My Life has been Technology

 

. 14

 1.     Early Days

I was born March in London, Ontario. I attended Wortley Road Public School, South Collegiate and the University of Western Ontario. From an early age, I was fascinated by technology and electronics became a hobby. I used to take apart old radios to see what made them tick. When I was about ten, I built a ‘cat’s whisker’ crystal radio using a block of germanium and a coil hand wound around a piece of window blind roller. I had been given an old pair of military earphones and used them to listen to local radio stations. I also built a Tesla coil that would generate sparks several inches long. I became one of the youngest members of the London Amateur Radio Club and attended club workshops where

we built Heathkit receivers and transmitters.. I bought a used Hallicrafters SX-100 short wave receiver from a member and strung a long wire antenna the full length of our back yard. I hung speakers in each corner of my bedroom and built a mixing control that allowed me to move the sound around my room. I lay in bed each night listening to ham radio broadcasts, short wave stations from around the world and AM radio stations from the United States. In 1955, when I was in grade 9, I built a transistor radio from plans I saw in Popular Electronics magazine. It was the first transistor radio to ever be seen in my high school.

2.     The RCAF Auxiliary

In April 1957, while still in high school, my dream began to come true. I joined the London Royal Canadian Air Force Auxiliary squadron. After a summer of basic training at London’s Crumlin airport, for the next three years I spent my weekends and summer vacations at an aircraft control and warning

radar site at Falconbridge, Ontario near Sudbury.

The radar site was on top of a large hill with the rest of the station buildings down at its base. The radar consisted of three four story towers each topped with a large dome covering a radar antenna.

The central tower contained a Bendix AN/FPS-20 search radar which swept around 360 degrees and could detect flying objects as far as 200 miles away.

The two outer towers contained antenna for a General Electric AN/FPS-6 height finding radar. Two antennae were used because they could not be pointed at the main tower. The second antenna provided coverage for the area the first could not see. The radar operator would swing the antenna to point at a specific target that had been detected by the search radar. The antennae nodded up and down to identify the height of the target up to 75,000 feet.

My role was as a Fighter Control Operator. This meant that I had to track aircraft on a radar screen, determine their direction, speed, altitude, and if possible, identity and plot them on the map on a situation board. When a target was of unknown identity, fighter control officers would order CF-100 jet interceptors from North Bay, Ontario scrambled and vectored to intercept the target, identify it and, if it was hostile, to shoot it down.

In 1961, the functions of aircraft detection and identification were partially automated using an early computer technology called the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE). This made the need for manual operators at each radar site unnecessary and our reserve squadron was disbanded.

Getting paid for using the latest electronic technology had been a dream come true for a young high school student.

3.     University Years

In 1960, I enrolled in the Mathematics and Physics program at the University of Western Ontario. I found higher Mathematics, especially calculus extremely challenging. With my air force work behind me, I needed a job to pay for my education. Because of my previous technical background, I was able to obtain a part-time job at Western as an operator/programmer for the recently created UWO Computing Centre. I had never seen a computer before but quickly fell in love with programming their

IBM 650 computer.

The 650 computer, produced by IBM in the mid-1950s, was the first mass-produced computer in the world. It was popular for scientific, engineering, and business processing.

It was a gray monster three feet wide by six feet high and fifteen feet long that required a separate room of air conditioners. Unlike modern solid state binary machines, it was filled with vacuum tubes and used decimal arithmetic for its calculations. Its memory was an eight inch diameter steel cylinder with a magnetic coating on its outside. It could hold 4,000 ten digit words of information. There was no keyboard for data entry. Instead it had a front control panel of lights, dials and buttons. A card reader and punch, the size of a household freezer chest, was connected to it. Programs were read in from a deck of IBM punched cards that were interpreted through a patch panel similar to an old fashioned telephone switchboard. Results were punched out on blank cards by the computer and taken to a standalone printer to be printed on fifteen inch wide continuous forms.

