My introduction

[CaptainKirk]

Me then
Me now

I joined the Navy in December of 1963, went to 3 months of boot camp in San Diego (right after the meningitis scare and as a result only had one 8 hour liberty during those 3 months).  After boot camp I transferred to Virginia Beach, Virginia for ET A-school.  Sadly, I discovered I wasn't cut out to be an ET and as a result I was transferred to the Claude V. Ricketts in July, 1964 and thus had the privelage to be a member of the Multi-national NATO force demonstration over the next 18 months.  I started out in 1st Division as a seaman and ended in Ops Division as an E5 (Radarman 2nd in those days).

In March of 1968, I was transferred to Rosemount, Minnesota to Naval Astronautics Group, Detachment Bravo and spent the remainder of my Navy career there until I was discharged in April of 1970.  During my 2 years at Det. B I met a Minnesota farm girl who was a young school teacher in Rosemount and she and I got married in June of 1969.

In August of 1970 I started at the University of Minnesota, majoring in Aeronautical Engineering and Mechanics.  Four years and 1 child (our oldest son, David) later I got my degree and we moved to Clear Lake City, Texas where I had applied to and been offered a position with McDonnell Douglas working on various aspects of the space shuttle.

We spent the next 3 plus years there and during that time we were blessed with our second child (our youngest son, Jeremy) and I was privileged and honored to work with a couple of the original Mercury 7 as well as some of the Gemini and Apollo astronauts (these guys were and are heroes to me) and several of the new crop of shuttle astronauts.  However, as they say, all good things must come to an end and my involvement with the shuttle and NASA came to an end in October 1977 when I accepted an offer from Sperry Univac in Eagan, Minnesota and by the end of November we had sold our house, packed up our stuff and were back in Minnesota celebrating Thanksgiving with my in-laws.

I retired in August of 2005 as a software engineer after 28 years and many company name changes; Sperry Univac, Sperry, Unisys, Paramax, Unisys, Loral, and finally Lockheed Martin.  My wife continued in her teaching career for another 2 years and retired herself in June of 2007.  We like to travel when we can and love to take care of our 3 grandchildren; Sam, Emily and Heidi.

I've never given up my love and fascination with computers and have become more interested in putting together web sites over the past year or so.  This site is a result of my interest.  Right now it's very rough around the edges and is a continuous work-in-progress.  Contact me if you have any suggestions or other comments.