I joined Page Communications Engineers in the summer of 1968 as a working
level engineer. While in the Army I was deeply involved in managing Page
military contract in South East Asia When I joined Page I elected to stay
out of the ongoing military contracts. During my first two or three months I
did a few small jobs but nothing noteworthy.
I
was made the Project Manager of a study program for AT&T. The project was to
study and determine the cost of a private, nationwide microwave system. This
was to be used by AT&T to present to the FCC to show that their tariffs were
competitive. I worked with other Page engineers to obtain engineering and
cost data for all elements of a private microwave system. This data was then
worked in to a computer program by the Page computer programmers so that the
total system of hundreds of terminals and repeaters could be priced. The
final tabulation of cost data was nearly 2 inches thick. During this project
I made many trips to New York City to meet with many AT&T personnel.
The report was well received by AT&T and I was requested to defend this
study before the FCC. I testified for 10 days before the FCC. There were
many hard questions from ARINC and Western Union but I think I held my own.
The
next project I worked on was a program to determine the feasibility of using
satellites for television transmission. This type study had never been done
before. This study was for the three television networks, NBC, CBS and ABC.
This was the first time and maybe the only time that the three television
networks had worked together for a common goal.
The Project Manager was a satellite communications engineer. I supported
him with the terrestrial portion. Our study was for the transmission from
television network headquarters to major televisions stations throughout the
United States. This was a fascinating study since we were plowing new
ground. We had to do a lot of explaining and teaching to network executives.
The final report was well received but there was no implementation of the
concepts we proposed until many years later. Now satellite transmission is a
primary means of transmitting television program to and from local stations
as well as direct broadcast to our homes.
During this period we made many visits to the three television networks
and were able to visit their control rooms and see live broadcast in
progress
After a little over a year at Page I was given the responsibility for all
study programs. A study program was a contract that had as a deliverable
product a paper study rather than an actual electronic product or system. In
short order we had three study programs.
We
did a study for Allegheny Power on their microwave system that controlled
the power grid on the eastern side of Washington DC. I had an engineer that
was responsible for this project and I did not get too much involved.
This
program required the reassignment of almost all on the police radio
frequencies in south Florida in the Counties of Palm Beach, Broward,
Miami-Dade and Monroe. This was a major challenge since these police radio
frequencies were assigned to nearly 100 individual police jurisdictions. We
had to get all of these jurisdictions to agree to major changes in their
method of operation. The new method would create an area wide communications
system to replace the nearly 100 individual systems. This program was
accomplished entirely in Florida. The program was completed and accepted by
all four Counties.
The
Norfolk and Western Railroad (N&W) ran from Norfolk to Chicago, St Lewis and
Buffalo. They used commercial leased communication facilities. Our job was
to design a microwave system that basically parallels the railroad route.
Since this was my forte I ran this program myself. It was a fun project.
We created site survey teams, each equipped with a fax machine. At the
end of each day the teams would fax survey data back to the office.
Sometimes this was done from a pay phone at a gas station. They would run a
power extension cord from the station to the phone booth; plug in the fax
machine and by using an acoustical coupler fax the data to the office. We
would then, overnight, prepare path profiles to verify or refute the
selected sites.
We had an HP-9100 calculator in the office and it had been programmed to
do microwave calculations and plot path profiles on a companion plotter.
This was a great time saver. This was one of the first times Page engineers
were able to automate the plotting of path profiles.
The N&W had no communications staff. They hired a Communications chief
and a junior engineer. Most of our interface was with these two.
As the program was nearing completion I had a major disagreement with my
boss and I resigned. He was fired a few months later.
I began a consulting business after I left Page. Initially it was just
me. In about a month I was able to negotiate a contact with N&W to take the
microwave study program to the next level, contract. The N&W headquarters
was at Roanoke, Virginia.
For this effort I had to create a complete procurement package using a
lot of the products of the Page study. I had to brief the N&W Vice
President, Mr. Claytor. He was, by far, the most knowledgeable individual on
communications at N&W for he was very active in amateur radio.
Bids were submitted by four firms. After a very detailed evaluation we
selected the winner, Collins Radio. I made a presentation to Mr. Claytor. He
was not satisfied on our support for the rejection of GE, who were not only
a Virginia Company but on the railroad and a user of the railroad. We had to
make two trips to GE to see to what extent they could resolve their
deficiencies. In the final analysis Mr. Claytor approved our selection of
Collins Radio and the contract was awarded.
During
my support for AT&T I learned a lot about those large firms that leased bulk
communications from AT&T. One of these was the Penn Central Railroad.
