I enrolled in the mechanical engineering school at Cornell in the fall of 1966. The first day was tolerable, the remainder of my Cornell experience was nothing more than a whole lot of hard work. Summer jobs consisted of mowing cemetery lawns, the E & M machine shop in Middleport, and Harrison. My first real break came in 1969 when I landed a summer engineering job in Minnesota with the 3M Company. I continued to toil away at Cornell and was accepted into their Master's program in early 1970. I was elated.

I was developing an interest in sports cars and really wanted to work abroad. I sent my resume to Ferrari and promptly received a rejection letter written in Italian. I got a variety of “regular” job offers and decided to accept a position in Connecticut with a firm called Combustion Engineering. I worked on designing steam generators for the electric utility industry for a couple of years and was then asked if I'd be interested in taking a one-year assignment working for a subsidiary in Derbyshire, England. My year in England was the best year of my life. All too soon I was back in Connecticut and I was less than thrilled.

In 1977, a college engineering buddy of mine suggested I give some thought to working with him at Ford. I accepted a job in Automatic Transmission Design and for nearly 30 years, this has been my area of specialization. In 1984, I earned a professional engineering license. In 1989 I was awarded a U.S. Patent. In 1990, Ford was designing a new automatic transmission which Mazda had expressed interest in purchasing. I was asked to go to Hiroshima, Japan, for 3 years to act as the technical liaison between the two companies during the design phase. I was there alone, and working as a supplier to Mazda proved to be an enormous challenge. I came home to Michigan in 1993 completely exhausted.

In 1998, I finally got married. I met Yumiko during my time in Hiroshima. Cultural differences along with all of my idiosyncrasies has made it challenging! Yumiko has inherited property in Japan and eventually this is where we expect to spend most of our old age. I purchased a modest villa last year near my family in central Florida to act as a retirement retreat. Not sure how much time we'll actually spend there.

A few days ago I was looking at a 1956 Scope. There we are…exactly 50 years ago...shoulder to shoulder...all of 8 years old. Remarkable.

See you soon.