Initially, my job consisted of loading the programs, waiting until they had completed execution and then printing the compiled results. The machine was extremely slow so there was a lot of waiting time. I took advantage of this time to study the computer manuals and taught myself how to program. I soon advanced to a position as programmer, writing and debugging programs for the graduate students. I used an assembly program called SOAP II. SOAP stood for Symbolic Optimum Assembly Program. It replaced numbers with English words making a program easier to read and automatically assigned each instruction to a place on the drum based on where the read head was positioned when the next instruction was needed. My most interesting project was hand optimizing a geology student’s program. I examined the most frequently executed loops and hand placed the instructions on the drum to minimize the wait time between the completion of one instruction and when the next instruction could be read. The result was that the program completed 15-20 calculation iterations over a weekend instead of the previous single one. The Graduate student was ecstatic.

I loved programming so much that I decided that I would make a career of it. I enrolled in every computer course I could and quickly rose to the top of my classes. I became a computer room bum, working there whenever I could and neglecting courses which I found boring. I juggled my schedule to maximize working opportunities. Typically I would cycle to work every evening, work overnight, attend classes the next morning and then go home to sleep until it was time to go to work again.

In 1962 the University decided to replace the aging IBM 650 with a new machine. I volunteered as a member of the evaluation and selection team. Our preference was for a Burroughs B5000 because it supported the English like ALGOL compiled computer language. ALGOL was a scientific computer language that was favoured by computer scientists, over the IBM supported FORTRAN. However, university management the centre to limit its search to machines made by IBM.

I was chosen to be part of the selection team, and traveled to Cleveland with other team members to test out one of IBM’s newest offerings, the solid state IBM 7040 which ended up being our final choice.

The 7040 was a transistorized, digital computer introduced by IBM in the early 1960s. It was a significant technological advance over our old 650 computer. It was substantially faster, had more internal memory. It used binary computational technology and had a magnetic core memory. Instead of punched cards, it used magnetic tapes for its external storage.

In the summer of 1962, I became part of a team writing an ALGOL 60 compiler for the IBM 7040. We used many of the concepts that we had learned in our computer courses and produced a compiler that was used for many years. The experience instilled in me a lifelong love of software programming. I determined to make a career out of computer software development.

As I entered my third year at Western, I was spending more and more time on my programming and devoting less to my studies. Experienced computer programmers were in scarce supply at the time and I realized that I could earn an excellent living without completing the degree which I was finding increasingly boring. My disinterest in further academic studies prompted me to leave Western prematurely for a real-life career.

While I working in the Computer Centre, I encountered an interesting character. He was a graduate student named Karl, from the south-western United States, who claimed he had once been a rodeo rider. He always seemed to have some strange views and was not shy about sharing them with anyone who would listen. I was at work on the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I remember when we heard the news that Karl’s response was “Humph. That’s the only good thing he ever did.” Karl’s marks in his graduate classes were not good and people started to wonder how he could have gotten there. One day, he disappeared without a trace. No-one knew where he had gone, not even his roommate who was also a graduate student. A few days later, some RCMP officers arrived on campus looking for him. It turned out that he was an escaped criminal being sought for murder. He had entered Western with falsified credentials. Eventually he was apprehended and extradited to the US. He was sent to prison and we later heard that he had been murdered there by another inmate.

4.     EMCO Limited

Determined to get on with my chosen career, I started shopping around for a programming job in the London area. After interviewing with several companies including IBM, I received an offer from a plumbing and heating supply company EMCO Limited. The Empire Brass Manufacturing Company, later EMCO Ltd.) had been an institution in London since 1903. It manufactured and distributed valves, pipes and fittings to the plumbing, heating and petrochemical industries.

I was to lead a team of programmers to develop business applications for a new computer system they were in the process of selecting. In the spring of 1963 I took over as chief programmer of a group of four developing application programs for a Honeywell 200 computer. Over the next two years we developed a suite of business applications including; personnel, payroll, accounts payable and receivable and inventory control. It was rewarding to be in charge of such a development group, and I learned a lot about teamwork and leadership.

I enjoyed my work at EMCO but, after two years, yearned to get away from business programming and go back to computer systems software development.

 

5.     Honeywell Information Systems

Minneapolis-Honeywell was a large, well known manufacturer of controls and instrumentation. In 1955, it entered the computer business as Honeywell Information Systems and by the early 1960s had introduced the Honeywell Series 200 line of small business computers intended to compete with IBM and other business computer companies. In Canada they operated as Honeywell Controls Limited.