CONTRAIL was created and they took control of the bankrupt Penn Central
Railroad. I knew enough about the pricing structure of the AT&T bulk service
tariffs that I believed I could reconfigure portion of the new CONRAIL
leased communications so as to save them a lot of money without any
reduction in communications capability. It took me a year but I was able to
negotiate a contract where as I would identify specific changes to their
leased network and I would receive 50% of the savings.
I planned for some friends of mine to develop a computer program for this
job. I quickly learned that my friends did not have the time to devote to
this effort. I decided that I had to learn how to program. I started
learning FORTRAN and found that it not as difficult as I had thought and it
was fun and challenging, I learned enough to do the analysis for CONRAIL.
This was a very successful contract, both for CONRAIL and me.
As
the CONRAIL contract came to a close I spent the next two years developing
computer programs for the design of microwave systems. This required many
trips to and long hours at a computer center where I could punch the IBM
cards and submit them to the computer operators. These programs were all run
on mainframe computers since the microcomputer had not yet been developed.
During
the next few years I worked on several contracts in Nigeria. Lagos was not
the best place to live. We lived in a Holiday Inn Hotel that had no external
phone service, running water at undetermined intervals and frequent power
failures. We had mobile radios for communications and we had an amateur
radio station at the office and were able to keep in contact with the
headquarters in Washington.
I made sure that each trip was no longer than 30 days. Over this period I
must have made at least a dozen trips. I made sure my contract allowed me to
travel first class. I always left Washington on a Pan Am flight to London.
From London I would go to either Amsterdam or Geneva for a day before
continuing on to Lagos. On my return trip I again would spend a day or two
in Europe before continuing back home.
The first project was for the design of a nationwide microwave system. I
was responsible for the system design that identified the antenna sizes,
antenna heights and system performance. IBM had a small computer center in
Lagos which I was able to use for all of the calculations using my software.
The next program was to assist in the evaluation of proposals for the
previously designed microwave systems.
The last program was for the design of a Troposcatter system
interconnecting the ports.
During this period one of our team had peritonitis. He was in serious
condition and needed surgery. We kept a small team at the hospital for
several days while the hospital tried to locate the surgeon. The surgeon
finally arrived but out team mate died just as he was being taken to the
operating room. So much for the medical conditions in Nigeria.
Another individual became ill during an afternoon social event and he was
taken to the hospital. We were able to get in touch of the US Embassy doctor
and he came to the hospital. His immediate diagnosis was that there was an
immediate need for surgery. We smuggled him out of the hospital and
immediately drove to the airport. With a lot of effort and with a few bribes
we were able to get him on board a Swiss Air flight to Geneva where he was
operated on the next morning. He fully recovered.
I had a firsthand experience in the medical area. One Sunday a group of
us were trying to fly north to the city of Kano. Several were able to get a
flight in the morning but two of us could not get a flight until 5:00 pm. We
had not had breakfast and the domestic airport had no restaurant facilities.
There was a cart with sandwiches and beer. I had a sandwich and beer about
2:00 pm. As we were in line to get our boarding pass, I said to my friend,
"I don’t feel well. I don’t feel well at all." With that I passed out. When
I came to there was a Nigerian sergeant that had taken charge. My friend
thought that I had had a heart attack and he was petrified. The sergeant got
me and my friend in a taxi and told the driver where to take us. The
sergeant said it was to a hospital.
We arrived at a one story wooden building in the middle of a field, not
quite a hospital. As I entered I saw a small table where a man and lady sat,
a long wooden bench and many folding chairs. They placed me on the bench and
eventually gave me a shot. I do not know what it was. Shortly thereafter I
threw up and I felt better immediately. I then concluded that I had had a
touch of food poisoning. My friend had gone back to town for help. The drive
was an hour and a half each way. I lay on the bench and slept most of the
time. Eventually my friend returned with others and I returned to the hotel.
The first microcomputer was introduced in 1974. Shortly thereafter a
computer store opened in Tyson’s Corner in northern Virginia. I visited the
store before it actually opened and became good friends with the owner. I
was quite interested but I viewed them as just expensive toys. I thought
that when someone has FORTRAN on a microcomputer it would go from a toy to a
tool.
Sometime in 1975 Cromemco announced that they had FORTRAN available for
their computer. Cromemco was only available in kit form.
You could purchase the computer in bits and pieces. I immediately purchased
the basic box and the backplane. There was no mother board. There were many
cards that plugged in to the backplane which was a bus that contained 21
separate 100 connector sockets. This was known as the S-100 bus. The term
S-100 was actually coined by Roger Melen, one of the founders of Cromemco.
