I was born in 1945. Ever since I was a little kid I have been interested in mechanical things, especially gasoline engines. I started tinkering with lawnmower engines when I was about ten years old. I can remember the single event that ignited my interest. I came home from school one afternoon and found my dad's lawnmower engine completely torn apart in our driveway. My uncle was replacing the piston rings. I thought to myself, that engine will never run again. But it did. Since then I've rebuilt numerous engines from automobile V-8's to early 1900's single cylinder flywheel engines.
During my high school years I became passionately interested in electronics. That was back in the vacuum tube days. I built a number of electronic
kits
and I was the one that everyone in the neighborhood came to to fix their radios and televisions. I eventually went on to college and earned a Masters Degree in Mathematics. My interest in mechanics and electronics followed me all thru my high school and college years. That along with my degree in mathematics led to a career in computers.
After graduating from college I went to work for IBM at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX. I worked on all of the Apollo lunar missions as well as Skylab as a software developer. I wrote the software that monitored the Passive Seismic Experiment left on the moon by the Apollo astronauts. The highlight of my career with IBM was the development of a database management system for Skylab.
I left IBM in 1974 to move back to my home town of Lake Charles, LA, and to complete my education.
I worked in local industry for about ten years and then went to work for
McNeese State University
in 1986. I was Director of University Computing Services. In the years that I was at McNeese I've saw numerous changes in both hardware and software technology. But my childhood interest in things mechanical has never wained. I am very active in my hobby and the results of that activity can be seen in the numerous webpages linked to my homepage. I retired from McNeese in October of 2007.
Thanks for visiting.
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