a preacher.
I was a mediocre high school student, graduating 5th academically in our class of eight. Our tiny high school only offered one semester of general math and one semester of algebra, and I got C’s in both courses. At age 19, I joined the USAF. The Korean war was ending, and the Cold War was in full swing. The Air Force provided me with a full year of electronics training on Electronic Counter Measures (ECM) equipment repair and assigned me to a Strategic Air Command base that had more than forty B47 bomber aircraft and was part of military’s strategic nuclear strike forces’ so-called “Nuclear Triad” strategy. ECM included the then-current technology of electronically jamming the Russian’s air and ground radar systems so our B47 Bombers could safely and accurately drop bombs on their pre-assigned targets.(Thank God that’s over).
The ECM equipment that the Air Force used at that time wasn’t very reliable and was somewhat complicated to calibrate, and the test equipment they provided to calibrate the jammers was difficult to use and not very reliable either.
I became obsessed with coming up with ideas on how to improve calibration and repair procedures and ways to redesign the electronic test equipment to make it easier to use and more accurate. Whenever a piece of test equipment failed, as it often did, a tech rep would show up to fix it.
One day, I asked one of the tech reps,”Who designs this equipment?” His answer was: “The Electronic Engineers at the company that makes it.”
That was a life-changing revelation to me. I spent hours in the base library studying engineering curriculums and prerequisites and decided that I wanted to be an Electronic Engineer. I enrolled in night school classes at local junior colleges to upgrade my math background, and after completing my four-year stint in the AF, I enrolled in Cal Poly University. From there, I worked part-time to supplement my monthly GI bill checks and was awarded a BS Electronic Engineer degree in 1964.
During my 33-year career as a full-time engineer, I spent a lot of my evenings attending electronic design, computer science, and engineering management-related classes. In essence, mine was a career of chasing electronic technology as it advanced from the vacuum tube design age, when I began my studies, to today’s microprocessor/internet age.
I was fairly successful; I spent 20 years in Engineering Management, worked for seven different companies, two of which were start-up electronic companies that I helped became successful. I even held the position of VP and Chief Engineer in one of them (a 225-employee medical device company) when it was sold. I started my own engineering consulting business in 1997 and still (at age 81) work as an electronic design consultant.
It has been a wonderful career of pursuing my childhood dream of inventing (and designing) things. I have been involved in many successful design projects and hold three patents. The one thing lacking in my career history, however, is fulfillment of the get-rich part of my childhood dream. It seemed to take a back-seat over the years behind inventing things, chasing technology, and raising a family.
Read other stories, here:
- A Note From The Editor: An Engineer’s Story
- I Became An Engineer: Because Of A Lunch Box
- I Became An Engineer: Because of Christmas Lights
- I Became An Engineer: Because Of The Cool Jackets
- I Became An Engineer: Because My Dad Said Not To
- I Became An Engineer: Despite Being Bad At Math
- I Became An Engineer: Because of Uncle Chet
- I Became An Engineer: Because I Can’t Stop Asking ‘Why?’
- I Became An Engineer: Because of Star Trek (Specifically Montgomery Scott)
- I Became An Engineer: Because I Was A Really Lucky Nerd
- I Became An Engineer: But ‘Nobody Knows’ Why
- I Became An Engineer: Because of Nuclear Submarines
- I Became An Engineer: Because of a Sewing Machine
- I Became an Engineer: Because No One Was Hiring Shoe Salesmen
- I Became an Engineer: Because of Mr. Kenny, the TV/Radio Repair Man
- I Became an Engineer: Because of a Book (And My Mom)
- I Became An Engineer: Because of a Cattle Ranch
- I Became An Engineer: Because of a Wise Father and the Possibility of Death
- I Became An Engineer: Because of An Evil Mastermind
- I Became an Engineer: To Get Off the Tractor
- I Became an Engineer: Because of My Rodeo Coach