Over the next several months, as funds were available, I purchased all of
the necessary cards kits and assembled them. For a monitor I assembled a
Heathkit Monitor. Next I needed a drive. There were no hard drives yet. The
Cromemco drive was dual 8" single sided floppy disks, capacity 70 Kb each. I
eventually got the entire system configured and I could run FORTRAN
programs.
You
can see my first computer complete with the dual 8" floppy disk in a
separate wooden cabinet. Several boards plugged into the back plate.
Over a period of time I converted my microwave systems engineering
programs to run on the Cromemco.
Over the next few years I did a lot of small projects using the microwave
system software.
I
eventually
moved from my home office to an office building and hired my first employee.
Within a few months I hired my second employee. We began to bid on
Government contracts which we did not win. Finally there was an opportunity
we thought was made for us. We were very familiar with the finest
microcomputer on the market and we thought we had a good chance to win a
contract with the US Air Force Tactical Air Command (TAC) at Langley AFB,
VA. TAC needed a good computer for all of their tactical bases worldwide.
The three of us created a proposal and submitted it to TAC. There had not
been a bidder’s conference and we had never been in any direct contact with
any one at TAC.
As time went on the Contracting Officer would occasionally request
additional information. These requests were a sign that we were still in the
running. We were finally requested to allow a team to make facilities
inspection. Our facility consisted of two offices and a small work shop.
The inspection was made but there was no indication of the results. Finally
I received a call from the Contracting Officer who asked if she and two
others could come visit us. Naturally I said yes.
A few days later they arrived, the Contracting Officer, a contracts
specialist and the civilian who was responsible for the technical portion of
the procurement, arrived at our office. Much to our surprise, they had come
not only to meet us but to award us a $15,000,000 multi-year contract. This
really made our day.
For the next three years we delivered CPM based Cromemco computers to all
of the TAC bases worldwide. The initial computers were Cromemco Z-2’s that
did not have a hard disk. After about a year we were able to provide this
system with a hard disk as well as the newer Cromemco C-3 and C-10 systems
with a 5 MB hard disk. During the second year of the contract we were able
to deliver CROMIX, a UNIX like operating system, which was the first
mult-user system for microcomputers. All of these computers were supported
by Zenith CRT’s
In 1984 VCA was honored by INC Magazine as one of the fastest growing
private companies in the United States. VCA was 13th on this list.
As a by-product of our TAC contract we became interested in TEMPEST
computers. TEMPEST computers are computers that have been constructed so
that there is essentially no radiation of signal energy. We were able to
sell a number of Zenith TEMPEST computers during the next year.
Due to our success in providing computers to the military and the growing
computer requirement, the larger firms began to compete in this market. It
was clear that we could not compete with them. We had some smaller contracts
over the next several months but the competition became so great that I
decided to close the Corporation. Before closing I had to dispose of a lot
of equipment that we had in our warehouse. This took several months. As a
part of this effort I destroyed all of my microwave system engineering
reference materials as well as all punched cards and computer printouts. I
did not expect to get back in to microwave system engineering. After a
gradual staff reduction VCA closed shop in 1988 and I retired.
After I closed VCA, I was requested by a contractor supporting the FAA to
perform a specific job for a six months period. I was to annualize the total
FAA communications system. This was a fascinating job and I completed it on
schedule.
During this effort I was exposed to interactive computer software. I was
delighted to see how you could use Borland Pascal on a microcomputer in an
interactive manner. That evening, on the way home, I stopped by the local
computer store and purchased a copy of Borland Pascal. After playing with my
new toy for a few weeks I decided to try to re-create my microwave system
engineering software, just for the fun of it, since I would be fully retired
and needed something to keep me busy.
During the next several months I began to re-create the microwave system
software and realized that I had the foundation of a commercial product. I
then spent a total of two years creating what I called, Computer Engineering
of Microwave Systems (CEMS). With this product I could perform microwave
system engineering from my home and I could sell the software. Over the next
several years I was able to sell my software to major firms, foreign
governments as well as the CIA, the UN and AT&T.
As Desert Shield began I was requested to modify the software to read US
Military digital terrain data that was stored on CD ROMs. This opened an
additional market for me. Maps were not available in Saudi Arabia and
designing microwave systems there was an almost impossible task. With the
digital terrain data I could do what no other firm was able to do. For the
next eight years I supported more than a dozen firms in Saudi Arabia in the
design of microwave systems. Additionally I developed software for the
design of land mobile radio systems. I was able to do all of this from my
home. The final products were sent to the customers by fax.
Near the end of the 90’s the funds for Saudi Arabian projects dried up
and I was able to gracefully retire for the last time.