During my stay at EMCO, I had made a number of contacts with Honeywell employees and applied for a position at their Canadian Head Office in Scarborough, Ontario. I was hired to begin in September 1965 as a systems engineer supporting their Honeywell 200 customers.

I moved to Scarborough at the beginning of September and settled into a three bedroom townhouse, a few blocks from the Honeywell office. I loved my new work. Although I was not writing programs, I had to learn the internal workings of software written by others in order to advise customers on how to use them effectively and to troubleshoot problems. I travelled across Canada, installing and setting up software on various models of the Honeywell Series 200 computers and training client employees on them.

I began teaching courses on our computers, computer languages, and systems software to customers, and discovered that I enjoyed teaching much more than I had learning in school.

Periodically, I was assigned for periods of time to Honeywell’s Boston area offices to familiarize myself with their latest models and software. On occasion, I accompanied sales staff to Boston to demonstrate our latest products to prospective commercial and Canadian government customers.

In May 1969, I was assigned to Waltham Mass. for a four month period to work on their newest mainframe computer system.

The Honeywell 4200 was designed (as were all series 200 computers) by Nippon Electric Company in Japan where it was known as the NEAC 3800. . Because of this, most technical manuals were written in Japanese. Because technical words were in English I could get the gist of much of the manual context with assistance from a Japanese employee on loan to Honeywell from Nippon Electric. I developed testing and demonstration software for the 4200 which was demonstrated at a major computer conference in Boston.

Upon my return to Canada, I discovered that circumstances in the office there had changed not for the better. A new boss had been promoted over my head and the working environment had become untenable. This was difficult situation for me. I really liked Honeywell as a company and had planned to stay with them for many years. However, I felt that, in good conscience, I could not continue to work under such toxic conditions. As a result, I decided to leave Honeywell and seek opportunities elsewhere.

6.     Canada Permanent Trust

In September of 1969, I left Honeywell. In a departure from my goal of working as a software specialist for computer companies, I took a job as software support manager at Canada Permanent Trust Company on Bay Street in downtown Toronto. I was in charge of a group providing software support to their IBM 360 computer installation.

System 360 was a family of compatible computers introduced by IBM in 1965. It was designed for both commercial and scientific applications and could be configured from small to large at different price points. The Canada Permanent system was a small Model 30.

System 360 achieved more powerful, smaller computers by packing more transistors onto smaller circuit cards. It introduced an 8-bit character known as a byte which could represent 256 characters. Older systems such as the 7040 were based around a 7 bit octal system which could only represent 64 characters.

Although I had supervised a group of junior programmers at EMCO, this was my first experience as a manager. I had to learn to remove myself from the technical minutiae of the job and to rely on my staff to deal with the details. This was not particularly difficult since I knew very little about the IBM 360, its DOS operating system or Job Control Language. I studied the manuals and learned enough to be able to understand what my employees were telling me. I also learned how to deal with human relations issues.

However, at that stage of my life, being a manager did not appeal to me. After a year in this position, I began to feel the urge to get back to software development and began to keep my eye open for such an opportunity.

7.     Control Data

In 1970 a software development opportunity arose in Canada that I could not ignore. Control Data Canada announced that it was establishing a Canadian Development Division in Mississauga to develop a new computer system known internally as the PL-50, and all the operating system and associated software for it. It was to be micro-programmed system based on the hard wired STAR-100 supercomputer architecture. STAR (string array) was an array processor developed by Seymour Cray to attack the most challenging scientific problems. The PL-50 and a larger PL-65 were to be cheaper, scaled down, lower cost versions of the STAR-100 architecture produced entirely in Canada.

This type of software development work was exactly what I wanted. I was one of the first Canadians to be accepted for a job there. I left Canada Permanent in September 1970 to join CDC’s development team. Most of the development staff had been relocated from the head office in Minneapolis, Minnesota. For the next eighteen months I worked on developing the operating system and other related software for the PL-50. Since no PL-50 yet existed, we used earlier generation CDC 3300 and 6600 computers to develop the PL-50 software. This necessitated mastering two different computer architectures, the 3300/6600 and the new PL-50.

