What a life!

This is a retrospective describing how fortunate I've been since first arriving in San Diego in 1975, focusing primarily on the technical aspects of my career.  I'll try to make this more of a time-line, with just enough detail to stand on its own.  I can always add more detailed posts later, if needed.

After graduating High School in the Midwest in 1974, I had no burning desire to immediately start college.  There were many issues involved, but the main one was my having no idea of what long-term career I wanted.  I needed an income, so I got some typical low-wage jobs suitable for folks without a degree, and within months decided I needed something more.

I joined the US Navy in February 1975, enlisting under the Nuclear Power Program (NPP).  At that time, four enlisted ratings (job categories) existed in the NPP: Electronics Technician (ET), Interior Communications Electrician (IC), Electrician's Mate (EM) and Machinist's Mate (MM).  My oldest brother was a HAM radio operator and had been an ET in the Navy, and I very much wanted to learn electronics.  Though I had qualified for ET, the most technically advanced of the four ratings, I was told that I would not be assigned to a rating until after I started boot camp.

I was assigned to the IC rating, which was initially a severe disappointment.  However, two factors about the IC rating combined to ease my disappointment:  First, the IC rating was responsible for equipment located throughout the ship, in literally every single part of it, covering a wide range of technologies.  Perhaps none were at the level ETs worked on, but the scope and breadth was very intriguing.  Second, IC school was in San Diego, a place of fables this Midwestern boy had never seen.

I arrived in San Diego in the spring of 1975, seeing my first palm trees as I exited the airport terminal.  I sailed through the IC coursework and totally fell in love not only with electronics, but also with electromechanical systems and the technologies of sensors and actuators.

A few months later I was sent to Vallejo, California for 6 months to attend Nuclear Power School (NPS) at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard (MINSY).  Here I fell in love with applied physics, especially nuclear physics, thermodynamics and hydrodynamics.

After that came 6 months attending Nuclear Prototype at the Idaho National Energy Laboratory reservation (INEL) west of Idaho Falls.  I was assigned to the S5G prototype, the newest one there, and also the most technically interesting.  Unfortunately, the continuous intense effort required exhausted me just before the end, and I was unable to meet graduation requirements.

As my friends and classmates moved on to their new duty stations, I stayed behind while a place in the regular (non-nuclear) fleet was found for me.  During this time I learned about non-destructive testing (NDT) and the differences between quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC).

I was overjoyed when my first choice of duty station, San Diego, was granted.  Unfortunately, the ship I was assigned to, the USS Blue Ridge (LCC-19), was on deployment in the western Pacific at the time, and I wouldn't get back to San Diego for several months.  This was not a bad thing!  I flew out to meet the ship in Japan, and had lots of shipboard time underway without the distraction of trying to have a life ashore.  This let me focus on quickly learning my new responsibilities.

I also had the opportunity to learn about many of the ship's other ratings and their equipment.  The Blue Ridge was a command ship, and had a large computing suite that was exceeded only by those on aircraft carriers.  I learned hands-on programming of the CP-642B mainframe system, and I instantly knew I wanted my future professional career to include computers.

At the time, the IC rating seemed more like a "catch all" rating for equipment that doesn't quite fit within the responsibilities of other ratings.  Two critical pieces of equipment we were responsible for were the ship's gyrocompasses.  Our current gyro technician was scheduled to leave the ship, and since a replacement was not readily available, I was selected to attend Gyrocompass "C" school, exposing me to yet more theory and its application.

While at gyro school, I learned about the Gas Turbine Controls school, which was training technicians to maintain and operate the Spruance class of jet-powered destroyers (the same technology used today in the Arleigh Burke and Ticonderoga classes of ships).  I applied to change over to the "Gas Turbine Systems Technician (Electrical)" (GSE) rating.

I was selected, and I was exposed to yet more new technologies.  I did very well, and was selected to the pre-commissioning crew of a brand new destroyer that would be based in San Diego.  Getting a new ship from the shipyard into active service is very demanding, and by the time all of our shakedown trials and refits and updates had been completed it was late 1979, and I had only about a year left on my 6-year enlistment.

The Navy had been exceedingly good to me, and I seriously considered becoming a "lifer", staying in until retirement at 20-30 years of service.  However, I had advanced through the ranks very quickly, and my next promotion would have been to Chief Petty Officer, a paygrade focused more on managerial, administrative and training duties, than hands-on equipment operation and maintenance.

I really enjoyed being a hands-on technician and operator, and didn't want to give it up.

Since I had the GI Bill available to me, along with some savings I had accumulated over the years, I decided to let my enlistment expire, so I could take a closer look at my future civilian career path.  I would stay in the Navy Reserves, so I could easily return to active duty should I choose to do so.

During this last year of active duty, I bought my first PC, an Apple ][+ complete with the 48K Language Card and UCSD Pascal, a massive $2000 investment in 1980 dollars (about $6000 in 2017 dollars).  Most of my programming was done in BASIC: I was impressed with UCSD Pascal, but was having problems learning it on my own.

Being in San Diego, and with the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) right here, I immediately decided that, should I choose to go to college, UCSD would get my first application.

I left the Navy and within months was soon making use of my nuclear and electronics training working at General Atomics performing factory calibration of radiation detection systems used in many commercial nuclear power plants.  I was soon working on debugging new prototype instrumentation, and soon after that I became an R&D (research and development) technician assigned to work with the division's chief researcher, who had a PhD.

