I’m what you’d call a “non-degreed engineer”. In other words, self-taught. I wouldn’t recommend this path to anyone who has the means to get a college education. A high-quality sheepskin is the perfect crowbar one needs to break into the profession. So how does some guy with a mere high school education wind up as the leader of a team of hardware and software engineers?
Like the start of a good adventure novel, my introduction to the tech world started with a Tarot reading. I was told that I’d meet a man with dark hair who would become my teacher and I, his apprentice. This would eventually lead me to become a master of my craft.
“A dark-haired man?”, I asked with raised eyebrow. “Isn’t that a little specific?”
“No, not too specific. The cards say: a dark haired man. That’s who you will meet.” The reader was absolutely confident in her evaluation of the situation.
At that time, I was just out of high school. I had taken electric shop in Jr. High, where we made a shocking device. It gave you a pretty good jolt, too. I’m sure it could never be a school project these days, sigh… We also made a vacuum tube tester. But, since there were still tube testers to be found at every grocery store in America, I turned the device into a shocker too.
I had also taken electric shop in high school where I made a “color organ” which was a kind of personal light show that often found itself mounted in cars next to the 8-track player. With the help of my teacher, I designed and fabricated the printed circuit board using tape, photo resist and FeCl.
But I had no desire to dabble in tech. All of my friends were musicians and I wanted to be a rock star, just like the rest. I played guitar and, more than antything, wanted a synthesizer. So, when one of those musician friends told me that he knew a guy who would help me build a synthesizer for $60, I jumped at the chance.
I’m sure you can guess how it turned out. I was introduced to a man with a long dark ponytail and a “Derek Smalls” moustache to match. For the next couple of years I would go over to Jim’s house at least once a week to learn more about the mysterious world of analog electronics. He refused to teach the fundementals, insisting I learn those on my own. But, he did get me familiar with schematics and components. He taught me about basic op-amp circuitry. Like amplifiers, filters, integrators, comparators and so on. He also taught me about digital circuitry; AND, OR, XOR gates, flip-flops and inverters. He even showed me how to use digital circuits in analog mode. Despite all this, I never built that $60 synthesizer.
Jim was fiercly independant. He preferred to barely exist on money he made from selling guitar effects to flakey local musicians to working for the man at a soul-stealing corporation (which also stole your inventions). However, Jim did have a friend, Gus, who didn’t mind the indignity of a real job. He worked at Data Products, a large company that made line printers. These were those expensive beasts that were commonly paired with IBM mainframes in government and corporate data centers in the 1970s.
At the time, I had quit my soul-crushing job as a swing-shift Xerox operator for Litton Industries and was living in my parent’s garage where I had just finished building a run of 100 prototypes of a nifty guitar tuner for a friend of Jim’s. The tuner project went nowhere and I needed a job. So when Gus told me of an opening for an engineering technician at Data Products, I again, jumped at the chance.
I was hired by the engineering manager largely on Gus’ recommendation despite my lack of experience or education and my naive exhuberance. In my resume I had included a list of every IC I had read about!
I found myself working in the manufacturing support lab as Gus’ personal technician. This was really great because I had completely skipped over the usual starting point as a production tech. We designed and built machines that were used in the manufacturing process. We built a magnetizer which passed 54,000 amps through a coil to zap steel into magnets.
Since high voltage was present, the first part of the project concerned safety. I was to build a voltage monitor using a constant-current circuit in series with an LED. The circuit used a transistor, so I asked Gus about the hfe of the transistor he had chosen, at once trying to appear knowlegable and also to gain some insight into all of the mysterious stuff I had been reading about.
He looked at me like I had just asked if his qwerble was still viggulating.
His reply changed everything and still rings true to this day: “It’s a transistor. Just use it.”
So I built the circuit and hooked it up to the variable voltage power supply. Gus told me which resistor to change in order to adjust the current, and thus the brightness of the monitor LED. And, although I didn’t really understand how it worked, I knew what it was doing and why.
In the three short months I worked there we completed the magnetizer. In our white lab coats and safety goggles, we created some impressive explosions along the way as the coil team perfected its part of the project. But my performance wasn’t enough to outweigh my lack of senority and I was handed my first layoff when the company announced a 15% cutback on labor just after the holidays.
So, I applied for unemployment and went off to visit some friends in Wawona, near Yosemite, where I dove into a deep pool in the river. With snow all around and the water temp surely below freezing, the icy dip seemed to revitalize my spirit in spite of the intense pain it caused.
I returned to the valley and headed for the unemployment office in my usual hospital PJs (which I called draw-string pants) and long stringy hair. There, to my great delight and astonishment I found a listing for an engineering tech at a local company that built and launched experimental rockets!
I excitedly pulled the slip from the board and ran it to a case worker, who took one look at me and my file and said, “You’re not serious? This job is beyond your qualifications.”
Of course. What was I thinking? I only got that job at Data Products because I knew someone. And with just three months total lifetime experience and no degree, who was I fooling? Dropping my eyes to the floor, I turned to leave.
Maybe I could get my old job back making copies for Litton. Or maybe I could regain employment as a janitor at the vitamin factory. Or maybe I could turn around and march right back to my case worker and say,
“Wait a minute! You’re supposed to be helping me get a job. Please call them and tell them you have an applicant who was recently laid off from a similar job.”
For a few moments she just stared at me in stunned silence. Then she simply said, “All right. I will.”
I got the interview at Space Vector Corp and despite my lack of experience and any discernible notion of proper attire (I’m sure I wore those same ‘draw-string pants’) I got what had to be the coolest job in the world. I was an engineering technician for a company that designed and launched scientific rockets! I am sure that the glowing recommendation I received from my friend, Gus, played no small part in this.
Needless to say, I had a great time and learned a lot at Space Vector. My boss, Stu, was an excellent teacher and very patient! And I still remember Howard, the analog engineer, and his industrial sewing machine which he used in his spare time to re-upholster his classic MG.
I had many adventures while at Space Vector, but the most noteworthy was the failed launch attempt at White Sands, New Mexico, which came periously close to being the worst launch disaster in US history. But that story will have to wait until the next blog entry…