BE '49
I went from CCNY with a bachelor's directly to Harvard. I got a master's, and I started my first job in 1950. At that time, the job was with Bell Aircraft Corporation in Buffalo, New York. There was a heavy financial incentive from the defense department in the new technologies that emerged from the war. I was working on contracts that were associated with the defense department. It was an exciting career path that CCNY gave me. After my first six years at Bell Aircraft, my wife and I moved back to New York. I had to leave the company because she went on to get a master's in education. I moved to San Diego, California, and the chief engineer with Bell Aircraft hired me again in 1959. I went back to Buffalo. As part of that job with Bell Aircraft, whose name was later changed to Bell AeroSystems, I had the opportunity to work not only in Buffalo, New York, but in Tucson, Arizona, and New Orleans, Louisiana. I came to the Minneapolis area and worked for a division of FMC Corporation. For 40 years, I was associated with companies that were run by the defense business, not only for the Air Force but for the Army. I worked for the Air Force and the Navy at different stages of my career and for NASA at one point. It was just an engineering thing: I had a suitcase packed up and ready to travel. All of this resulted from my getting an engineering degree at a CCNY, and everything unfolded from there.