I enjoyed the challenges of the work and looked forward to each day in spite of the hour and a half commute time each day. I designed and developed a text editor, a PL-50 instruction set simulator, and the input-output module for the PL-50 operating system. In spite of the overall size of the development team, we all shared a common vision of the new system and worked well together. We were subdivided into a number of smaller groups to work on subsets of the overall project; operating system, data management, compiler languages, etc.

I was confident in my abilities as a software programmer and outspoken in my opinions when I saw something I didn’t agree with. This got me in trouble with some of the older, senior managers who felt that I hadn’t proven myself as a developer and resented my interference. This led to a confrontation with my manager, which I lost. In May 1972, I was fired and immediately escorted out the door by security. Being fired was a significant blow to my self esteem and I became depressed. I was somewhat heartened when I received a copy of a letter to management signed by many of my coworkers who protested my firing as unjustified.

As it happened, the PL-50 project was already in trouble. The PL-50 program was not meeting performance expectations and conflicts between the Canadian operation and Minneapolis Headquarters led to significant delays in the project. The PL-50 string array processor proved to be much slower than expected and sales of systems failed to meet expectations. There were weeks where there was so little work to do that employees sat in the halls playing chess while they waited for new instructions from Minneapolis. To make matters worse, conflict arose within Control Data between Seymour Cray’s STAR division and Jim Thornton’s Cyber division. In the end Cray left the company to found his own Cray Computers. Control Data was also weathering a recession and employees were subject to several pay freezes and cuts, something I had never experienced before. Employee morale in Canada tumbled as a result of these combined factors. Shortly after I was fired, the whole project was cancelled and the software development team disbanded, being reassigned to other jobs or let go.

8.     Xerox Data Systems

Every cloud has a silver lining. My dismissal at CDC gave me a head start on the others in seeking a new job. Within the six weeks before my severance pay ran out, I was hired by Xerox Data Systems as systems engineer for their Sigma series of computers. The Sigma series of scientific computers was developed by Max Palevsky’s Scientific Data Systems in El Segundo California. Xerox aspired to challenge IBM for dominance of the business computer world and had acquired SDS in 1969 to give it technology and a customer base from which to build a computer division.

Among projects I was assigned to was providing technical support to the University of Toronto Library for their MARC computer coding system for bibliographic records. This involved connecting a graphic processor based on Xerox photocopier technology to a Sigma 9 computer and using it to print library catalog cards in many different languages. I became an expert on both their operating system and their database management systems.

I travelled across Canada installing computer systems for universities and commercial customers in Vancouver, Calgary, Kitchener-Waterloo and Ottawa. Unlike Control Data, Xerox treated its employees extremely well. Travel expenses were liberal and we were advised to “live as you would at home”. For a while, it was company policy that all its employees had to travel first class on any journey of three hours or more. The Boeing 747 had just been introduced into service when I was sent to El Segundo, California for training. It was a treat to spend over five hours seated in the first class lounge atop a spiral staircase, sipping wine, eating a gourmet meal and talking with company executives. The hotel I stayed in was a luxury resort at nearby Redondo Beach with a seaside view. It was a treat to be wakened in the morning by the sound of seals swimming by. This was the life.

Over the next four years, I became an expert in Xerox’s database technology and spent much time optimizing data retrieval methods to speed up processing.

Unfortunately, Xerox’s foray into the business data processing domain was short lived. Eventually, they determined that it was futile to compete with industry leader IBM and in April 1976, announced that they were shutting down the computer division to focus on their core imaging business. I was offered a generous severance deal and took the opportunity to pursue other personal interests over the summer.

9.     Data General

At Xerox, I had been encouraged to take courses in sales and marketing, being told that sales experience was a prerequisite for advancement beyond my current realm of geekdom. For that reason, in the fall of 1976, I decided to take a chance to become a sales representative with Data General, a manufacturer of midrange minicomputers.

In 1968, the manager of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) responsible for developing the 12-bit PDP-8 minicomputer, Edson DeCastro, left the company to form Data General Corporation. DG, became DEC’s biggest competitor, pitching their 16-bit Nova minicomputer against the PDP-8 in the scientific and engineering market. Nova’s success was followed by the compatible Eclipse which provided better performance and more memory. As minicomputers evolved from 16-bit to 32, architecture Data General introduced the Eclipse MV/8000, which had enough performance to compete against mainframes in the small to medium sized business environment.