Working shoulder-to-shoulder with a PhD made one thing very clear to me:  We were both equally smart, but his education permitted him to work at an amazing higher level.  I immediately submitted applications to 6 of the top engineering universities (Cal Tech, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Champaign-Urbana) and by mid-summer I had been accepted by all but one of them.  Most importantly I was accepted by UCSD, and that's the offer I accepted.

I majored in Computer Engineering, an overloaded degree program that included all of a Computer Science (CS) degree along with the digital half of an Electrical Engineering (EE) degree.  Needless to say, I soon knew I was on the "5 year plan".

I continued to work at General Atomics (GA) during school: Full-time during summers and breaks, but also part-time when classes permitted.  GA was extremely supportive: Every time I learned something useful, they'd find ways to let me use it, simultaneously give me a promotion.

I graduated from college wealthier than when I started!  This was thanks primarily to the combination of the GI Bill, the Navy Reserves, and General Atomics.  And also to UCSD, who gave me opportunities to be a paid tutor and lab proctor for lower-level Physics courses.

Leading up to my graduation in 1986, I was eagerly recruited by several top tech companies, receiving some great job offers.  Fortunately, the best offer by far was also the only one that would keep me in San Diego:  My offer from General Atomics was generous to the point of embarrassment, 30% higher than my next highest offer (which was also very generous).  GA management repeatedly assured me they felt they were getting a bargain. So of course I accepted their offer.

I continued to design and implement radiation detection instruments, and even got to get into the Navy side of things by working on the reactor control and monitoring systems for the Navy's next-generation nuclear attack submarine.

During this time I tried to get involved in work being done in San Diego by other parts of GA.  The San Diego Super Computer Center (SDSCC) was created just as I graduated, and for the next year I tried to get a position there to help bring up their new Cray XMP.  In late 1990 GA's expertise in fusion technologies lead to San Diego becoming the first home for the ITER (International Tokamak Experimental Reactor) project, and again I tried hard to join their early staff, without success.

Then our division's top-level management started making changes that made my job much more difficult.  Perhaps I had been spoiled by having "too much fun" in my career, but I decided to move on.  I first tried to transfer to another division within GA, but there were few openings at the time, so I decided to leave GA for another company that had been started by GA veterans: SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation, now Leidos).

There my radiation instrumentation experience was leveraged to build inspection systems using X-Ray and neutron beams.  In particular, I got to work on bleeding-edge technology for real-time automated video inspection systems.

By 1991 SAIC was "strongly encouraging" (pushing) me to move into technical management. I gave it a try and did well at it, but it gave me little joy. The experience convinced me I was happiest when doing engineering myself, rather than enabling others to do it.  However, having successfully entered the ranks of management, SAIC was reluctant to let me switch back to being an engineer.

Given my wide and deep experience, I decided to become an independent contractor.  I was soon working with yet more technologies and targets for embedded systems, including satellites, cable boxes, and security systems.

I was doing well, but I soon realized I sucked at marketing myself: 100% of my contracts came from referrals.  Within four years I started to encounter significant gaps without a contract.  I took some work through temp agencies to fill these gaps, but just before deciding to throw in the contracting towel and return to a "regular" job, in 1998 the "dotcom bubble" came to my rescue.

While the primary heat was up in Silicon Valley, San Diego became known as "Silicon Beach".  Our relaxed atmosphere and diverse tech community attracted many startups, and I got to help a few of them, working on an ever-increasing array of new technologies.  By late 2000 it was clear the bubble had popped, and my career as an independent contractor evaporated.

One boom I missed was San Diego's biotech explosion. Another boom I missed was the explosion in digital cellular phone technology centered around San Diego's Qualcomm.  But I did catch another important wave: High-speed digital photography.

I became part of a team designing a digital video camera capable of 100,000 frames per second.  I had two different areas of responsibility:  Color processing and the low-level camera command interface.  Both of which exposed me to yet more new theory, technology and applications.

Immediately after releasing our new camera, the company was purchased and relocated to Arizona.  I chose to stay in San Diego and was soon working for an aircraft instrument company.  While the underlying technologies were not new to me, the process of getting an instrument through FAA certification certainly was.  My prior experience in nuclear systems was primarily focused on industrial and operator safety.  Now I was directly affecting human safety: If my instruments malfunctioned, people could easily die.

A few years later I was asked to help a startup making a new radiation detection system for Homeland Security applications, so I left the aircraft instrument company.  Unfortunately, the startup folded 6 months later.

I next worked at a maker of surveillance equipment, most of whose customers were government agencies known as "TLAs" (Three-Letter Agencies, such as the FBI).  Here I got my first exposure working with digital radios, and helped design and implement a broadband point-to-point communication system for smaller UAVs, giving them the ability to handle the same sensors as the "big boys" (such as the Predator and Global Hawk), and do so without need for expensive satellite uplinks.

Since then I've gone back into contracting, both for myself and through temp agencies, and have worked in areas as diverse as cybersecurity and underwater navigation.

All this was done within San Diego, actually within a 30-minute commute from my home.  That's not a bad lifestyle!  I'm also a triathlete (San Diego is the birthplace of the modern triathlon), a volunteer swim instructor, a wanna-be musician, a volunteer supporter of local live theater, and an inveterate hacker on my home automation system and 3D printer.

If you want to find that precious intersection of a fulfilling and diverse technical career with a rich and abundant lifestyle, San Diego is tough to beat!