by William K.
Our family has a combined 74-year four-generation history! In 1928, my grandfather,
Robert, immigrated to the United States from Germany. He was a skilled
machinist and he found work at the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Company in
Baltimore, Maryland. He worked there until his retirement in 1951. His son, my
father (William O.), immigrated to the United States the year after my
grandfather. He worked for Martin throughout World War II as a tool and die
maker.
In 1969, I received a doctorate in electronic physics from Boston
College and started my career at the Light Military Electronics Department at
GE in Utica, New York. I had a variety of challenging and interesting research
and development projects. I stayed at Utica for 22 years through the sales to
Martin Marietta and Lockheed Martin. (We were encouraged to call them “mergers!”)
In 1992, I took a “temporary” assignment at Naval Systems (an RCA heritage
Company) in Moorestown, New Jersey. This
assignment stretched out to be 12 years. I took early retirement in 2004 after
amassing 600,000 miles during my commutes. My only regret is that the nature of
my work precluded publishing results and applying for patents.
Meanwhile, my daughter, Melissa, is now a senior software engineer. Her husband, Wayne, is a software engineering manager. Both work at
Lockheed Martin.