I was sent on a sales course in Westboro, Massachusetts and began developing a sales territory in Toronto. I focused on selling to engineering companies and third party software developers.

In early 1977 I was sent to Ottawa to assist the local office on a government bid. When I was at both Honeywell and Xerox, I often worked as technical support on government bids so I knew the process. The Ottawa branch manager was sufficiently impressed with my work that he offered me a position in the Ottawa office so in April 1977 I transferred there.

I developed my selling skills quickly and soon achieved good sales success becoming a member of their elite Million Dollar Club.

Along with their smaller Nova series of scientific mini computers Data General had introduced a top of the line computer model called the Eclipse which I marketed as a mid range business computer. One of my major accounts in Ottawa was the government department Public Works Canada.

Although being a salesman taught me many skills that would be useful later in my career, I didn’t really enjoy sales. My analyst’s desire to guide customers to the best solution to their needs often came in conflict with the short term sales goals of Data General’s US management who did not understand the long sales cycle required to gain government business. In 1979 they decided that I no longer fit their needs and I was advised to seek other employment.

10.            Solid State Technology

I quickly found a position as branch sales manager at Solid State Technology, a small microcomputer startup company. They had a leading edge product in a micro computer that integrated a keyboard, monitor, processor and printer into a single desktop device. It was quite advanced for the time in its ability to perform multiple tasks simultaneously. What it lacked was a suite of business applications. I continually lost sales to competitors who included small business applications with their systems. I focused my attention on consultants and OEMs who could develop such software, but after a year of trying to sell great hardware with no business software applications, I realized the futility of the venture. I wrote a report to my boss recommending that he close down the Ottawa operation and offered to resign.

11.            Public Works Canada

Once again, opportunity knocked. In early 1980, I was contacted by a former customer at Public Works Canada. He knew of my technical background and asked if I would be interested in a term position in the Department. My experience with leading edge technologies helped me realize that PWC was ten years behind industry in its use of computers. I saw an opportunity to help bring it up to date. The timing was perfect. I realized that at age thirty-nine, I had lots of experience but no pension, savings or job security. I readily agreed to apply and was interviewed for a job as a project manager supporting the Department’s financial system. It paid substantially less than I had been making, but the opportunity for government work was too good to turn down. On April 1 I became a CS-03 in a one year term position. During the year, I would have the opportunity to compete for permanent positions. Within the year, I advanced into a permanent CS-4 position as chief of software support. I began working in earnest to advance the PWC information technology environment.

One project involved moving PWC’s systems off a service bureau and onto its own in house equipment. Previously at Data General, I had spent eighteen months developing a solution and had submitted proposals using our equipment. Now I was on the other side, assisting in developing technical requirements for a tender. Because of my former connection with Data General, I excused myself from the actual evaluation of competing solutions. In the end Data General was the winning bidder and my successor there earned the commission on business that I had previously spent eighteen months developing.

I moved through several technical management positions at the same level over the next fourteen years and was involved in introducing many leading edge technologies to the department including database management systems, personal computers, local area networks, electronic mail, electronic presentations, telework through secure remote network access and the Internet. Because of my expertise in emerging technologies, one of my directors described me as “like Panasonic, just slightly ahead of his time”.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but these years at PWC were to be the pinnacle of my public service career. I felt that my contributions were appreciated and that I was making the kind of difference that I had aspired to. I was fortunate to have worked under a succession of progressive executives who supported my efforts. By the early 1990s PWC had progressed to be one of the leading departments in the Government of Canada in its use of computer technology.

Not all of my immediate supervisors were as progressive. From my perspective, several lacked sufficient knowledge of or interest in the technologies they were responsible for. Their priorities focused more on their own careers and their instructions to me were to “do good things that I can take the credit for” and “don’t get me into trouble”. One of these believed in Stephen Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. He was a mostly bald, officer in the Army reserve whom I’ll call “Sir” and was a perfect model for the Pointy Haired Boss character that appeared in Dilbert cartoons of the time. He did not appreciate it when he came in one morning to find that I had stuck a cutout mask of Dilbert’s pointy haired boss above his name on his office door.

He had a tendency to promise departmental clients anything they asked for just so he would appear to be a hero. Because of that I nicknamed him “Bogus”. He was not amused when he learned that Bogus stood for “Bend over and grease up Sir”!

12.            Public Works and Government Services Canada

In July 1994, Black Tuesday struck Public Works Canada. I remember the day very well. I was at home on annual leave and, as was my custom, connected remotely to the office network to read the fateful announcement that the government of the day had decided it could gain economies of scale by merging a number of departments. Public Works Canada was to be united with Supply and Services Canada and the Government Telecommunications Agency to create a new ‘super-ministry’ called Public Works and Government Services Canada. The information technology sectors of the three separate entities were to be combined into what eventually became known as Government Telecommunications and Informatics Services (GTIS). As the saying goes “If it ain’t broke, fix it”.

In hindsight, it would have been better for my career if I had left as quickly as possible and moved to another, smaller department where I could continue to implement new technologies. I felt that this move would dead end my career, killing any chance I had of promotion; however, out of a sense of loyalty to my department and its management team, I elected to stay and ride out the change rather than start anew somewhere else. As it turned out, this was the beginning of a seemingly endless and frustrating progression of reorganizations restructures and renewals that continues to the present day.

Unlike the progressive, PWC client-centric approach, the much larger GTIS was conservative, control-oriented and headquarters-centric with the kind of mentality typical of the 1960s. Things moved much more slowly and innovation was actively discouraged. I likened the change to “submerging a hive of worker bees in a vat of molasses”.

In 1995, my division was moved from the Sir Charles Tupper Building near home to Place du Portage across the river in Hull, Quebec. I was not happy with this but had no choice in the matter. It was much farther away from home, parking was more expensive and I didn’t want to work in Quebec. I loved the park like environment around my old office where I could sit outside at coffee break and feed donut crumbs to chipmunks and rabbits and walk along the Rideau River at noon.

I did not fit well into the stagnating PWGSC culture. I saw little opportunity to pursue my love of implementing emerging technologies. Instead, I sought strategic planning opportunities where I could maintain a broad perspective on the department’s use of technology and could be able to influence its general direction. I became what is known as an Enterprise Architect. Enterprise Architecture involved taking a holistic view of an organization’s jumble of computer applications and developing a migration strategy towards making them function in a more integrated manner. I quickly became one of the most knowledgeable people in the federal government on Enterprise Architecture methodologies and best practices.

This seemed like an ideal way to apply my extensive experience. Instead it began the most frustrating and demoralizing period of my career. I spent eleven years beating my head against a wall, trying to bring about constructive change but accomplishing little. I discovered that while many executives gave lip service to the need for an enterprise-wide approach to computer technology, few were willing to allow their organizations to be guided or even influenced by it. Budgets were hard to come by, as no-one was willing to invest in an external oversight body that might have influence over how they operated.

Although I sometimes felt that I might have more influence at PWGSC if I were a director, I never aspired to become a public service executive or advance beyond the director level. Like many public servants today, my sex, language and age became impediments to my further career advancement. In particular, the Government’s bilingualism program was a career stopper.

Since 1969, government employment opportunities had been stacked against people who are not fluent in French. The lack of highly qualified Francophones has led to most positions, especially at management and executive levels, being filled with less capable people, than would otherwise have been available, simply because of their language ability. During my public service career, I spent untold hours (and thousands of dollars of public money) on language training trying to become ‘officially bilingual’ only to fail every time because the French standards demanded of Anglophones are so much higher than the English standards set for Francophones. Eventually I gave up and, even though I was one of the top people in my field, my career was dead ended.

Once I realized that my career was going no further, one of my biggest fears was that a bad manager (there were lots of them) would get promoted into my manager’s position and I would finish my career working for an incompetent boss or worse. To protect myself from such a situation, I had a very bright young Francophone working for me. I saw that, although he lacked my technical skills, he had qualities that would make him a good director. I told him “one day, you’ll probably be my boss” and began to groom him for advancement. While he was in my unit, I sponsored him for a Masters degree program at a local university and allowed him to work on it to a reasonable degree during his working hours. He completed his degree and several years later, sure enough, my boss retired and this young man competed for and won my Director’s job.

13.            Retirement

For the next four or five years until I retired, it turned out to be an very good symbiotic relationship and we became good friends. I provided him all the technical support he needed and his skills made him an excellent director. This allowed me to spend my final working years in a satisfying and low stress situation.

I resigned myself to finishing my career as a technical manager. If I have any regret it is that I was not able to make the kind of difference that I had hoped to at PWGSC. I believe that my strengths and abilities were underutilized and that I was not able to do as much to advance technology as I had wanted.

Frustration at my inability to accomplish as much as I wanted took a toll on my health. I suffered a variety of stress-related medical conditions and for years my physician had urged me to take a ‘time out’ from work and give my body a chance to recuperate. Finally, I agreed to go on medical leave and at the end of March 2008 decided to retire after 28 years, two years earlier than I had planned.

14.            Technology has been my Life

My interest in technology is as strong as ever but I am not pleased with the way it is being used in today’s society. I have always believed that good technology is that which makes life simpler and more convenient. Any technology that makes something more difficult to do than the previous way is a misuse of a good thing. Examples of technology that fail this test include Cell phone technology! I used to think personal communications devices would be a good thing before they were introduced but now think they have gotten way out of hand and are controlling peoples’ lives. Ipods, Cameras, Internet access and above all social media messaging are things that intrude into our everyday portable lives where they don’t belong. On a computer at home or in the office they are fine, but not on the street, in a restaurant or in a car. At work, when everyone else thought they were cool status symbols, I refused to carry pagers, cell phones or a Blackberry because I didn’t want to be on an electronic leash. I carry a cell phone in my car but seldom use it, and then only to make outgoing calls. One phone feature I do find very useful is a wireless connection between my cell phone and the GPS navigation display in my car.

Electric vehicles (EV) are a rapidly emerging technology of the 21^st century. Environmentalists, media and politicians in particular, are promoting a switch away from based internal combustion vehicles to EVs, under the guise of ‘clean energy’ which is supposed to end climate change. I believe this will prove to be false logic.

It’s not that the idea is bad. It is just that, the reliable, cost effective, and environmentally safe technology to support a world of EVs is not yet available. It will be years before sufficient clean electric power generation and its related delivery infrastructure are available to support charging stations in every home, apartment and place of work where cars park.

Battery technology is years behind what will be required to meet this need. Batteries must use technology that does not damage the environment by its extraction. They must have greater capacity, hold charge longer, and recharge faster. Recharging must become as convenient and rapid as refueling is today.

One technology that I think will eventually succeed in moving us to all electric energy goes back to our past. In the early twentieth century, direct current electrical power used to be generated by wind or water mills on farms. Lights, motors and other appliances all used direct current power. Electricity delivery was changed from direct current to alternating current to facilitate long distance transmission from central generation facilities. Electricity was delivered to homes and businesses that way to provide greater safety, and electrical devices were changed to use alternating current. The problem is that while direct current can be stored in batteries to be drawn upon when needed, alternating current is like water, it must be used immediately.

Today, almost all of our electric and electronic devices use direct current at much lower voltages internally. Transformers are used at every electrical outlet to convert the AC to DC. This inefficient process wastes energy at every point, converting it into heat. Changing residential electrical delivery to low voltage direct current would be more efficient, safer, and environmentally friendly. It would enable the ability to draw power in off-peak periods and save it for use when needed, reducing the peak loads on power delivery infrastructure. It would also provide the incentive for companies to develop improved technologies, (e.g wind, solar and thermal) for local power generation, reducing our dependence on centralized power distribution, opening up the possibility of decentralized power generation, and enabling residences and buildings to partially or completely disconnect from the power grid.

In the longer term, change to exclusive direct current electricity delivery to the home is inevitable.

I believe the end result will be a two way power distribution grid modeled after today’s internet. It will be a mix of long distance high voltage AC and local low voltage DC transmission, connecting central generating facilities with a myriad of small local generators each of which serves its own need, distributes excess power to the grid, and draws from the grid only when it needs extra power.

Using DC power for everything except long distance transmission will be safer, more reliable and potentially provide huge savings in both energy and cost.

I